The Anomaly's Path

"Huh...?"

The word left my mouth as a hollow whisper.

My hand was still reaching out, my fingers still curled in the empty air where her small, cold palm had been just a moment ago. The faint warmth of her touch, the weak, shaking hand of a girl who had finally let herself reach back, was still burning against my skin.

Then she was gone.

There was no warning. No surge of mana, no change in the air, no sign of anything coming. My senses, sharp as they were with Expert High rank, hadn’t picked up a single threat. One moment Malva was looking at me with wide, empty eyes.

The next, something invisible and violent hit her, throwing her backward into the wall at the edge of the valley.

What... what just hit her?

My mind raced. A Fallen assassin? A stealth beast from the valley? But I hadn’t felt any killer intent. I hadn’t felt anything. Whoever or whatever had just moved was moving at a speed that completely bypassed my perception.

"Malva!"

Panic broke through my frozen body. I lunged forward, my boots sliding across the stone as I ran through the clearing. The purple fog swirled around my leg. Every step felt like running through thick, cold water, but I pushed through, my eyes locked on the cloud of dust hanging over the broken wall.

"Malva!" I called out again, my voice rough. Damn it! If she dies after everything... after everything I just saw in her memories—

I stopped at the edge of the rubble. The wall was caved in, a hole of broken stone and dust. As the dust began to settle, a figure took shape in the wreckage. It wasn’t an invisible monster. It wasn’t a Fallen cultist.

It was a man.

He was kneeling in the dirt, one knee on the cracked ground. His dark coat was torn along the left shoulder, showing burnt leather and bleeding skin underneath. Silver-grey hair hung over his face, wet with sweat and blood that dripped from his chin onto his shirt.

And held tightly under his right arm, pressed against his chest, was Malva.

My breath caught. Her dark violet dress was torn at the bottom, her black hair messy and full of dust, but her chest was rising and falling in slow, steady breaths. She was unconscious, but she wasn’t crushed.

She’s alive.

The relief hit me so hard my knees almost buckled, but it was instantly replaced by a sharp spike of confusion. The blood on the stone... it wasn’t hers. It was his. My gaze snapped back up to the man holding her. Piercing grey eyes locked onto mine through the settling dust.

"Damon...?"

The name left my mouth before I could stop it. Damon Draven. The youngest Transcendent in history. The man who was supposed to be deep in the valley fighting beside Morgana. The moment I realized who it was, my whole body went tense.

My fingers twitched toward my side, my mind racing.

Why the hell did he just crash directly into her? Did he hear us? Did he catch what we were just talking about?

No, that didn’t make sense, if he’d heard us, he wouldn’t have come down like a goddamn meteor. But the sheer timing of it set every instinct I had on edge.

My brows pulled into a tight frown as I took a slow, careful step forward, watching him closely. "What the fuck...?" I muttered, my voice low. "What are you doing here? Why did you crash into her? Wait... are you trying to kill her?"

Damon didn’t answer immediately. He coughed, a wet, harsh sound that brought more dark blood to his lips. With a heavy, careful movement, he laid Malva down on a flat, clean stone away from the sharp rubble.

His movements were careful, every muscle in his back tight, as if he was holding himself together after a heavy blow. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his grey eyes scanning me with cold, sharp focus.

A flicker of recognition passed through his gaze, the troublesome, first-year Primus.

"I didn’t ’crash into her,’ kid," Damon growled, his voice low. He slowly pushed himself up, the air around him humming with tiny vibrations that cracked the small stones at his boots. "I was thrown."

"Thrown?" I repeated, looking from him to the wall, then toward the ridge deeper in the valley.

"A shockwave," Damon grunted, adjusting his torn coat with a grimace. "The Gate gave a huge pulse when it expanded. The shockwave ripped through the front line and hit me while I was fighting the horde. Sent me flying through the fog like a ragdoll."

"And you want me to believe that you hit her by chance, right?"

"She was standing right in my path," Damon said, pointing a finger at the unconscious girl. "If I hadn’t caught her in the air and wrapped my body around her when we hit the wall, she would have been crushed against the stone. She’s just unconscious from the shock."

I knelt beside Malva, pressing two fingers to her wrist. Her pulse was slow and steady. I checked her quickly, no broken bones, no bleeding. I let out a long breath of relief.

Honestly, her being unconscious right now was probably a good thing. After everything that just happened, seeing that monster from her past, having her mind broken into, and me putting a blade to her throat... I had no idea how to even deal with her.

I needed time to think clearly instead of acting on pure emotion. And she needed time to process what happened to her. We both needed a break before we had to face each other again. For now, the Gate was more important.

My relief faded as a cold thought hit me, making my brows pull together in confusion.

Wait... how the hell didn’t I feel that coming?

Between my spatial awareness and the sharp instincts that usually warned me of an incoming threat before conscious thought even kicked in, nothing was supposed to slip past me like this. A hit strong enough to throw a Transcendent should have flattened the trees, bent the air around it, and set every sense in my body screaming long before they hit the wall.

But there was nothing.

No shift in the wind, no loud crack, no distortion in the air. One second it was quiet, and the next, stone was exploding into dust.

Did my perception fail? Or did whatever hit him completely erase its own presence?

I snapped my head back up to Damon, my eyes narrowing. "Why didn’t I feel the shockwave?" I demanded. "Even if you took most of it, a blast that big should have shaken the ground. My senses didn’t pick up anything until you were already crashing through the wall."

"Because my Vibration affinity naturally weakens sound and force in the air," Damon said flatly, wiping blood from his chin.

"When the pulse hit me, my power swallowed the pressure around my body. The force still threw me, but the sound, the wind, and the shockwave were erased until I hit this wall. That’s why you didn’t hear it."

