(Planet Yuguoi)
The battlefield on Yugoui was a far cry from the planet's former splendor. Once, it had been a realm of opulence—a place where golden veins threaded through mountains and rivers of liquid crystal wound like serpents through a gleaming, verdant landscape. Now, all that beauty lay buried beneath the carnage, a charred and broken shell of its former self. The sky above was a darkened, bloated mass, thick with the smoke of burning bodies and the flickering, fiery remnants of a dying sun.
Below, the scene was a slaughterhouse of celestial proportions. Alien creatures—twisted, bloodthirsty abominations—scrambled across the scorched earth, their bodies malformed and twisted, lashing out with claws like jagged rocks, and teeth that could tear through steel. Their inhuman forms blurred in the distance, a maddened tide of chaos, seeking to rend and destroy.
Amidst the madness, the Phoenix soared—an immense creature of burning red and orange plumes that cast an otherworldly glow across the battlefield. Its wings cut through the smoke like a pair of flaming knives, each beat sending gouts of fire down upon the hordes below. Its talons, long and sharp, slashed through the alien invaders with brutal precision, rending limbs and torsos alike in a shower of molten blood and viscera. The creatures that dared approach were incinerated instantly, their screams silenced as they were consumed by the Phoenix's relentless blaze. The entire sky seemed to pulse with the creature's fury, each burst of fire sending ripples through the atmosphere like the shockwave of a cosmic explosion.
One abomination—an enormous, armored beast with tendrils that dripped with venom—lunged at the Phoenix, its mouth opening wide in an attempt to snap its fiery beak. The Phoenix twisted mid-air, its wings flaring, and in a single fluid motion, it drove its claws deep into the beast's chest, ripping out its heart in a savage, bloody explosion. Blackened veins burst in every direction, splattering the ground with tarry blood, the beast's final shriek lost in the roar of flames.
The stench of burning flesh and singed metal was thick in the air, and yet, despite the brutality of the battle, there was something undeniably beautiful about it all. The flames danced and licked at the air, creating a surreal, chaotic dance of light and shadow. But beneath that, the planet was dying. The chaos of the fight was only a symptom of the greater destruction—the world was crumbling beneath the weight of the conflict, its golden landscapes shattered and bleeding out into the vast, voided heavens.
In the sky above, a sleek spaceship hovered, its black hull gleaming against the dark backdrop of space. Within its walls, the squad prepared for their descent. The air inside the ship buzzed with energy, the flickering lights casting odd, shifting shadows over the team as they geared up for the chaos below.
Ryo Kallax, the "Fire-Eyed Blade," stood at the front of the group, his white buzz cut a stark contrast against the dark, battle-worn trench coat that flowed like smoke behind him. The black fabric was adorned with intricate space-like details—patches that resembled constellations, threads that shimmered like distant stars. His yellow eyes, thin pupils cut like slits, sparkled with an energy that betrayed his excitement. He had his scythe in hand, its blade shimmering with red flames that crackled and flickered with the energy of a thousand suns. His grin was wide, a mischievous glint in his gaze.
"Ah, it's been too long since I've had a good scrap," Ryo murmured to no one in particular, turning the scythe in his hand with a flick of his wrist. "Better than a nap, right?" He glanced back, the flame licking at his fingers as he toyed with the weapon. "C'mon, I've got a few more battle quotes to add to the journal. Who's got one for me this time?"
Caldrin Ves, "The Whisperbone," shifted uneasily beside him. His ghostly pale skin seemed almost translucent under the ship's dim lighting. He was wrapped in his quiet-silk robes, the fabric so fine it seemed to hum in the stillness. He had short blonde hair, His dark, darting eyes flickered nervously from one corner of the room to the next, never resting for more than a second. Every so often, he would clack his teeth softly, the only noise breaking the heavy silence.
"I… I don't know if a battle quote is a good idea right now," Caldrin muttered, his voice soft and nervous. "I mean… the Phoenix. That's… that's the Guardian of the Astral Branch, right? Shouldn't it be… protecting the Branch? I—I don't think it should be here. What if we're disturbing something?"
