After tearing through their mechanical foes, the four finally regrouped at the only passage leading underground—the one place in this entire complex that wasn’t designed by an architect with an all-black Instagram feed.

  Emilia arrived first, her composure unchanged as if the world could explode and she wouldn’t so much as blink. Skyler and Zoe trailed behind, each wearing the look of someone privately satisfied with their own survival. Roxy came last, casually dusting off her outfit, swagger sharp as a beat drop.

  “What are you stalling for? We don’t have much time,” Zoe muttered toward the redhead, lips curled.

  “But we literally just—” Skyler started, only to yelp as Zoe stomped on his foot with the force of a runaway truck.

  Roxy glanced over and let out a low chuckle, utterly unconcerned about what anyone else thought.

  If she were on social, she’d already have snapped a pic with the caption #BossGirlLife.

  “…If that actually completes your life, then congratulations,” Roxy said coolly, flashing Zoe a razor-edged smile.

  The pink-haired idol lifted her chin, flipping her hair in mock indifference, before promptly turning back to chat with Skyler like she hadn’t just broken his foot.

  “Guess what, Sky? I just ran into something epic!” she announced.

  “…Something epic?” he asked weakly.

  “A unicorn, of course,” Roxy deadpanned, slipping in a hook before Zoe could land her punchline.

  That mouth of hers—worth more than a dragon-slaying sword.

  “Unicorn your face, Red!” Zoe snapped, one brow arched high with bratty mischief. She sucked in a sharp breath, clearly counting to ten just to keep from committing a cosmic crime.

  “So what did you run into?” Skyler asked, figuring it was safer than talking about the giant mech he’d just dismantled. If he didn’t let her vent, she’d hold a grudge for several light-years.

  “A flying stingray!” Zoe beamed, way too proud. “Not just any stingray—this thing had a spear for a tail, ready to stab anyone it didn’t like.” The last bit came with a pointed glare at—you-know-who. “But anyway—”

  “You rode it instead of a unicorn, then?” Roxy slipped in another jab.

  “Did not! I just snapped my fingers and poof—it was gone!”

  At this point, Skyler was half-convinced he’d been trapped in some cosmic reality show.

  “But the real kicker is… ta-da!” Zoe raised her hand and popped open her pocket dimension. Out stepped a tiny fox with nine fluffy tails. In ‘portable mode,’ Nine looked like a Pomeranian with divine ancestry—arrogant, smug, and perfectly mirroring his master.

  “Well? Shocked? Too bad you missed our performance,” she said smugly—basically intergalactic pet pageant flex.

  That’s when a cold tone cuts through the air—sharp as a blade.

  “Are you going to chatter forever? Get downstairs. Now.” Emilia’s voice split the mood clean in half.

  Roxy flicked her glance up, noting how oddly off the commander seemed.

  Zoe scowled, arms crossed. “Tch! Acting all serious. What happened, Auntie?”

  Strangely, Emilia didn’t flinch at the forbidden nickname. She simply stepped aside, wordless, letting the other three descend first.

  The stairwell spiraled down into a darkness so absolute, only lunatics—or people desperate to talk to demons—would willingly descend. To the left yawned a colossal black void, as if it could swallow light whole. Anyone sane would’ve put up railings. Of course, nothing here even pretended to be normal.

  Zoe’s arms ached from carrying Nine. With a sigh, she flicked open her pocket dimension and slipped the little fox inside.

  “Catch you later, good boy,” she whispered, shutting the rift as if hiding her own exhaustion.

  Roxy’s attention flicked over—cold, sharp, and silent as ice.

  Zoe scowled back. “What? I’m cute and I love animals. Sorry I’m not a soulless iceberg like—”

  She froze mid-snap. Something glinted in the corner of her vision—aimed straight at Roxy.

  No time to think. Instinct shoved her forward.

  BANG!

  The shot ripped from Emilia’s gun. For one suspended heartbeat, the world stopped. Then Zoe’s chest exploded with pain. She was flung sideways, body crashing off the stairwell into the abyss.

  “No—!” Roxy screamed, reaching, missing, tumbling after her.

  Skyler dove without hesitation, arms locking around Zoe as all three of them plummeted into the yawning dark. Wind shrieked past, the glow from above shrinking to a hellmouth in reverse.

  Seconds before impact, Skyler forced his cracked focus into his gauntlet. Space buckled. Gravity bent. Their descent slowed—barely—delivering them to the ground with bruises instead of shattered bones.

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  He laid Zoe down, hands trembling. Blood smeared his palms. Not his. Hers.

  “…No, no, no. Zoe, please…” His voice shook.

  Roxy stood stunned, hollow and unmoving, as if her soul had been left behind on the stairwell.

  Skyler’s panic surged. “Heal—yes, I can heal—” Blue aura burst from his glove, code streaming, frantic prayers in digital form. He forced it again. And again. Veins bulged against his temple.

  But her chest didn’t rise.

  Her heart stopped.

  “Get up… damn it, get up, Zoe!”

  Silence answered. No miracle came.

  Roxy remained motionless, grief locked beneath steel composure—until she noticed it. A tremor. Not in the air. In the dark itself.

  She raised her gaze.

  And saw them.

  Thousands of crimson orbs blinking open, one after another, across the black. Encircling. Trapping.

  New-model Rippers. Gleaming fresh from the assembly line.

  This was it—the factory itself.

  Roxy clenched her jaw. The ache of loss burned deep, but the machines didn’t care whose heart was breaking.