"I see..." I nodded, my mind quickly understanding.

That made sense.

His affinity wasn’t just for powerful, bone-breaking strikes, it worked through controlling frequency. If his body naturally softened the force to absorb the hit, it worked like a shield, swallowing the sound and air movement before they could spread through the fog.

I pushed the thought aside, my expression hardening as I looked back up at him. "What about Morgana? Where is she? Is she still on the ridge?"

"She’s holding the main breach alone," Damon said, his grey eyes hard as he turned his gaze back toward the heart of the Sealed Valley, where the dark purple fog was beginning to swirl like a boiling pot. "Besides... we have a bigger problem to deal with..."

Before he could finish his sentence, the ground beneath our feet violently shuddered.

A deep, terrible roar echoed from the heart of the valley, followed by a sudden rise in pressure. A wave of dark, twisted energy burst outward from the center, sweeping across the land like a flood. It wasn’t just cold. It was a heavy, crushing fear that sank into my bones. My heart stumbled in my chest.

Damon gritted his teeth, his jaw tight as he stared toward the center. "Damn it..."

"What is that?" I demanded, fighting to keep my voice steady despite the sudden weight on my lungs. "What’s happening?"

"The Gate Boss..." Damon spat, wiping fresh blood from his lip. "The Sovereign-rank monster inside the Grade 8 Gate. It’s pushing against the opening. It’s trying to come through."

My blood ran cold. A Sovereign-rank boss.

"Listen to me, kid," Damon said, turning to face me with authority in his grey eyes.

"I can’t protect everyone down here. Right now, the barriers between the valley, the Academy, and the city are failing. Normally, those barriers can hold back Grade 6 and Grade 7 monsters for a while, but with the main defense damaged, the horde is going to pour straight into the Academy streets."

He stepped closer, placing a hand on my shoulder. "You’re an Expert rank. You have no business fighting near a Grade 8 Gate. Take this girl, fall back to the secondary line inside the Academy, and stay safe. Hold out until the main reinforcements from the Union arrive."

"What about you?" I asked.

"I have to go back to the ridge," Damon said, his tone grim. "Morgana can’t hold a Grade 8 boss and a Grade 7 horde alone. If I don’t help her keep those high-grade monsters pinned in the basin, the whole city will be destroyed soon."

Without waiting for my answer, Damon turned on his heel, his body blurring into a streak as he launched himself back into the thick purple fog toward the ridge.

"Hey! Wait—" I called out, but he was already gone.

"Fuck you, Damon," I muttered under my breath, glaring at the empty fog where he had vanished. "Telling me to just run away and wait..."

I knelt back down beside Malva, carefully lifting her up into my arms. She was light, her head resting weakly against my chest. I looked back toward the path leading to the Academy, my mind spinning with the sheer scale of the nightmare unfolding around us.

"Leo!"

A familiar voice called out through the mist. I snapped my head around to see two figures running through the purple haze.

It was Roan and Elisabeth.

_

Deep inside the Sealed Valley, a hundred meters above the broken ruins, the Grade 8 Gate pulsed like a dying star.

At the edge of the basin, standing on a pile of dead beasts, was Morgana.

She was wearing the same dark coat she had on at the banquet, now torn and soaked with blood, the sleeves shredded from claws and teeth. Her black hair was still in its messy ponytail, strands sticking to her sweaty face.

She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling as she leaned on her heavy sword, her dark purple eyes burning with fierce, unbreakable anger. Around her lay the torn bodies of shadow stalkers, broken knights, and rotting horde beasts.

She had killed dozens of them alone, her War affinity turning her into a wall of destruction.

Haaah... haaah...

Morgana wiped a smear of blood from her cheek with the back of her arm, her sharp eyes never leaving the floating tear in the sky ahead.

Then, she felt it.

A huge, crushing wave of corrupted mana burst from the center of the Gate.

It wasn’t a physical blast, it was a heavy, suffocating weight that slammed into her soul. The air around the ruins turned pitch-black as the sky cracked open further. The violent energy pressed down on her shoulders, forcing her boots deeper into the bloody ground. Her bones ached under the weight.

Morgana looked up, her dark eyes widening as she stared straight into the center of the Grade 8 Gate.

Deep inside the pulsing tear, a huge, dark shape was moving. Giant hands made of solid, dark mana gripped the edges of the rift, slowly pulling it wider. A pair of crimson eyes, bigger than buildings, lit up inside the darkness, staring down at the valley with cold, hateful intent.

It’s coming out...

Morgana gritted her teeth so hard her gums bled. Her grip tightened on her sword until her knuckles turned white.

She wanted to charge forward. She wanted to leap into the sky and drive her blade into that monstrous eye before the creature could fully come through. But as she took a single step toward the Gate, a low, growling snarl echoed behind her.

She glanced back over her shoulder.

Thousands of monsters, Grade 4 frost titans, shadow beasts, and corrupted horde units, were pouring out from the ruins, rushing like a black wave straight toward the valley ridge. That ridge was the only path leading down into the Academy and the city below.

Morgana froze.

If she left her position on the ridge to fight the Gate Boss, that wave of monsters would break through the wall. They would flood the academy and its city, tear through the homes, and kill every civilian and student in their path before the Union’s army could arrive.

She was trapped.

"Damn it..." Morgana hissed, her voice trembling with a mixture of fury, exhaustion, and horrifying realization. "Damn it all!"

She couldn’t move forward. She couldn’t fall back. She was stuck on this ridge, forced to stand alone against an endless army while watching the world-ending monster pull itself out of the sky right above her head.