"Don't be a buzzkill, nerd," Ryo quipped, throwing him a teasing glance. "If I had a rune for every time someone thought I was 'disturbing something,' I'd have enough to buy my own constellation." He chuckled to himself, the sound sharp and mocking, but still lighthearted. He turned toward Kaela Vire, "Yo, Kaela, got a quote for me?"
Kaela stood apart from the others, her posture stiff, her silver armor gleaming like a mirror. The polished surface was flawless, as always, without a speck of dust or a hint of damage. Her long black hair hung like a curtain down her back, perfectly combed and pristine, and the black horns curling from her forehead only added to the sharpness of her appearance. Her blue eyes, embedded with ancient symbols, flicked toward Ryo, but her expression remained stoic, unreadable.
"Focus, Ryo," she replied in a clipped tone. "We're here to kill an anomaly, not to make jokes. Besides," she added with a slight sneer, "I'm sure the Phoenix's fire is more than enough to keep you entertained."
"Kaela's got a point," Naru Quen said, her voice full of mirth, completely undeterred by the seriousness around her. "We're here to stop the anomalies, not start a comedy show!" Her vibrant red eyes, devoid of pupils, seemed to shine as she twirled in place, the petals of her cape fluttering in the ship's zero-gravity. "Ooh, this is gonna be a blast! I can already feel the energy! It's like… like… when you open a box of explosives and they all go off at once!" Her giggle echoed through the ship as she bounced on her heels, her braids shifting colors like living fire as she grinned ear to ear.
"I'll take that as a battle quote," Ryo said, snapping his scythe into position. "Alright, let's jump before you two start getting all deep and serious on me."
With that, Ryo's hand shot out, shoving Caldrin lightly toward the ship's hatch. "After you, nerd," he teased, his grin widening. Caldrin stumbled forward, his nerves clearly getting the better of him as he clutched the sides of his robes.
"I—what? Me first? I—uh—no—I—I—"
But Ryo wasn't listening. With a mischievous smirk, he pushed Caldrin out of the hatch, the nervous man letting out a startled shout as he tumbled into the air. The others followed quickly after, Ryo last, his grin broadening as he took the plunge voluntarily.
The ground rushed up to meet them, the fiery glow of the Phoenix painting the battlefield below in shades of crimson and gold. The squad plummeted toward the chaos, the war cries of the abominations and the roar of the Phoenix filling their ears as they descended. Each of them could feel the weight of the impending battle—the tension in the air, the crushing sense of fate hanging over them—but for a moment, there was only the thrill of the fall, the wild exhilaration of the descent.
And as they neared the shattered, bleeding world of Yugoui, a terrible, exhilarating chaos was about to unfold.
The air was a maelstrom of shrieking wind and blistering heat as the squad plunged toward the war-torn surface of Yugoui. The ground below, a fractured, blood-soaked battlefield, shimmered with the destructive afterglow of a planet in its death throes. From above, the Phoenix's roaring flame sliced through the chaos like a divine beast writhing against a tide of abominations. Its fiery wings blazed, the very sky bending beneath its immense power. Yet, as the squad descended, the planet's surface was their destination—chaos waiting to be carved, their names to be etched in blood and ruin.
As they neared the ground, the first monsters and grotesque aliens appeared, their horrid shapes darting toward them with shrill, guttural shrieks. They were alien—twisted and malformed, their bodies cobbled together with bizarre amalgamations of flesh and metal. Some were humanoid, with sharp, jagged limbs and skull-like faces that twisted in eerie, silent screams. Others were grotesque, spider-like horrors, their limbs elongated to impossible lengths, ending in wicked talons that gleamed like polished obsidian.
The first abomination charged at Ryo, its clawed hand reaching out to tear him in half. But Ryo was faster. He spun mid-air, the scythe in his hand flashing in a brutal arc, its red flame tracing a crimson trail through the atmosphere. His scythe cleaved the abomination in two, the creature's upper half shattering like glass, spilling viscous, black ichor in all directions. Without missing a beat, Ryo twisted his body, landing gracefully with his feet skimming the scorched earth. "Ahh, that's the stuff," he smirked, twirling his weapon as another monster lunged at him.
