It is Lesca whose head snaps to her right.
Standing perfectly still on the roof of a nearby building—the one closest to the sprawling Savanna on the East side of Titan City—is Maven. She is animating her hands through the air with fluid, precise grace. A second later, the sky above the falling meteors distorts.
A naked, hilt-less blade the size of a towering redwood tree drops from above into existence.
The atmospheric pressure immediately shifts.
The sheer displacement of air caused by the blade’s manifestation generates a concussive gust so heavy that Jarrod, even with his feet planted firmly on the ground, is pushed several feet backward.
High above, Friling and JDen’s dragonfly swarm are blown five to fifteen meters away from the meteors. They are forced to burn massive amounts of stamina just to hold their positions in the air against the sudden, mid-air gale.
The massive blade begins to swing.
Despite its size, it moves with the effortless agility of a stick caught in a hurricane—completely devoid of physical weight. It takes Lesca only a fraction of a second to realize that the woman on the roof is telekinetically manipulating the weapon with her hands, mirroring the combat style of her own brother.
The blade moves in sweeping, alternating arcs—a perfect U-motion, followed by an upside-down rotation, shifting seamlessly from clockwise to anti-clockwise strikes. It glides through the five apocalyptic meteors like a hot knife through butter, cleanly dicing the massive rocks into ten pieces, and then twenty.
But the pressure feedback of the blade slicing through the meteors and golden flames is so violent that Friling is forced to fly even further back. Even with all four Archangel wings fully extended, he cannot hold his ground inside the mid-air tornado generated by the blade’s sweeping motions.
Knowing the immediate threat of total annihilation is over, JDen drops his dragonfly swarm to the ground beside Jarrod, reverts entirely to his human form and roars into the wind, “Bro is here!”
Jarrod glances at JDen, then snaps his eyes back to the roof. He stares at Maven. There is not a single ounce of strain visible on her face. Even though she is telekinetically wielding a blade the size of the Statue of Liberty, her eyes hold only absolute focus, ensuring the meteors are diced perfectly so that even debris doesn’t cause any major damage.
Then, Jarrod‘s eyes lock onto a familiar shadow standing directly behind her.
“Leon!” Jarrod whispers.
The moment his name leaves Jarrod‘s lips, Leon vaults from behind Maven, launching himself directly into the debris field of the falling meteors.
At that exact second, the massive redwood blade completely vanishes. It dissipates into the atmosphere as if it were never there, confirming to the group below that the weapon was a pure Heat manifestation.
Because he launched from further away, Lesca hadn’t spotted him yet.
Mid-air, Leon roars a single command. “Weapons of Doom: Lance!”
His overall apperance remains intact, but an undeniable shift ripples through his musculature. His legs instantly thicken, expanding into a wider, heavier base—perfectly mirroring the dense, anchored bottom of a medieval lance. He has locked into a perfect 60 percent strength and 40 percent speed distribution. After his brutal Zen training with Maven, Leon no longer blindly guesses his physical output. He can literally feel the percentile distribution of his Heat weapons coursing through his body.
He plummets into the cluster of twenty falling meteor chunks. He lands squarely on the piece closest to him, using it as a foothold before violently kicking off to reach a higher altitude. The concussive force of his kick is so devastating that the meteor chunk instantly splinters with visible, glowing cracks before exploding into tiny, harmless fragments. He bounds from rock to rock—landing, kicking, shattering—methodically breaking the remaining twenty pieces into gravel.
But gravity is still pulling the debris downward. While the rocks are no longer large enough to wipe Titan City off the map, a direct hit from the dense gravel will still cause human casualties and minor structural damage.
“Jarrod!” Friling roars from the sky.
Jarrod snaps to attention and nods.
Friling dives directly toward the falling debris field, unleashing a relentless barrage of black feather-arrowheads from his wings of Michael, shredding the mid-sized rocks into dust.
Below him, Jarrod thrusts both hands toward the sky, firing sustained blasts of Push to deflect the heavier pieces that slip past Friling.
