The scent of fruit and firewood still lingered in the air.
Zane was smiling faintly, watching Ace pawing at the baby fox, now tangled together in a pile of crushed berries. Sera was laughing beside him, while Lyra haggled for vegetables and Luca admired a wooden toy he'd been gifted by a kind merchant.
Not boomed. Not cracked.
Snapped—like the world itself was being torn apart.
A ripple of heat surged through the street.
And then they saw him.
A man in silver robes, tall, still, his white hair drifting like silk in the heat. A porcelain mask covered his face, but beneath the shadow of his hood... two faintly glowing eyes burned with madness.
He only raised his hand—and pointed at Zane.
That's when the blue flames exploded outward.
The ground fractured. Stalls turned to ash. The screams began.
The baby fox bolted. Ace hissed and vanished into Zane's shadow.
Zane's heart dropped.
"Sera! Lyra! Get Luca and get out—NOW!"
"This isn't your fight!" Zane barked. "Evacuate the area, protect the people!"
Just then, a squad of guards—clad in emerald and silver, bearing the crest of Sera's noble house—rushed into the street.
"HALT!" one of them shouted, drawing his blade. "Identify yourself!"
The figure didn't move.
Blue flame flickered along his fingertips.
All of them. Incinerated mid-stride. Not even ashes remained. Just a gust of smoke... and silence.
Sera's face went pale.
Zane stood rooted in place, fists clenched. "You killed them without a word."
The figure finally spoke, his voice like molten glass—
"Anomaly Organization sends its regards, Voidborn."
Then he chuckled lowly, darkly.
"It is either... you die—"
His hand ignited with swirling blue fire.
Zane exhaled slowly as the Black Crown appeared above his head, spinning with a hum that rattled the air.
Nyx's voice hissed in his mind.
"This one is dangerous, Zane. He's beyond anything you've faced."
Zane nodded. "And yet here we are."
He stepped forward, as the street burned around him.