  They weren’t built for mercy.

  And now, the metal reapers advanced.

  “Take care of Zoe!” Roxy shouted, sweeping her hand to seal Skyler and the girl inside a dome of shimmering glass. Her gaze lingered on them one last time before she spun back toward the swarm—a tide of mechanical death that knew nothing of fatigue, hesitation, or mercy.

  She hurled herself into the horde with nothing but self-blame burning in her chest. Spears of light erupted from her, dozens, then hundreds, skewering the Rippers in a storm of blades. Her left hand stabbed relentlessly, her right slashed wide arcs, while rifts opened to launch more weapons faster than thought. Some enemies exploded in sparks and smoke. Others slipped through. Then more poured out—endless, unstoppable.

  “Damn it… too many!” she snarled, soaring above the battlefield. She scanned the dome below.

  Skyler clutched Zoe tight against him—and now the Rippers were battering at the glass prison. Her heart jolted. The barrier could withstand a nuclear blast, yes—but if her strength failed, it would collapse as plastic wrap torn under the press of knives.

  More spears formed without plan, without strategy, just a desperate frenzy to kill. The sky shattered with detonations, the battlefield an inferno of glass and fire. Roxy heard none of it. She could only fight and glance back, again and again, to make sure Skyler and Zoe still lived.

  But Zoe’s body lay limp in his arms. Skyler’s whole being… was that of someone watching their entire world shatter.

  Roxy’s teeth ground together. Why, Zoe? Why throw yourself into death for me?

  She barely noticed Skyler’s shout, muffled by the chaos. But his lips—she read them: Look out!

  She spun just in time. A Ripper’s serrated tail lunged straight for her face. Instinct raised a shield of glass. The clash rattled her bones. No thought, only reflex—eye for an eye, blow for blow. No manual ever taught her this. This wasn’t training. This was survival.

  The duel dragged on, time unraveling until it felt endless. Her power bled away. Her body swayed. Sweat and blood streaked down her jawline. She staggered, knees buckling, palms bracing the ground.

  I can’t fall. If I fall here… it’s over.

  The swarm surged, tails cleaving the air, each strike a line drawn toward her head.

  And then—impossible became real.

  A rift snapped open before her, bursting with molten gold. Before the steel stingers could strike, warmth enfolded her—solid, steady, shelter carved from a mother’s embrace.

  Gaia.

  In the blink of an eye, all three of them were swallowed into the dimensional gate. The word ‘close call’ wasn’t nearly enough.

  They had brushed the edge of death itself.

  Legend had always whispered: Gaia’s grace blessed only the Chosen.

  And now, she has chosen.

  Their bodies floated in a shapeless void.

  But to Roxy… this was no emptiness.

  It was that day.

  The day her sister vanished. Now replayed before her eyes—so vivid, so sharp it could not be a dream. The pain in her chest proved it was real.

  A little girl knelt before Gaia. The sacred tree blazed brighter than a thousand suns, each ray pouring over the child as though the universe itself wrapped her in a cradle of stars. Roxy didn’t need narration. Didn’t need explanation.

  “Ellie…” she whispered, softer than her own heartbeat.

  The small hands pressed together in prayer, lips moving in a silent plea too vast to comprehend. From Gaia’s trunk drifted motes of radiance—flakes of eternal snow that would never melt. They gathered around the child, holding her as if they could protect the whole world through her.

  Ellie’s lashes fluttered. She lifted her head. One glowing particle touched her forehead—gentle as a mother’s kiss after too long apart. Warmth surged. Fear, fragility, Doubt unraveled, shadows lifting as sunlight spilled across her.

  Roxy froze, heart pounding. She was about to witness the exact moment her sister disappeared…

  As Gaia’s brilliance deepened, a figure took shape at the edge of the vision. A silhouette, watching the child with an intensity that pierced deeper than sight. No face revealed, yet recognition cut into her, raw and undeniable, leaving her trembling.

  And then—

  In a single blink, Ellie was gone. Swept away with the shadow.

  Roxy’s breath caught. Only one name thundered in her skull.

  “Len…!?”

  Only he could vanish like that.

  Never before had she seen it with such clarity.

  But why?

  Len never moved without orders. Which meant…

  Her breath faltered. She dared not finish the thought.

  —

  The void snapped apart. They were thrown back into reality.

  The village lay silent. Too silent. Not peace, but the silence after a nightmare—or before the next one.

  Skyler held Zoe against his chest.

  Too motionless to be called wounded.

  Gaia loomed before them, its light flowing in calm, steady rhythm, bearing the stillness of something older than compassion.

  Skyler dropped to his knees. The ground shook with the weight of a man carrying a whole solar system on his back. His hands trembled—not from gravity, but from grief too vast to bear.

  “Please…” The word was fainter than a dying breath. His lips struggled to form sounds he’d never rehearsed.

  He had never begged. Never prayed. But now, there was nothing else left.

  “If I could ask for just one thing in my life… only one… Please… bring Zoe back.” His final words broke apart, fragments of a heart beyond repair.

  Roxy knelt beside him. Slowly, her hand reached out to his shoulder—yet before her fingers touched, a pressure surged from behind. Heavy. Suffocating. Familiar in a way it should never be.

  Both turned.

  Black mist coiled upward, spiraling into a vortex of formless souls. Its gaze—if such a thing could be said—was locked on them.

  In that moment, two figures stepped forth from the darkness—

  Trinity.

  And Len.