(Rose POV)

  Rose sat calmly in the main observation hall of the Rosemary Organization, hands folded neatly around a porcelain teacup. From her elevated seat, she oversaw the departure of the students through dozens of layered projections, telemetry feeds, spatial readouts, and mana fluctuations scrolling endlessly across translucent screens.

  Below and around her, staff members worked in focused silence, monitoring rifts, fractures, and dormant gates across the globe. Everything was stable. Controlled.

  Rose allowed herself a small smile as she watched the students on one of the displays, laughing, talking, nervously adjusting armor. Young. Unaware. Exactly as they should be.

  She raised her teacup and took a sip.

  The cup rattled violently against its saucer.

  A sharp, piercing beep tore through the hall.

  Rose froze.

  “What…?” she murmured, setting the cup down far more carefully than necessary as she rose to her feet.

  The calm shattered instantly.

  Panels flared red. Alarms layered over one another. Staff members shouted as the central hologram, an intricate model of Earth, flickered violently.

  Red dots bloomed across its surface.

  One after another. Then dozens. Then hundreds.

  “Ma’am!” a technician shouted, panic bleeding into his voice. “Countless rifts are forming simultaneously, hundreds, no, thousands! Global distribution! All readings indicate rank five or higher!”

  Rose’s breath caught.

  The red stains spread like a disease, swallowing continents, oceans, fault lines. Her jaw tightened as she stared at the model, her mind racing.

  Before she could speak, another voice cut through the chaos, sharper, terrified.

  “Ma’am, we’ve lost contact with the students. Telemetry is gone. They’ve disappeared.”

  Rose turned sharply. “Find them,” she said immediately. “Dispatch every available Guardian to their last known position. No,” She corrected herself instantly. “Make the students our highest priority. Everything else is secondary.”

  The room went deathly quiet.

  A moment later, the same technician swallowed hard. “Ma’am… all available Guardians are already engaged. Worldwide combat responses are underway.”

  He gestured to the screen.

  “The students have been located. Coordinates place them at the center of Point Nemo.”

  Rose’s eyes widened.

  Point Nemo.

  “The most isolated point on the planet,” the technician continued, voice trembling. “They’re enclosed within a sixth-rank barrier. Paragon intervention is… unavailable.”

  Rose clenched her fists.

  A sixth-rank barrier. A mass event. Paragons absent.

  This wasn’t coincidence.

  She inhaled slowly, forcing herself into stillness. Then she turned and walked back to her console, her movements precise and deliberate. With practiced ease, she pressed a concealed switch beneath the desk. The system prompted her for authorization.

  Rose entered a long, classified code, one only she knew.

  As the system unlocked, deep beneath layers of containment protocols, her voice dropped to a whisper.

  “Let’s hope you’re ready for release,” she muttered.

  “For their sake.”

  (Yuki POV)

  Far to the north, above the endless white of the Arctic, a transport plane cut through the frozen sky.

  Yuki stood near the open ramp, arms crossed as she stared down at the fractured ice below. The damage was extensive, vast scars where a fire-type spawn had been active for weeks, melting entire shelves into the sea.

  She clicked the device in her ear, irritation clear in her voice.

  “Hey, boss,” she said. “You want me to freeze the whole region solid, or just seal the damage?”

  Rikin’s calm reply crackled through, then cut off abruptly.

  Yuki frowned. “Boss?”

  Silence.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Then a sharp intake of breath came through the channel, followed by the unmistakable sound of something shattering.

  “Yuki,” Rikin said slowly. “Stand by.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she felt it, a pressure shift in the air, turbulence hit the plane.

  She looked down again.

  At the center of the Arctic, reality split open.

  A rift tore through existence itself, bleeding flaming energy into the sky. The air screamed. Ice cracked for miles around.

  Yuki grinned.

  She tapped her earpiece again. “Hey, boss,” she asked casually. “What rank is this thing?”

  Rikin exhaled heavily. “Sixth.”

  Yuki whistled, impressed. “So… a blight.”

  She stepped forward without hesitation, wind tearing at her hair as she leapt from the plane. Her laughter echoed as she plummeted toward the frozen wasteland below.

  “Now this,” she muttered, ice already forming around her limbs, “should be fun.”

  (Artoria POV)

  In a distant city, far from ice and war rooms, a grey-skinned woman sat atop a towering building, the sounds of traffic and life flowing beneath her.

  Artoria’s black hair danced in the wind as she cradled an infant in her arms. The child giggled softly as she gently poked its cheek, warmth spreading across her face.

  For a full month, she had cared for this child. Protected it. Loved it.

  The infant looked up at her, mouth opening clumsily.

  “Mama.”

  Artoria froze.

  Her breath hitched. Disbelief flashed across her face, then just as suddenly joy so pure it almost hurt appeared. She laughed softly, pressing a kiss to the child’s cheek, her eyes shining.

  Then she looked down.

  Her smile vanished.

  At the base of the building, a rift was forming, dark, violent, pulsing with malevolent energy. The street erupted into chaos as people screamed and fled, tripping over one another in blind terror.

  For a single, selfish moment, Artoria considered running.

  Then she saw them.

