Chapter 501: The Fallen Sky
The city erupted into chaos.
Sirens wailed across every district, their overlapping howls creating a dissonant symphony of panic that bounced off skyscrapers and echoed through narrow alleys.
The emergency broadcast system crackled to life on every screen and speaker and phone, the calm, measured voice of a civil defense announcer reciting evacuation protocols that had been drilled into the population for years but had never felt real until this moment.
"Attention, all citizens. A Class-S rift event has been detected above the central metropolitan area. This is not a drill. Proceed to your nearest designated shelter immediately. Do not attempt to engage. Do not attempt to observe. Repeat, this is not a drill."
In the streets below, the orderly evacuation protocols dissolved almost instantly into raw human desperation. Cars jammed the roads, their horns blaring in futile protest as traffic ground to a complete halt.
Parents pulled children from playgrounds and shoved them into vehicles already packed with emergency supplies. The elderly and the infirm were carried on stretchers, in wheelchairs, in the arms of strangers who had stopped to help because stopping to help was what people did when the sky was falling.
"Hunters to Sector Seven! I need a full containment cordon from Fifth Avenue to the river—now!" The voice of a squad commander crackled through the radio net, hoarse and urgent.
"Sector Seven, copy. Deploying barrier units. ETA four minutes."
"Where’s the Saintess? Has anyone reached the Saintess?"
"Miss Celeste is en route to the primary shelter. Her attendants are moving her now. We’ve got purification teams standing by at all medical stations—"
"Medical’s already over capacity! We need more stretchers, more—"
"Incoming report from the eastern perimeter! Corrupted signatures detected at ground level! Multiple contacts, repeat, multiple contacts!"
The sky above the vortex began to tear.
Eastiel, with Cecilia in his arms, launched himself from the balcony into the dying light.
She was heavy with the baby now, but he carried her as though she weighed nothing at all. His lion legs coiled and sprang, propelling them from rooftop to rooftop, the city blurring beneath them in streaks of neon and shadow and the red-white flash of emergency lights.
Cecilia’s arms wrapped around his neck, her face pressed against his shoulder, and she watched the world collapse in real time.
Below, the streets churned. The vortex above continued its slow, terrible rotation. Sirens screamed. Glass shattered somewhere in the distance.
And still Eastiel ran, his breathing steady, his golden eyes fixed on some distant point she couldn’t see.
Neither of them spoke. What was even to say? The sky was tearing open, and their child was coming, and somewhere out there Oathran was still lost to them.
Eastiel landed in the middle of the evacuation route with a force that cracked the asphalt beneath his feet, his lion legs absorbing the impact, Cecilia still cradled against his chest.
The street was chaos. Hunters in mixed form shouting orders, civilians streaming toward the underground shelter entrances, children crying, elders being half-carried by volunteers in fluorescent vests.
Arkai stood at the center of it all, his phone pressed to one ear, his free hand directing a squad of Dawnoro security personnel toward the eastern barricade.
"—I don’t care, you hold that line! Reinforcements are three minutes out—" He saw them. His wolf ears, flat with stress, lifted just slightly. The tension in his jaw didn’t ease, but something behind his pitch black eyes softened for the briefest moment.
"Eastiel! Is she—"
"She’s fine. The usual contractions, but not labor yet," Eastiel said.
"Sir, the western corridor is full!" someone shouted.
"Then evacuate through the north tunnel!" Arkai barked back, already moving toward them. He reached out and cupped Cecilia’s cheek, his palm warm against her cold skin. "The shelters are reinforced. You’ll be safe underground."
"And you?" Cecilia’s voice was barely a whisper.
Arkai didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
"I want to meet Damon. Connect me with him," Cecilia said.
It landed like a grenade.
"Absolutely not." Arkai said, final like iron, his wolf ears pinned flat. "You’re in active labor progression. The shelters are reinforced. You need to be underground—"
"I need to be where I can do something," Cecilia cut him off. "Damon has access to every scanner, every report, every piece of data about that vortex. Maybe... and I think so, because if he’d return at all, he must return for this. If Oathran is up there—"
"Oathran can handle himself!" Eastiel’s arms tightened around her, his lion tail lashing. "He’s the Dragon Lord. He’s survived worse than—"
"He’s been missing for a month!" Cecilia’s voice cracked, and both men flinched. "He left because of me. Because of what I didn’t tell him. If he’s up there—if he’s fighting that thing alone—I will not sit in a bunker and wait to find out if my baby still has a father!"
"Cecilia—"
"Connect me with Damon," she said again, her eyes blazing through unshed tears. "Or I swear to every god I’ve met, I will fly there myself."
Arkai and Eastiel exchanged a desperate glance. They had lost this argument before it began.
"Fine. We go together. You better not leave our sight, woman," Arkai hissed in silent anger.
"Fuck—" Eastiel cursed, but hugged her tighter.
***
High above the city, on the rooftop of a building, two figures stood at the edge of the precipice and looked up.
The woman was devastatingly beautiful. Her blonde hair whipped around her face in the unnatural wind, and her blue eyes reflected the black lightning that flickered in the vortex above. She wore a simple white dress that billowed around her ankles, and her expression was unreadable.
Beside her, the man was tall and broad-shouldered, his white t-shirt plastered against his chest by the gale. His posture was relaxed, almost casual, but his golden eyes were fixed on the void at the center of the storm.
In one hand, they each held a shovel. Just an ordinary, unremarkable shovel, its blade still crusted with dirt from a grave that should or shouldn’t have remained undisturbed.
"Isn’t this view... quite nostalgic?" she asked.
The man sneered. "The day the Goddess of Memory had fallen is nostalgic?"
The woman smiled, and it held centuries in its curve. "The day the God of Oblivion had risen was indeed, nostalgic."