“Boy,” said Master Alzahrani, “don’t you realize how little your existence means? Of all the worlds, of all the lives you have led, you live here, in that body, now of all places, conscious of only that one. You certainly aren’t the first who wish to find that place; you won’t be the last either. Absolutely, you will be yet another soul losing their life in this pursuit.”

“Are you trying to discourage me, old man?” replied Morgan Hoshino, cocky as he ever was. “Nihilism is a boring philosophy, useful for lazy slobs who bemoan life—the likes of shouting ’Woe is me!’—and fulfilling their own insignificance through passionless consumption. Perhaps you’re right, that I am infinitesimally small in the august complexity of the multiverse, but so what?”

“So what!” The old master clapped his heavy, dust-filled tome together, spawning gray mites into the air. “You aren’t unique at all, boy. Not one bit. I daresay millions have walked the same path. What makes you any special?”

Morgan smiled, confidently. “I am me.” The old man scoffed. “Oh, don’t scoff, you senile rag. If the same millions—billions!—believed what you said, that they’re not special at all, then they would’ve never done tried—”

“And they had. What came of them?” asked the old master, leaning back on his worn, decades-old wooden chair, creaking. “Death, one way or another. They sought out the wrong places, used magic beyond their abilities, and what else? Do you know what happened to those who grasped a nugget—a nugget!—of truth?”

Morgan did not answer.

“They abandoned their ambitions and went home. Or ended their lives by their own hands. That is the truth. It is why I am sitting here before you, you brat. Once you realize that there are great forces at play, with you having just enough comprehensibility to understand, discovering the whole truth will ruin you. It is the place that sours your soul’s travels.

“We were never meant to reach that place. No mortal being had. Not even the self-professed ‘gods’ in the other worlds. Even they know the futility of it, and they have a higher intelligence than we do, like us to ants.”

“And…?” Morgan inquired, smirking; he had always been a stubborn young man. Ever since he made that expedition all those years ago, the Space Beyond was the subject of his praise, his curiosity. Some may mistake it for a twisted love, but it was of a similar vein: yearning. That was what it was. There was something romantic about traveling to a realm that no one had stepped in before, of treading through unbeaten groves with his own hands, and surely unknown dangers awaited him but that made it all more thrilling. He sought adventure, thrills, things that no one else had ever obtained.

Many, even Archknell, had considered him insane. He suffered from the disease of pride and the only antidote was humility. It spawned from his overwhelming intelligence, and he himself thought that the only way to ease this burden was to accomplish an impossible task. What was a better task than to reach the Space Beyond?

All agreed that Morgan Hoshino was a Problem whose solution was only himself. No one had greater dreams than he did.

And the old man knew this, frowning.

“I will be the one to discover the Space Beyond,” Morgan promised, not to his master, but to himself. “You won’t be able to formulate an argument to dissuade me, master. If I need to seek the Earthwill, then I’ll seek it. If I need to attract the attention of the watchers, I will. If I need to break the structure of our world and others, then I will break them. All things exist to be found, that is the ultimate law of everything.”

“It will be your death, Morgan Hoshino.”

“And many more will live, exactly as I have.”

One year after this conversation, Master Alzahrani went missing, leaving his cherished journal on his desk. On the very first page, stained yellow from tobacco smoke, it wrote: You are the worst student I had the pleasure of teaching. I don’t wish upon shooting stars for your fortune. Create them for yourself.

Everyday, Morgan had thought back to those words more so than his master’s findings and theories and experiments. When the tor of the night were absent of black clouds and the cosmos opened up like a bright volume, he lifted his hand and counted how many pale dots spanned his palms, grabbing them as if to capture his own desires.

It was now, after years had passed since his master’s disappearance, that he thought back on this particular conversation. Of all times, why was it now, in which the greatest development in his research had occurred? and the world’s worst outbreak came with it?

I hate to admit it, master… You were right. I never would’ve thought that the watchers were this cruel. Perhaps this is the punishment for meddling in the greater course of things, maybe this Sirius Aethfell is a meddler himself. Who knows?

Though, I wish I had one more conversation with you.

