It is a starry night under a crescent moon. Sitting on the soft earth is young Maven, looking to be in her early tens, perhaps even younger.
Beside her sits her father, a man in his forties around 5’10”. They are surrounded by green grass, thick bushes, and blooming flowers, sitting peacefully in what appears to be their own evening garden.
A small, humble hut rests behind them. The faint, distant sounds of human activity echo through the night air, but in their immediate vicinity, there are no other houses or people.
They sit side-by-side.
Her father wears an untucked shirt with folded sleeves and rugged pants. Beside him, Maven wears a simple nightgown, her big, bright eyes brimming with innocence and hope of a life entirely ahead of her.
Her father’s face carries the heavy lines of a man who has witnessed horrors far beyond anything Maven could comprehend, yet his eyes remain peaceful and accepting.
Looking up at the vast, starry sky, she asks softly, “Can you bring one of those stars for me, father?”
Her voice is so impossibly polite and gentle that it could wrench the heart of a hardened killer, reducing them to tears.
Her father turns to her. “My little angel. That is the only thing I cannot do.”
“But you are so strong, father. Why not?” Maven replies.
Her father looks back up to the sky. “Because some things look better when they are further away. And the closer they get…” He turns to her with a wide, cautious smile and effortlessly lifts her, placing her onto his lap.
Young Maven giggles softly at the ticklish sensation.
He gently caresses her hair. “…let me just say they don’t appear as beautiful anymore.”
Young Maven looks deeply puzzled, asking with pure innocence, “What are you talking about, father? Beautiful is beautiful. Distance doesn’t matter.”
Her father doesn’t stop stroking her hair. “You know, Maven, we ask our Creator for so much. But if he were to provide us with all of it, we would be ecstatic at first, and then we would feel profoundly bored. One of our core drives as human beings is the chase for excellence. To get that star, or simply hoping that one day we might reach it… that is why we get up every day and act. If we were simply able to grab the star, it would lose its meaning and its beauty to us.”
He looks back up into the night, his tone shifting into something far more lighthearted. “Not to mention, they are huge, and you can’t exactly keep them in the house.”
Maven, who had remained perfectly silent throughout her father’s heavy, philosophical explanation, finally blinks. “Woooow… I didn’t get any of it.”
Her father lets out a wholehearted laugh. He kisses the top of her head. “One day, you will.”
The starry night dissolves into the blinding sky of high noon.
The sun is at its absolute peak. Resting beneath the wide shade of a massive tree trunk, the present-day Maven slowly opens her eyes, waking either from a dream of her father or simply a deep, waking memory.
Directly in front of her, under ten feet away, she sees Friling quietly cutting vegetables in front of a small campfire.
This massive tree sits dead in the middle of the sprawling Grasslands—the vast, untamed territory that officially separates the borders of Titan City and Royal City. Unlike the golden Savanna on the East Side of Titan City, this landscape is remarkably green. Towering ancient trees are spaced out by vast, sweeping distances, separated by seas of thick, waist-high grass.
The group has stopped under this canopy to rest, cook lunch, and wait for the brutal midday heat to break before moving forward.
They are far from Titan City now. There are no buildings, no tents, not even a single piece of concrete visible on the horizon.
Nearby, Jarrod is actively struggling to breathe life into the campfire, blowing carefully through a hollow tube. It is an incredibly delicate task—too much air and the sparks blow out; too little, and the embers refuse to flare hot enough to boil their food.
It is deeply ironic to watch Heat users capable of leveling city blocks struggling to start a basic campfire.
A few feet away, entirely aloof from the manual labor, Lesca is meticulously applying a thick, expensive-looking cream to her skin. The midday heat is so oppressive that she has discarded her princess coat, much like Friling has shed his formal suit for a light jacket, tee, and pants. She rubs the cream—which looks far more luxurious than standard sunscreen—deep into her arms and face, completely engrossed in the process, ensuring not a single millimeter of skin is left exposed.
Seeing Maven stir, Friling pauses his chopping and offers a warm smile. “You are awake? …Seemed like you were having a nice dream?”
Maven smiles, looking up through the sprawling branches and green leaves. “Yes. A very nice one.”
Sitting a few feet away and staring in the opposite direction, Lesca continues applying her cream. “A lover’s dream?”
Maven snaps toward her, visibly surprised by the sudden, invasive question. “What? No! It was my—”
“Lesca, that is not a right thing to ask,” Friling interrupts firmly.
Before Maven can finish her explanation, Lesca snaps a cold glare toward her brother. “Sure, brother. Whatever you say.”
It is Jarrod who inadvertently halts the food preparation entirely. Lowering his blowing tube, he looks over at Maven. “Maven, how do you know Taglia?”