But he was already moving, his blade flashing out like a whip, carving through the air and meeting the beast's long, spiny limbs with devastating force. Its torso exploded into a mess of sinew and gore as Ryo spun around, twirling the weapon in his hand. "Didn't think I'd be this entertained today," he teased, dodging the falling body of the dead monster, which shattered into a bloody mess at his feet.
Kaela Vire landed with a calculated grace, her boots skimming over the ruins of the battlefield. Her astral gun was already in her hands, and she fired with deadly precision.
'Seize the lives of the forsaken..'
Each plasma bullet she released tore through the alien hordes, exploding with destructive force, their molten bodies disintegrating into nothingness with a sizzling pop. The recoil didn't faze her, and she continued to fire, each shot a fluid, meticulous movement, every bullet infused with the energy of her soul. Her nose bled from the strain, but her focus never wavered. She was a machine of cold, precise violence.
"Stay sharp, Ryo!" she called over her shoulder, her voice calm and clipped, even as she dispatched another group of creatures. She quickly pivoted, extending her weapon into a bladed form, and with a swift upward strike, cleaved through the body of a grotesque creature with multiple limbs, its body falling apart in a burst of scorching blood.
Behind her, Naru Quen, hurtled through the air, her gauntlets crackling with destructive energy. The cape of light-petals fluttered as she sped across the ground, an unstoppable force of nature. Her laughter echoed across the battlefield as she punched through the chest of a massive, reptilian beast, her gauntlets igniting with the energy of a dying star. The beast's body crumpled like paper, its bones shattering beneath her fists. With an over-the-top giggle, she twirled in mid-air, landing effortlessly beside the others. "Oh, this is going to be a great day! I can already feel the joy radiating!" She clapped her hands, and the earth seemed to tremble beneath her as the force of her punch sent shockwaves through the alien ranks.
But amidst the chaos, Caldrin Ves, the nervous one, was trying to focus. His wide eyes darted from side to side, his hands trembling as he clutched his ritual notes. "N-no… no, no, I-I need to track the anomaly—don't—please, don't—stay close—!" His voice was frantic, barely audible above the din of the battle. His mind raced as his clairvoyance tried to pick out the distortion in the fabric of the world. The symbols on his notes seemed to shimmer with an eerie glow as he muttered under his breath, trying to ground himself.
Ryo shot a sly glance over his shoulder, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "You know, if you want to track it, maybe you should try moving faster?" He called, his voice dripping with teasing mockery as he slashed through another monstrosity. He let a few creatures get close to Caldrin, purposefully—just to watch the man flinch and scramble back.
"I-I'm trying, Ryo!" Caldrin snapped, his teeth clacking nervously as his hands shook. His eyes darted again, trying to peer into the shifting currents of fate, the chaotic auras surrounding the planet, searching for the anomaly's telltale sign. Every time he focused, the world seemed to spin around him, distorted and unreal. His stomach churned, but he had to stay grounded—had to find it. "Please… just… keep it together, Caldrin. You can do this. Focus…"
Ryo chuckled from behind him. "You're right, you're right, I'm just having some fun. You're fine, I'm sure you'll find it, eventually."
Naru, ever the bright one, spun and raised her voice over the clash of violence. "Hey, Caldrin! You know if Ryo is getting on your nerves, you can always give me 1000 runes to bash his face out!"
Ryo chuckled, "Ha. You wish."
"I'd help," Kaela called, her voice tinged with impatience as she fired another round. She ducked low, narrowly avoiding a counterstrike from a large, hulking alien creature with massive pincers. It lunged at her, but she twisted in a fluid motion, slamming her blade into its neck and severing its head in a single clean strike. The body crumpled as she whipped around to face the next wave.
The battle only escalated from there. A massive, multi-limbed creature—its skin covered in razor-sharp spikes—charged toward Naru. But with a single leap, she vaulted over it, using her gauntlets to plant herself on its back before smashing her fists down into its skull, cracking it open like a walnut. The beast's body spasmed before collapsing beneath her, blood and black ichor pooling in all directions.