***

“...Yes,” Morgan said, detecting a hint of sorrow in his own voice. “It’d been horrific.”

At the time, no one’d been convinced that Pereyra and Tewfik were truly dead. Death was something sacred in this world—things were evenly divided like that: absolutes. But the Comets had proven themselves to be rebels of common logic, so of course Death wasn’t enough.

Like ash, dread had come. Just like the ash, it had stayed, swooning slowly on the shoulders of every man and woman as they awaited the results, muttering prayers and hope. They had flinched at every dark silhouette, cowered each time something had crashed, startled whenever someone had spoke to them. Waiting helplessly, like a terminal patient on their deathbed.

Rationality dictated that the cosmos held no such leniency towards little wishes, no matter how much faith they kept within the stars. No one, not even God, would wink for them up there.

So a haughty, empty laughter—no, a set of laughter, together like a bad duet—had boomed across the demesne, unmistakably clear. The Slayer System blared red screens, burning into retinas harsh and jarring, and finally darkness had called for them. The rest were chaos and nihilism.

Morgan couldn’t exactly remember what happened after that, which was strange considering he prided himself on his memory even during extreme bouts of adrenaline. It was as if he was put into an isolated bubble, comprehending reality only through a few meters around him. But he knew the general premise: once the Comets had shed their humanoid forms, thus relinquishing the previous limiters they had, the slaughter began.

What forms did they take now? Morgan couldn’t see.

Because Slayers had died. Many had been injured. Two sentences that were easy yet so difficult to say.

At some point, Morgan was buried under rubble, rescued by Montana, taken immediately out of dodge, catching only glimpses of the raging, desperate fight. Red flashes brightened the night like fireworks. Distantly buildings were heard falling and smoke rose from the destruction, and lightning banged.

Montana had found the rest of Luster, then Professor Hei.

After that? It didn’t need a summary.

“Are the other professors okay?” Victor asked, stepping forward. He tried to look brave but a subtle, almost invisible twitch of his lips all but revealed his distress.

Morgan turned to Jury and Professor Hei. They were better at this than he was.

They exchanged a look that carried a conversation, and the latter stepped forward. Baek Hei-Ran, infamous in Ordo University for being rather unprofessional in spite of her position. Morgan had heard of her.

She began, “Look…”

“Who’s dead?” Deon Griffiths cut, that rather emotional boy infamous for his attitude.

Hei’s expression crumbled. If her initial hesitation hadn’t revealed the truth, then this had. “Deon—“

“Who’s dead?”

The air grew heavy and stiff. Small cracks in the B-Ranks’ expressions gradually revealed themselves, chipping away at their sturdy demeanors no doubt taught to them by the very same professors. Slayer Team Alba kept quiet. They knew the truth, and this wasn't their place to tell.

“Kastellanos, and Carvalho,” Hei shakily answered, then took a deep breath, looking at the men from Class A2. “And Ichiken. Ichiken passed.”

“Holy shit…” Victor immediately collapsed to his knees, caught by Alexander before his body went completely limp. All Morgan heard from the young student was soft curses, and Alexander trying to console him.

On the other hand, Deon was stubbornly silent, his expression still like stone, staring at Professor Hei for several long moments. He didn’t remain in that way, though. An avalanche of little twitches and expressions broke through, and he turned away. Everyone knew it wouldn’t be wise to stare at him any longer.

Kaiya’s back hit the wall and leaned over, her black hair hanging in dirty clumps. Leona quickly went to her side and whispered soft comfort, what little she could provide anyway.

Chunhua swallowed her grief and took a second to compose herself, but her voice still broke as she asked, “What about the others?”

Hei slowly shook her head. “We don’t know.”

“But,” Jury added, pausing so everyone could focus once more. Her clear voice provided an astounding contrast to the dreary atmosphere. Among her peers in Glory, she was well-known for maintaining her composure in the most perilous situations—a result of having been in the Otherguards for years. “We’ve confirmed that Archknell’s alive and actively fighting alongside other notable high-rankers, like Levin. Otherwise, we need to wait for the System to repair itself in order to know our losses.”

“So what are we going to do?” Kaiya spoke up with Leona having a hand on her back.