Maven looks at Jarrod, her face entirely calm. “We grew up together.”
Lesca completely freezes.
She stares deeply at her own forearms, refusing to make eye contact. “Like friends.”
That sudden drop of information violently spikes Lesca‘s cortisol. To the Goddess of Death, Maven is an immediate, undeniable threat. She is taller, highly athletic, and intimately knows the man Lesca is currently obsessed with—a man she knows far better than Lesca does. For a few agonizing minutes, Lesca plunges into raw, petty, territorial jealousy.
As Heat users, each member of the group projects a certain presence, but Lesca‘s internal jealousy begins to physically leak into the real world. The air around her violently thickens. It grows so oppressively heavy and suffocating that an infant would struggle to draw a single breath.
Sensing the lethal shift in atmospheric pressure, Maven immediately clears the air. “My father raised both of us. So in a way… we are like siblings.”
Lesca‘s eyes soften just a fraction. Without saying a single word, she resumes rubbing the cream into her arms. In that split second, her terrifying presence snaps back to its baseline, the air returning to a normal, breathable state—an unspoken proof to everyone that whatever homicidal urge was rising inside her has been quelled.
“So you both are equals?” Friling asks Maven.
“That is not a right assumption, Friling,” Jarrod interrupts analytically. “Individual skills, innate talents, and adaptability matter. But the biggest factor is always experience.”
Maven smiles warmly. “He was always better than me.”
Suddenly, the tall grass to Maven‘s left begins to shudder. Heavy footsteps approach, but the cadence is off—it sounds as though the person is carrying something massively heavier than their own body weight. Each time a boot strikes the earth, a uniquely dense vibration ripples through the ground, a tremor the keen Heat users feel instantly.
They all turn toward the approaching sound.
Lesca simply mutters under her breath without bothering to look, “Thank god. I won’t have to eat trees again.”
Leon breaches the clearing.
Maven, Jarrod, and Friling‘s eyes go wide at the thing hoisted over his shoulder.
It is the size of a fully grown stallion, possessing the head of an eagle and the front talons to match, but the muscular hind legs of a lion. But its majestic wings are completely absent. They have been severed with surgical precision. There is not a single stray feather or torn tendon left near the torso.
Leon drops the massive beast onto the grass with a heavy thud, chiming into the tail-end of their conversation. “She is a great warrior.”
“What the fuck is that, Leon?” Jarrod jumps to his feet. “You killed a griffin for food?”
Lesca merely turns her head, smirking at the corpse. “At least it has more meat. Unlike the rabbits you kill.”
No one engages her.
Friling stands up, his face deadly serious. “That’s a griffin, Leon. They are pack hunters. If you killed it—”
“FUCK YOU ALL,” Leon roars, his feral ego instantly flaring under the accusations. “I didn’t kill dick.”
Maven steps closer, analyzing the carcass. “He is right. Look at the cuts. They are way too clean. It is as if the wounds were instantly sealed by the sheer heat generated from the strike.”
Leon glares at the group. “I was wandering around two kilometers northwest of here, and I found a clearing where a bunch of these things were just lying around. Dead. I picked up the freshest one and came back.”
“What do you mean, lying around?” Friling asks, his voice tight.
Jarrod looks slowly around the sprawling, quiet landscape. His survival instincts—honed by a lifetime living in the harsh Savanna of the East Side—scream to life.
“This place…” Jarrod points a finger at Leon. “…or the place Leon found this. It’s someone’s hunting ground.”
Friling looks at Jarrod, the dread sinking in. “You mean we are not alone here?”
Before Jarrod can answer, Lesca lets out a loud groan of pure annoyance. “Can we please fucking eat and then feed each other’s imagination? I am starving.”
Leon finally smirks. This is exactly what he likes—immediate action, ignoring the ‘what ifs’ and whatever phantom threats might be lurking in the grass. “You heard her. I agree. Let’s eat, and then we can decide.”
“After we are done, we immediately leave,” Jarrod says, his tone leaving absolutely no room for debate. “We don’t want to be here if the pack decides to track it.”
The group silently agrees, fully aware of the potential invisible target now resting on their backs.
The bright, sunny noon transitions into a pitch-dark room.
Outside, the sun is shining, but heavy velvet curtains have been drawn tight to block out the light. In the center of this expansive, expensive room—decorated with pristine marble floors, walls, and ceilings—rests a large round bed.
Intellectual slowly opens his eyes.
Agonizing, phantom pain rips through his nervous system. His body aches like hell. He has been neatly stitched and heavily bandaged, recovering from the horrific damage inflicted by Friling‘s barrage of feather-arrowheads, but his body is still teetering on the edge of critical condition.