Meanwhile, a group of smaller, fast-moving aliens darted toward Kaela, their skeletal hands reaching for her throat. She didn't flinch. Instead, she twisted mid-fight, spinning her plasma gun into a bladed form, and cleaved through one's midsection with an impossibly swift motion. The next one met a similar fate, her movements seamless and unbroken as she stepped aside to avoid a wild swipe.
But the carnage was far from over. The ground beneath them was riddled with holes, the remnants of destroyed monsters, and the scorched, cracked landscape of a dying world. Yet even amid all the death, there was something almost beautiful about it—the way the squad moved through the battlefield, a lethal symphony of precision and raw power.
Ryo strafed to the side as another monstrous creature with multiple clawed arms came barreling toward him. In a fluid motion, he whipped his scythe forward, catching the creature's arm mid-swipe, and with a twist, he wrenched it from its body. "Whoops," he quipped. "Guess you lost that one. Don't worry, I'll give it back later."
Caldrin, still jittery and distracted, clutched his notes tighter, focusing once more. He could feel the pulse now—the anomaly was near. The air itself seemed to warp around him, vibrating with dark, twisted energy. It was close—so close.
As the battle raged on, the squad fought their way forward, their every step leaving a trail of death in their wake. But all of them—Ryo, Kaela, Naru, and even the ever-nervous Caldrin—were aware of the same thing: the anomaly was close.
And they were about to face something unlike anything they had ever encountered.
The battle's chaos faded into a breathless hush as the squad approached the spectacle—a grotesque monument that clawed its way into the sky like a scar across the dying planet. Rotted red arms, impossibly massive and coiling like roots from some buried god, spiraled upward. Each arm was torn and flayed, the skin sloughing off in strips, baring tendons glazed in gold-veined decay. Where shoulders should have ended, bloomed wings—two per arm, massive and broken, their membranes like scabbed parchment stretched over rusted bone. And in each withered hand, nestled like a tumor, was a singular eye—wide, veiny, and wet—slowly turning in unnatural, patient rhythms.
They stared. The arms rose high into the smog-dark sky, unmoving yet somehow breathing, like something that should never have existed. And bound between them, suspended by chains of decaying sinew and celestial thread, was a boy.
Or—no. Not a boy. A man. A weapon. An anomaly.
Wrapped in tattered white bands that clung to his slender frame like funeral cloth, the young man hung like a crucified omen. Only one eye was visible beneath the folds—a deep, brooding red, full of burning rage that refused to die. His face was sharp, youthful, maybe no older than twenty, and his dark red hair hung in a messy undercut, damp with sweat, blood, and planetary ash. The exposed half of his face glared down at them with a silence heavier than war drums.
Naru Quen gasped. "Oh my stars…he's handsome..." Her pupils pulsed like little red stars. "That eye. That rage. I could bottle it and drink it like tea!"
Ryo snorted, swinging his scythe onto his shoulder. "Tch. He's not all that. He's just an abomination.
"He's not an abomination, Ryo," Naru said, grinning with mock outrage. "He's an experience."
"Gross…"
Caldrin, squinting at the writhing arms above them, muttered under his breath, "That's not a human. O-Or he might be one, he looks like one, I don't know..That's—something else. I don't think we've ever catalogued anything like this… I-I need to record this—"
Kaela sighed sharply. "Focus. This is an anomaly. A dangerous one. He still needs to die. Naru, control your hormones. Ryo, don't do anything—"
But Ryo was already walking forward.
"You know me, Miss Glasses," he called back, drawing the scythe's blade along the ground. It hissed with molten heat. "I never waste time when there's fun to be had."
He planted his foot, spun the scythe around in an intricate flourish, and exploded upward in a fiery arc toward the suspended anomaly. "FLARE BIRTH — SCYTHE-SHATTERING PHANTOM EXECUTION!!" he bellowed, flames bursting from the edge of his weapon like serpents uncoiling from a star's core. "I totally made that up just now."
The blow came fast and devastating, slicing through the air with an explosive howl—and stopped.
An invisible force crushed the swing mid-air. A translucent red barrier sparked like a cracked mirror, absorbing the full force of the attack. Ryo was hurled backward, flames scattering like dying comets.