Jury glanced at her team members, first Hidden and Montana, then Morgan himself. Like with Professor Hei earlier, a conversation was shared between Luster: It’s too dangerous to involve them further.

For that, she looked towards Morgan to explain, as anything related to rituals or the Space Beyond was his specialty. “When the situation allows itself—hopefully allows itself—Systemic Works will retreat until further orders are given.”

Slayer Team Alba had already been informed of this future action. Although they were technically underneath Seraph’s direct command, Archknell was their officer throughout the operation. Since Archknell was currently occupied, Jury was next-in-line. It was an incredibly informal chain of command but they obeyed—better than some licensed Slayers that Morgan knew.

But the B-Ranks were a different story. Their expressions of grief turned into outrage, and they clamored together trying to fight back against this decision but Professor Hei raised a hand. With enough insistence from her, they quieted, finally giving the room to Morgan once again.

“Both your professor, which I’ll remind you had been given full command of the Department of Systemic Works, and Jury had decided this,” Morgan told them. “Things had escalated beyond our expectations. And we assumed the worst in almost every aspect and variable you can imagine. For your own safety and ours, this is the best course of action.”

“But why?” Victor asked, hunched over slightly as though he had stomach pains. “You can’t fuckin' tell us that our professor died and send us away! What about fuckin' Alba here, man? How come they aren’t getting worked up 'bout this like we are, huh?!”

“Because we’ve been told already, that’s why,” Alexander said, eyeing his sister and Vernon in particular. The kids had the same resentment—rather, passion—as the B-Ranks but they weren’t irrational. On a logical level, they understood why the decision had been made (again, better than some licensed Slayers).

Victor fought, “But—“

“Our objectives were to eliminate any portals and not to throw ourselves at the Comets.” Alexander grimaced, most likely thinking back to what he’d seen back at Gallery.

“I know that! But there could be more coming!” Victor gestured towards the windows as though a portal would comically open up at any second. “We can’t just fall back, we gotta prepare—!”

“That won’t happen,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “There won’t be any additional portals, I mean. At least, not ones intentionally opened by the rest of the Sungrazers.”

“How do you know that?” Deon asked next.

Morgan thought back to the error message that the System had shown shortly after the chaos began. Of course, he’d cross-referenced his message with the others to ensure he didn’t miss anything. What a shame though. This message alone was a gold mine for intense analysis. And he felt no ounce of excitement. Just resentment.

He firmly explained, “Because I’ve studied cosmic theory since I was a teenager. It’ll take too long to explain the nuts and bolts of my theory, but I’m ninety-five-percent certain that the other Sungrazers can’t afford to attract the attention of the Earth—!”

Morgan was knocked off his feet, flipped over, and banged the back of his head against the far wall by an unknown force. Before he could move, something hard and dense smashed into him, pinned him against the wall. He gasped, every little injury feeling several times worse in his younger body. And the [Healing Potions] hadn’t finished their treatments for the ones he’d already sustained.

Someone called his name. He blinked, world dizzy, as a metal hand appeared at the top edge of his vision. Then another hand, bound in tight fabric. They pulled something off. His legs felt lighter. Good, his back wasn't broken.

The conference table. It’d been thrown onto him.

“C’mon, I got ya!” Hidden exclaimed, lifting Morgan easily and putting him onto her back—if he wasn’t so sore, he’d complain.

The building groaned and threatened to collapse. Ceiling tiles fell from above with one crashing onto Vernon who was on his knees, his [Ranger’s Coat] pricked with glass shards. Damien groaned, pushing several chairs off of him, helping some of the others get to their feet. Everybody had been thrown against the walls and each other, brushing glass from their armor and clothing, pulling them from their skin. Without any armor, they'd probably be dead right now.

“What… What the hell was that?” Althea asked after everyone had a second to compose themselves.

“I—“ Jury began to speak but was interrupted by an ominous sound.

Morgan couldn’t tell what it was at first, but it had the same sensation as heavy bass vibrating your chest. Except here, instead of vibrations, it scratched. Scratched endlessly at his diaphragm, his eardrums, sounding like the worst combination of popping magma and shrapnel.