JDen instantly scatters back into his dragonfly swarm, acting as a living net to intercept and slow the speed from whatever fragments Jarrod misses.
When the sky is finally clear, Leon lands heavily on the fractured pavement, followed moments later by Maven.
As they approach the group, the sheer adrenaline crash hits Jarrod, and he collapses exhausted onto his knees.
Friling touches down nearby, staring at the newcomers in absolute awe.
JDen returns back into his human state and immediately sprints toward Leon, wrapping him in a desperate embrace. Oddly enough, Leon doesn’t push him away; he actually hugs him back.
Setting JDen down, Leon looks over at the kneeling Jarrod. “Heroing is a stressful job, isn’t it? Regretting it yet?”
Jarrod stares blankly at him for a long moment before letting out a dry, hopeless laugh.
Lesca, however, is focused entirely on Maven. She studies the older woman’s clothing. “Your clothes… it reminds me of someone.”
The out-of-the-blue comment from a total stranger makes Maven freeze. She looks down at her attire. Whether Lesca is guessing or acting on instinct, she knows exactly who else wears that specific, rugged blend of khaki, olive, and brown.
Before the tension can settle, Friling walks over to a pile of shattered meteor rock. He freezes, his eyes going wide. “Guys… come look at this.”
The group gathers around the debris. Buried within the shattered, golden-tinged rock are unmistakable remnants: torn pieces of clothing, shattered fingernails, and bone fragments.
“These are human remains,” Maven says softly.
Leon frowns, visibly confused. “But when I hit them mid-air, they felt like solid rock. It didn’t feel like I was kicking human flesh.”
Jarrod‘s mind immediately begins working overtime, processing the horrifying implication of what Chaos actually threw at them.
Suddenly, Lesca steps forward, wedging herself beside Maven, directly opposite Leon. For the first time since she was brutally crushed into the pavement, her arrogant, bossy demeanor entirely returns.
“Move aside!” she barks.
Leon snaps his head toward her, instantly annoyed by the tone. “What? Why?”
Jarrod looks at Leon, then back to Lesca, sensing the shift in the air. “Do as she says, guys. Please.” Jarrod slowly begins to back away.
Maven places a calm, restraining hand on Leon‘s arm, giving him a silent nod that clearly says, Listen to them.
Leon holds eye contact with his master for a tense second before offering a low grunt, finally stepping back with the rest of the group.
Standing alone in the center, Lesca extends both her arms, turning her palms toward the scattered rocks.
“Swans Song of the Red Lake,” she whispers.
Her eyes instantly go bloody. The iris, the cornea, the pupil—all of it is completely swallowed by liquid maroon blood. That same thick, boiling blood begins to seep directly from her skin and seep out from beneath her fingernails. It drips heavily onto the asphalt.
The group watches in silence as the blood takes on a mind of its own. Like starving bloodhounds, the maroon liquid slithers across the ground like a pack of serpents, locking onto the exact locations of the human remains. The moment the blood touches a piece of flesh or bone, it leaps onto it, instantly soaking into the marrow, acting as a piece of cloth that soaks up liquid, in this case, that absorbs the remains entirely.
From her ten fingertips and countless pores, at least fifty individual streams of maroon blood are released, methodically scouring the battlefield and leaving absolutely nothing behind. Lesca holds her arms out, completely motionless, her face devoid of emotion.
It takes several minutes, but finally, every single trace of the human remains is sucked into the maroon blood.
Lesca slowly curls her fingers into tight fists. The slithering stops. The pools of blood rapidly snap back toward her, climbing her boots and absorbing back into her pores and nail beds.
When the macabre process finishes, her eyes return to normal. She turns to look at the group.
Every single member of the group wears a completely different reaction.
Jarrod is in absolute awe, his mouth hanging slightly open. A bio-hazard cleanup that would have taken a dedicated crew several days was executed in minutes. But more importantly, he is deeply unsettled because he has no idea where those bodies actually went.