He stares blankly at the ceiling before turning his head to the left.
He sees Rogue—returned to his human form, looking exactly as he did before.
Then, Intellectual shifts his gaze downward. Sitting casually in a chair at the foot of the bed is Chaos.
Seeing him, Intellectual nearly jumps out of his skin, violently sitting up despite his injuries.
Chaos offers a slight nod to Rogue, who pulls the heavy curtains back, flooding the sterile room with blinding sunlight.
“I thought I was…” Intellectual mutters, scratching his head and staring down at his lap.
“Dead? Stomped? Buried?” Chaos cuts him off with a cold smile.
“Yeah, something like that,” Intellectual admits.
Rogue interjects. He doesn’t charge towards the bed, but his verbal assault is merciless. “You fucking fool! Who asked you to stop the wide-area attack and go for internal concentration? What did you think, huh? That you are going to be compared to me?” Rogue takes a heavy step forward, pointing a massive finger at the man in the chair. “Or him?”
From the heated exchange, it is painfully apparent that Intellectual acted entirely on his own when he attacked Titan City, deviating wildly from whatever role he was assigned to. But the most fascinating dynamic is the clear, unspoken hierarchy of Chaos‘s inner circle. Intellectual exists in a state of deep inferiority; Rogue and, definitively, Chaos stand vastly above him in terms of execution and destructive capability.
Hearing the shouting, Chaos closes his eyes. “Did you find anything out there?”
Intellectual glares at Rogue before shifting his gaze back to his employer. “Yes, I found them. But I doubt they will join you, let alone serve you.”
Chaos leans forward, resting his arms on the bed, an genuinely impressed smile forming on his lips. “Why is that?”
“One is a pure, goody-goody buffoon,” Intellectual replies, referencing Jarrod. “Another is just a small fly.”
Intellectual pauses, closing his eyes for a moment to recall his brutal defeat. “But the other two… they looked promising. One of them, incredibly so. The male possesses the Heat of Angel wings—Michael’s warrior feathers and Raphael’s healing feathers.”
His voice drops into a dark, terrified whisper. “But the woman… she can suck human bones and blood and make them work for her. She is a necromancer in the purest sense… or maybe something far worse. I buried her into concrete before she could completely unleash her Heat, but she is something else entirely. Because in that short moment of time, she started regenerating at a rapid rate.”
“Hmph. So she is stronger than even the great Taglia,” Rogue scoffs, a heavily condescending tone dripping from his voice. Rogue clearly does not buy into the mythos.
Intellectual looks at the giant. “From my estimate, they are exactly the same. Imagine this: one hundred individual men fighting, and one man possessing the sheer strength of one hundred men, fighting. They are essentially the same force. One is quality, the other is quantity.”
Intellectual turns back to Chaos, his face deadly serious. “But personally, I would put the woman first. Her regenerative abilities are simply inhuman.”
Chaos falls silent. For a long while, the amused smile vanishes, replaced by cold, calculating seriousness.
Moments later, he turns his head slightly toward Rogue. “Handle her. Her necromancy and blood manipulation could render my Heat, Satan’s Gaze from the Purgatory, entirely useless. And take care of the winged one, too. It seems our Creator has sent a brother from heaven just to face me.”
Rogue nods once and immediately leaves the room.
“What about the myth himself?” Intellectual asks.
Chaos smirks. “Do you know why he is a myth?”
Intellectual opens his mouth, but completely freezes. He realizes he cannot answer. He has always admired Taglia, listening to the great tales, but he—the most analytical mind in the world—had never actually paused to consider why. He had simply taken the myth status at face value, blinded by the sheer presence and the terrifying rumors. His mouth stays open, but no sound comes out.
Seeing him like this, Chaos smirks. He speaks politely, stating the undeniable fact. “…Because he doesn’t interfere.”
Chaos gracefully stands up from the chair and walks over to the sunlit window, gazing out over the world. “The reason he achieved this mythic status is simply because he wants to be left alone.”
His intellect finally returning, Intellectual processes the logic. “So… you slaughter an army, but let the last man crawl home. He does the preaching for you, and the fear turns you into a myth.”
Chaos turns back to him, flashing a impressed smile. As he walks toward the door Rogue just exited through, he tosses a final compliment over his shoulder.
“It seems they only beat down your body… but the brain stayed perfectly intact.”
Sitting alone on the vast round bed, Intellectual looks down at his lap. His face flushes slightly red—half embarrassed by his catastrophic failure, but half glowing with pride, knowing that in his own twisted way, Chaos had just validated his worth.
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