At the opposite wall, through the broken windows that had showered the party in glass, a red light intensified.

Two buildings over, a missile crashed and destroyed whatever was there, and the earth screamed. It’d exploded in a burning light that Morgan looked away from in fear of being blinded. Hidden gasped and braced herself, withstanding the following shockwave.

“MONTANA!” Jury screamed.

Montana bellowed and immediately crashed through the nearest wall, opening to a hallway. “C’MON!” he roared as a missile struck a block away, shaking the world.

Hidden leapt through the hole first as the rest of the party quickly followed behind. Alba and the B-Ranks poured out with Jury and Hei as the caboose. Another missile rocked the building, made everyone stumble all over the hallway. They scratched the wallpaper, rolled onto the carpet, and launched back up onto their feet once more.

Each tempest and impact made the ground jump as they fled, some being worse than the others. The earth squealed with every explosion, making it sound like death had surrounded them. All Morgan could do was shut his eyes and hope, Not here! Not here! Don’t you dare target us!

Soon his face stung, and a repulsive warm breeze itched his cheeks. He opened his eyes and squinted afterwards, choking, coughing into the back of Hidden’s head, assaulted by a thin cloud of smoke permeating the air. Montana led them to the open lot where Systemic Works had established an emergency medical area.

At first it was difficult to see what happened. The smog obscured too much, that was until Hidden kicked something and gasped. Something red and pink was by her feet: a lung. Someone's lung. Morgan's breath hitched, too much, and breathed in a puff of toxic smoke and coughed again. Somehow, things got a little more clear, and he saw the sight.

Bodies hid in the smog like a haunted forest. These were uniformed men and women sporting Ordoian colors, Slayers dressed in odd aesthetics—all blown to bits, charred to bark, broken beyond the point of recognition. It was near-impossible to determine who was alive or dead. As Morgan's eyes drifted from body to body, he saw a massive crater at the center of the lot, then smaller ones were sporadically littering the area.

"Jesus..." Hidden muttered, and Morgan wished he actually believed in God.

Names were screamed, Morgan heard. Juniors from Systemic Works hysterically searched for their friends while covered in dirt and soot and blood. Some sat shell-shocked, cowering against any sort of cover they could find and curling each time an explosion shook the ground. And others, well, wandered in a daze, hunched over and limping like the dead. Some were astoundingly calm, although you could say it was shock.

Morgan noted one soldier in particular walking around with half his face peeled off.

The rest of the party filtered outside. Several screamed seeing the horror; Morgan turned back to see Kaiya clutching onto Chunhua's arm, and Victor had a hand over his mouth, trying his best to keep himself from vomiting. Everyone else stared on, mouths agape, as armored vehicles barreled down the streets, and troops mobilized, and the Slayers were activated once more.

As cheesy as it may sound, if there was a Hell, this’d be it.

A laugh boomed throughout the eastern side of the battle formation. Team Luster and Alba (or the original three) had heard the same quality of voice before, in Black Paladin Station, where it sounded like someone spoke to you a foot away with a microphone in their hands.

It didn’t take long to find the source. Two objects levitated above the smog of war, ashen from bullets and magic, scratched and chipped and cut, but they held themselves tall.

They had abandoned their humanoid form when Archknell dealt Death to them; now, they revealed their true selves to the world and thus exposing themselves to the Earthwill. Two of the Kreutz Sungrazers.

On the left was the Cutter, transformed into an abstract figurine, full body shining like polished platinum. It stood about eighteen-to-twenty feet tall, maybe more. Its torso resembled the Roman numeral for one, thick and wide on all parts, with the ends sharp and pointed inwards. At the center of its chest was a burning, molten handprint: Firebrand’s. Its legs were thin, triangular things, becoming thinner as they reached the feet, which could hardly be called that. The feet were points. No doubt that it could balance perfectly on them, defying all notions of balance or physics. The arms were also triangular, divided into two parts: the arm itself and the arc-blade, resembling a crescent moon. The neck was rather meager, stick-like almost, and its face was two crescents curving into an X, reflected on both front and back.