Friling is beaming, staring at his sister with overwhelming pride.
Maven is impressed, but visibly disturbed. She offers a tight, awkward smile. This is her first time meeting the girl, and the grotesque nature of her Heat is heavily off-putting, but she cannot deny the competence of it all.
But it is Leon who breaks the silence. He smirks, letting out a loud, barking laugh. “That’s it?! You ate them? Make sure you don’t wake up with a tummy ache tomorrow morning!” He is genuinely surprised, but his ego refuses to admit he is impressed by anyone else.
Lesca locks eyes with him. She isn’t angry. She matches his smirk flawlessly.
“Oyee, hero,” Lesca shouts back. “Look around you.”
Leon‘s laughter abruptly dies. He looks to his left, then to his right.
The rest of the group follows the exact action.
Lesca‘s eyes flood with maroon blood once again. This time, she doesn’t extend her arms. She simply slides her hands into the pockets of her princess coat. The blood begins to violently seep from her entire body. Her clothes do not get wet or stain red; they repel the liquid exactly the way a raincoat repels rain drops.
But as the blood hits the pavement this time, it is mixed with a thick, creamy bone dust. Within seconds, the bubbling pools surround them. The blood begins to boil, though the group feels none of the painful heat that Taglia endured when he pierced her torso.
Suddenly, the boiling pools erupt upward.
In the blink of an eye, they are entirely surrounded.
Standing in perfect, motionless silence are 427 maroon-blooded skeletons—a skeleton army that vastly surpasses the meager numbers she previously commanded. Thick maroon blood actively pulses through the cracks in their bones, their hollow eye sockets staring blankly into the morning sun.
JDen tries to sprint toward Leon, but he is completely boxed in by them.
Jarrod carefully studies the skeletons, realizing this is the first time he is seeing her power fully.
Friling is practically glowing with pride.
Leon twists his lips, leaning over to whisper to Maven, “Well. That’s a necromancer for you.”
Maven offers him a polite, default nod, but her mind is heavily occupied with the terrifying math of the battlefield. She slowly rotates 360 degrees, her eyes darting over the skeletal ranks.
“So in those rocks…” Maven says calmly, her voice chilling the air. “Hundreds people were trapped?!”
Hearing the estimated number, Jarrod‘s eyes go completely solemn.
“If five meteors had around four hundred…” Friling whispers to himself as he knows Lesca’s previous numbers, staring at the sky. “Then how much more bodies does he have?”
In a flash of lightning speed, Lesca inhales, and the 427 skeletons instantly dissolve, sucking back into her physical body. Her eyes return to normal. She casually walks toward the center of the group.
“Doesn’t matter,” Lesca says coldly. “Let him throw his stones. It will only feed my army.”
Several days pass.
As the massive restoration efforts across Titan City finally get underway, the group gathers at the site of the ruined cafe.
Jarrod turns to Leon. “How did you know? And how did you even get here in time?”
“I didn’t,” Leon replies flatly. “I was just passing through Titan City on my way to Royal City. But the tremors, and then the meteors falling from the sky… they got my attention.”
Friling tilts his head. “Royal City? Why were you going there?”
Leon looks directly at him. “Because a challenge is waiting for me there.”
“Who, boss?” JDen asks, highly intrigued.
Maven steps forward, her voice carrying a heavy weight. “His name is Taglia… Leon decided that in his quest to become the absolute best, his next opponent must be him.”
The mere utterance of that name hooks everyone’s attention.
The air surrounding the group instantly grows heavier. It is a name that hasn’t been spoken aloud in Titan City for quite some time, purely because of the suffocating dread it brings. The thought of someone actively marching toward that monster to challenge him physically short-circuits Jarrod‘s mind.
Jarrod faced him; he knows intimately the terrifying, immovable force that man represents.
Friling grows deeply contemplative. He looks at Maven. “Do you know him?”