From below, Kaela was brushing alien blood from her pristine gloves with a ragged breath, flinching as Ryo's attack stirred up waves of dust and dismembered limbs. "Ryo," she snapped, pulling out a small cloth from her chest pouch. "You are getting alien gore on my armor. I just polished this for today."
"I told you not to go all rough like that!" Naru yelled, shaking her head. "He's obviously special! Look at those binds! Look at those… forearms!"
"You mean forearms as in the guy, or the big red nightmare limbs?" Caldrin whispered, teeth clacking lightly as he pulled another scroll from his bag, eyes still nervously scanning the air. "I..I think the barriers are rotting magic…like… divine grade rot…"
"Exactly," Ryo muttered, now landing with a cloud of cinders rising around him. He dusted himself off, twirled his scythe, and gave a long exhale. "This one's tougher than the last. I like it."
He looked up at the anomaly. "You've got something behind those eyes, don't you, kid?"
The boy didn't speak. He just stared. Furious. Silent. And yet—somehow pleading.
And then… something shifted in the air.
It came like a sound without origin, like bones crumbling underwater. The sky behind them twisted.
And from that silence, a voice dripped like tar over glass.
"Fools."
The squad turned sharply.
Hovering above them, floating effortlessly, was a new figure. And he was wrong—wrong in a way that made the air itself recoil.
His skin was a deathly pale, like bone that had never seen the sun. Black veins ran like rivers across his flesh, crawling beneath his skin with a sickly pulsing. From where his eyes should have been, red curling horns spiraled outward—bone pushing from bone, jagged and ornamental, like crowns broken in war. He had four arms—long, jointed in strange ways, fingers tipped with curled talons. His chest was smooth and featureless. He had no mouth. No nose. And yet he spoke, his voice echoing from somewhere deeper than the body. And he had 4 large wings on his back, looking exactly like the wings on the giant red arms, with its rotten red color.
He hovered, and behind him bloomed a celestial crest—a majestic, magical wheel of pale grey and white, delicate and sickening, with a blackened skull at its center, crowned in flickering embers. The mark of Vornath, the constellation, the god of Decay, Death, and Reclamation.
"I am Atralyth," the figure declared, and the sound of his name carried weight like stone upon the heart. "Vessel of Vornath. Guardian of this soul. The boy is the world's enemy. He is our tool. Our tether. The divine constellations have chosen him."
He raised his arms. The rotted red arms spiraled higher in response. The massive wings along them flexed.
"This power of rot, this grave of wings, is mine. My divine curse seeps through him to keep him bound and fractured. He is the key. You will not touch him. You will not free him."
The squad bristled.
"Dibs on the floating freak," Ryo muttered, gripping his scythe tighter.
"To be fair," Naru added, stepping beside him with a twinkle in her eye, "he is kind of an ugly beautiful. Like a corpse and a chandelier had a baby."
Kaela adjusted her glasses. "That's not beauty. That's cosmic contamination. Disgusting."
And Caldrin, softly, eyes wide as he traced a protective symbol on his arm, whispered: "A fight with a vessel? Here of all times..?"
'Why even is the Phoenix here? It's supposed to be the guardian of the Astral Branch, the very cosmic tree that holds all the worlds and planets together..so much is going on..is this out of our league? Did Yurei know about this?'
The moment Atralyth's coal-dark gaze landed on the marks at their necks, his expression shifted—not in fear, but disdain sharpened by ancient recognition. His head tilted ever so slightly, and in that grotesque stillness, the spiral wings above him twitched, the massive red arms groaning like rotted trees in the wind.
"Ah…" His voice rasped like wind over a mass grave. "So you're not just wandering fools… you are of her brood. Yurei's puppets…"
He drifted closer, eyes narrowing as the air rippled. "The Hunt."
His gaze locked on the glowing sigils pulsing faintly on each of their necks—the Living Crest of Yurei. The Hunt's mark. The Void-Eye. The shattered chains. The bleeding vein. Every cursed line and living edge of it stared back at him with as much hunger as his own god.
Atralyth's tone dripped with venomous reverence. "Branded by the ever-watching light. Her gaze truly reaches too far." He chuckled—deep and eerie. "Yurei sends her slaughter dogs… but not to free this one. No… she wants what lies inside him. She always wants the things she cannot control."