Absurdly above all else, its entire body was divided into pieces. As if something had cleanly diced the Cutter into random, assorted parts—excluding the blades and the head—then haphazardly pieced them together again. Some parts were shifted too far, some were connected only at the tips, some rotated and reflected backwards. Morgan could best describe this as seeing yourself in a broken mirror, how your sections of your body were cut.

Beside the Cutter was its partner, the Watcher that had resided over Dawns with its reaching gaze. Its design was simple, readily comprehensible. At first glance anyway. It was a sphere of a large size, of which Morgan couldn’t immediately calculate using proper metrics. He made comparisons instead: it was just smaller than the width of a city street from sidewalk-to-sidewalk and was as large as a three-story building. Hexagons comprised its “skin”, or “shell”, however you’d call it. A glossiness covered each hexagonal plate, but surely it wasn’t made of glass. Because in every plate stored eyes that danced within the reflections.

It was as though each mirror was the entrance of an abyss. Burning crimson eyes lined the walls stretching into infinity. Jittering, moving, searching for something in a manic, obsessive fervor. The hexagons themselves moved as well, in rows, some counterclockwise and others clockwise seemingly at random; sometimes, when the Watcher wished, one plate would pop out slightly, revealing a thin, spindle-length arm that was connected to a pitch black space.

“So it is, then!” Tewfik raised its arms, declaring war. “I, Tewfik, the Lesser Cutter, shall consume all designs!”

All of Pereyra’s eyes centered on the Slayers, steady. “I, Pereyra, the Lesser Watcher, will see to it your demise!”

[SLAYER SYSTEM ALERT]

ALL FEATURES RESTORED.

ENACTING THE VALIANT SUPPLEMENTARY POWERS PROTOCOL

[EXPEDITION STATUS]

HEAVY CASUALTIES TAKEN

DECEASED INCAPICTATED

Worm | Painter | Hotdog | Terminal | Nightmare | Slot | Medal | Sanctum | Travesty | Worship | Whitefreeze | Hope | Sail | Fantastic | Stopper | Inspect | Pale | Ninekick | Bind | Urge | Pawn | Cold Machine | Rising Rain | Elfin | Mint | Tie-Die | Verse | Lead | Wispmoth | Straw | Clammed | Dollface | Playing Field | Black Bear | Moonkiss | Rhythm & Meter | Red Hot | Page | Poor Boy | Imposter | Aroma | Store

Great Guardian | Terror | Arcane Sorceress | Black Apple | Looking Glass | Ocean Serpent | Deathbanish | Bravelad | Prodigy | Bright | Look At Me! | Knockout | Journey | Blacklist | Torii | Mandates | Deadlock | Long | Jockey | Lone | Heavy Hitter | Powerhouse | Rosemary | Juvenile | Nightbringer | Scorch | Deception | Get Tricked | Pump Action | Bitter Sugar | Golden Goose | Hard Iron | Buttercup | Summer | Cutting Smile | Wrathful Grape | Lowbite | Killer Hand | Egghead | Creek | Frog | Endless | Resistance | Supersuper | Strip Tease | Illusion | Devilish | Intellect | Odd One | Cot | Union | Glitter Fairy | Setback | Wink | Street Rat | Four Eyes | Pork Barrel | Silver Spoon | Mistlurk | Domination | Wacky Willy | Regret | Temptation | Locke | Skytwist | Lone Vagabond | Twig | Wanderer | Pullover | Anima | Runelord | Ruby Blade | Sector | Eagle Court | Gothman | Captain Canary | Morning | Small Package | Noonhour | Uppity | Brick Wall | Comedian | Redfang | Lyric | Sparkle | Ban | Ichiban | Silent Night | Calm Sea | Rye | Broken Moon | Live Life | Regular | No Escape | Philosopher | Vigor | Fiction | Payphone | Cathouse | Shotgun Girl | Macho | Lava Bath | Pastor Pascal | Ted | Vantablack | Second Wind | Wish | Quirk | Alleyway | Mysterious Traveler | Blackviper | Writer | Poke | Limitless | Quarter | Gifted | Reasonless | Report | Empty Circle | Governor | Songbird | Dramatic