Maven meets his gaze evenly. “I used to.”
JDen gulps loudly, his hand instinctively rubbing his torso as he remembers exactly what that man is capable of.
Jarrod remains dead silent, his usual warm demeanor entirely replaced by a somber understanding.
But the only person who is smiling is Lesca.
She puts a hand over her mouth, trying desperately to control a giddy giggle, but the manic twinkling in her eyes betrays her. “So… that’s where that asshole has been hiding?”
Leon, recognizing a fellow maniac, reflects her feral expression. “That’s what Maven tells me.”
Lesca glances at Maven, then slowly separates herself from the group. She looks up into the open sky, that same wistful, dangerous smile returning to her lips.
But Jarrod has a completely different objective in mind. “Then we are all going.”
Everyone’s attention—except Lesca‘s—snaps back to Jarrod.
“Like it or not, I feel like we need to convince him to side with us in this upcoming conflict,” Jarrod continues, his voice grounding the group. “You can bet that this meteor strike was just a prelude. If the evil in this world is gathering their forces, then so should we.”
Lesca, keeping her back to the group, smirks. “You really think you can convince him?”
“I will try my absolute best,” Jarrod replies warmly.
“Well, it’s either he helps us, or he dies,” Leon cuts in, his ego flaring. “But before any of that diplomacy happens… he has to fight me.”
Hearing that, Maven simply drops her head and sighs softly. She knows that despite all his rigorous Zen training, Leon‘s core spirit will never truly change.
Miles away, in a quiet, wood-paneled room in Royal City.
The door clicks open, and Makisa steps inside. Taglia is sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning his heavy torso back against the wooden headrest. He is staring out the window to his right, lost in thought.
“Just heard there was a meteor shower over in Titan City again,” Makisa announces.
Taglia doesn’t snap his eyes toward her. He keeps his gaze fixed on the horizon.
Feeling ignored, Makisa marches over and casually jabs the hilt of her massive katana into his left flank. “Did you hear what I just said?”
“Yes,” Taglia murmurs. “But the fact that you are telling me means you already have a plan. I am much more intrigued about what that is.”
Makisa grins, hopping excitedly onto the foot of the bed. “You know what else? People are talking. They’re saying a massive army gathered to stop the meteors… an army made entirely of skeletons. Everyone is saying a single girl commanded them. Out here, the whispers are calling her the Goddess of Death.“
Taglia‘s head snaps forward.
The moment the words skeleton girl and Goddess of Death reach his ears, his aloofness shatters. He leans forward, his massive frame shifting toward Makisa, though he whispers quietly to himself.
“Not a Goddess of Death… a necromancer.”
Makisa smirks, leaning comfortably against the opposite bedpost. “Ah. So this is the lady who stole your heart… or at least, tried to.”
Taglia with a smile says “This is the very first time you didn’t refer to a woman as a whore.”
“If the rumors are true,” Makisa continues playfully, “I really don’t want to anger the Goddess.”
Hearing that, Taglia drops his head. A quiet, genuine smile spreads across his face—the exact same warm, underlying smile he gave when he walked away from Lesca that dawn.
“Neither do I,” he says quietly.
“So, what shall we do?” Makisa asks.
Taglia looks up, a deeply mischievous glint lighting up his eyes. “We could go to them. But I get the feeling they are already coming for me. So… why not save them the time, and meet them halfway?”
Makisa barks a laugh. “So, a game of tag it is.”
As the golden hour descends, painting the sky in violent streaks of orange and bleeding red, the group stands at the absolute border of the 3rd Block.
JDen has remained behind in Titan City, acting as the protector to aid in the massive repairs.
Led by Jarrod, the group—Leon, Lesca, Maven, and Friling—steps off the concrete and into the sprawling grasslands.
Their long coats and jackets ripple heavily in the evening wind, perfectly framing their silent, purposeful march.
They are leaving Titan City behind them, stepping into the wild in search of the mythic figure known only as… TAGLIA.
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