Then—he vanished.
No wind. No sound.
Just absence.
A blink—and he was already in front of them.
The squad jerked back as Atralyth exploded forward—his body becoming a streak of grey, radiant rot blooming in arcs behind him like the corona of a dying star. One of his four arms surged, coated in crumbling bone and a grotesque grey aura, speckled with black necrotic runes that pulsed with hunger. His speed was blinding—impossibly fast, collapsing the space between him and the squad in less than a breath.
Kaela's eyes widened. "No time to—!"
But before he could reach them—before decay could touch flesh—
Gunjo appeared.
Like gravity inverted, space rippled with pressure. A howl of black and white energy ripped through the sky, and in a blur, Gunjo intercepted Atralyth mid-air—his hand clamped over Atralyth's entire face.
Gunjo's aura ignited—a violent bloom of black and white fire, celestial and furious, threading through the fabric of the battlefield like divine threads spun from wrath. Behind him floated a new sigil, shimmering with mythic resonance—a Black Comet, veined with burning fractures, pierced by a sword and crowned, a celestial crest of a dead god's final scream.
The force of his interception cracked the air like a sonic war drum.
Even Atralyth, unflinching before mountains of death, was visibly shocked.
Gunjo roared—
And they launched.
Two bodies—one divine, one defiant—collided like meteor gods.
They shattered through mountains, sending titanic plumes of dust and burning rock into the sky. Every impact they made created shockwaves, rupturing the ground like cosmic fault lines, smashing through alien relics, collapsed cities, and stone megaliths older than memory.
And then—Gunjo twisted, coiled, drew back his arm—and unleashed the punch.
A cataclysm.
Gunjo's fist connected with Atralyth's torso, and from the point of impact a black comet explosion detonated, incinerating the air in all directions. The sky turned red and white. Space itself shrieked. Atralyth was launched like a ragdoll through a mountain, which exploded into a spiral of molten rock and ash behind him.
Far above—the Astral Phoenix paused.
Its massive head turned. The golden flames of its body flickered—drawn to Gunjo, drawn to the very soul of what he was. It reached toward him, one enormous wing pushing forward.
But the moment it tried, alien hordes leapt from the darkness, throwing themselves into its path.
The Phoenix roared. Its screech disintegrated the first wave on impact. The rest followed, swarming its radiant body—and dying in droves, bursting into gold-lit gore.
Still, the Phoenix tried to reach him.
Still, the anomaly burned.
Back below, the squad was frozen in place, staring at the devastation—dust and gravity swallowing the horizon.
"Did—" Naru blinked, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. "Did anyone else just see him save me?" She clutched her face dramatically. "He caught the scary death god. He's strong. Angry. Screaming. I think I'm in love!"
Kaela sighed, flicking ash off her shoulder. "You fell in love. That was falling. In real time."
"I'm writing him a song," Naru whispered. "It'll be called Punch Me With Your Sadness."
Ryo, eyes still locked on the burning horizon, grinned. "That's him. He has The Black Comet…8No doubt about it."
Caldrin blinked. "Wait—but that's—real? That's not some constellation myth?"
"We all heard Yurei say it," Ryo replied. "The last breath of a dead god… picked a human. And gave him that." He adjusted his coat, eyes gleaming. "Yurei's gonna lose it when she sees this."
Kaela frowned. "A human anomaly holding the full power of a god? That's not just rare. It's impossible."
"And yet…" Ryo started forward, his scythe humming with flame. "We're still the Hunt. Which means the impossible's our job."
Caldrin groaned. "Y-You mean we're supposed to capture him?"
Naru skipped forward with a wink. "Sounds like a romance quest to me."
Kaela tightened the grip on her astral gun. "He's fighting the Vessel of Vornath alone. If we can't even keep up… we're not worthy of the Hunt."
Ryo smirked. "Damn right. Complaining makes us look weak."
Without another word, the four of them burst forward—side by side, racing across the scorched terrain, weaving between smoking craters and charred alien corpses, sprinting toward the thunder of divine war.