  The people. Helpless and doomed.

  For a moment she looked at them a single thought appearing in her mind.

  'A knight always protected her people'

  She looked down at the infant in her arms. A sorrowful smile touched her lips as she tried to speak, tried to apologize, but no words came.

  Only resolve.

  Holding the child close, Artoria rose to her feet.

  No matter the cost, she would protect them.

  Even if it meant standing alone against the end.

  (Barbatos POV)

  Far from Earth, upon the fractured surface drifting near Saturn, Barbatos and Alexandria clashed with relentless ferocity.

  Each blow landed with catastrophic force, fists colliding, weapons screeching as energy flared violently between them. The ground beneath their feet shattered again and again, chunks of stone and metallic debris floating away into the void with every impact. Barbatos drove forward, his strikes precise and brutal, while Alexandria countered with equal fury, neither willing to yield an inch.

  Then

  BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

  The sharp, frantic sound cut through the chaos.

  Barbatos froze mid-motion. His earpiece vibrated violently against his ear. He stepped back, raising a hand, signaling a halt as Alexandria narrowed her eyes, weapon still raised.

  He pressed the device.

  “Barbatos!” Rikin’s voice burst through, stripped of its usual composure, thick with panic. “Return immediately! Rifts are appearing everywhere, across the entire planet!”

  Barbatos’ expression hardened instantly. The fury of battle was replaced by grim focus.

  “Understood,” he replied without hesitation. “We’ll be on our way.”

  He turned toward Alexandria, who regarded him with a doubtful, searching look.

  “We’re leaving,” he said bluntly.

  She scoffed softly but nodded. “Figures.”

  Without another word, the two launched themselves away from Saturn, space bending and distorting as they accelerated toward Earth.

  They didn’t get far.

  Reality tore open in front of them.

  A rift split the void, jagged and unstable, no larger than a small structure, yet radiating an oppressive pressure that made Barbatos his instincts scream danger. He stopped instantly, throwing up a defensive field and dragging Alexandria back with him.

  “That’s not good,” she muttered.

  Barbatos activated his scanner, his eyes flicking rapidly across the data. Then they widened in pure horror.

  “…No,” he breathed.

  From within the rift came a low, guttural growl, ancient, distorted, and unmistakably alive.

  “Alexandria!” Barbatos shouted, bracing himself as energy flared around his body. “Whatever’s coming through, it’s a Cataclysm-stage spawn.”

  Her breath hitched. “You’re serious?”

  “We can’t risk it reaching Earth,” he growled. “We kill it here.”

  The rift pulsed violently.

  A sickly aura poured out, staining the void with unnatural energy. Then a massive, flesh-like claw forced its way through the tear in reality, gripping its edge as something far larger began to push through, intent on entering their universe.

  (Vale POV)

  Vale squeezed his eyes shut tightly, the familiar sensation of teleportation twisting his stomach.

  When it ended, he opened them,

  and immediately felt something was wrong.

  This wasn’t the academy.

  This wasn’t anywhere he recognized.

  They stood inside a vast, circular barrier that rose high into the air like a prison wall, translucent yet unbreakable, its surface pulsing faintly with alien energy. Beyond it was nothing, no horizon, no sky he could name, only an endless, distorted expanse.

  Vale turned slowly, his heart pounding.

  “Where… are we?” someone whispered.

  Nym’s voice broke the silence, trembling with confusion. “What happened here?”

  As if in answer, a new voice echoed across the barrier.

  “Hello. Hello. Students of the Rosemary Academy.”

  The sound was male, but wrong. It carried no warmth, no humanity, as if spoken through reality itself rather than air.

  Every student snapped toward the source.

  Vale instinctively reached for his metallic arm. “Chrome?” he whispered.

  Nothing came.

  No response. No presence. It was as if Chrome had been completely shut down.

  Vale’s breath caught.

  Above them, a figure hovered effortlessly in the air.

  A man with flowing white hair and olive skin, clad in pristine attire untouched by the chaos around him. He smiled down at the students, his expression twisted and cruel, eerily reminiscent of Tericon.

  “I am a representative of the New Order,” the man announced smoothly. “If you wish to live, follow us.”

  He extended a single finger.

  It pointed at a boy standing beside Vale.

  Blond hair. Glasses. Pale skin trembling as fear took hold of him.

  “W-Wait,” the boy stammered.

  The man smiled wider.

  A beam of pure blue energy erupted from his fingertip.

  It pierced straight through the boy’s chest.

  Flesh, bone and his heart, gone in an instant.

  Blood sprayed violently across the air, splattering onto the ground, onto nearby students, onto Vale’s face.

  The boy collapsed lifelessly at Vale’s feet.

  The man lowered his hand calmly, as if he’d done nothing more than make a point.

  “If not,” he continued pleasantly, “feel free to die at my hands.”

  Screams erupted.

  Some students ran. Others froze, paralyzed by terror. The air filled with sobs, panicked breathing, and the stench of blood.

  Vale stared down at the corpse, his body trembling uncontrollably.

  He slowly raised his hand, staring at the fresh blood coating his fingers.

  His mind could form only one thought.

  'What… is happening?'