They were brought straight to Saeho Tower after that. Yejin had been waiting, and the moment she laid eyes on them, her composure broke entirely — she pulled Yul into a fierce hug first, then turned to Kei and did the same, arms wrapped tight around him like she needed to feel for herself that he was really solid, really there, really breathing.
"I thought I'd never get to say thank you for saving my life." Her voice wavered against his shoulder, thick with tears she wasn't bothering to hide anymore. "I'm so glad you're alive, Kei. I really am."
Kei's hand came up slowly, resting against her hair, holding her back just as tight. "I'm sorry. I had no idea we'd been gone that long." He shook his head, still turning the whole thing over in his mind, still not quite able to make it fit. "Even now, I can barely wrap my head around it. Whatever was down in that cave — it wasn't ordinary. Not even close to it."
Lingshu's voice cut through the moment, grave and sharp, no patience left for sentiment. "What actually happened down there? I want to hear everything. Every detail, in order, don't leave anything out."
Kei took a breath and started from the top. "After I got Yejin out and brought her here, I went back into the cave with Yul and the others to recover the victim's body, and the man who hurt her. His body was already gone by the time we got there. While we were searching the area, I picked up on something else instead. A presence. A crystal." He paused, choosing his words carefully now. "I believe it may have been one of the Heavenly Crystals — one of the twelve the Goddess scattered across the world."
"Truly?" Yejin's eyes went wide.
"I believe so. But the second I touched it, it detonated. Over and over, one blast after another, strong enough to bring the whole cave down on top of us. We were both knocked out, buried under the collapse. Somehow we survived it." His jaw tightened. "But when I woke up, the crystal was gone."
"What?" Lingshu's expression darkened instantly.
"I searched everywhere. Not a trace of it left."
"What you did down there was reckless." Lingshu's eyes bore into him, unflinching. "Didn't it once occur to you to come to us first, before doing something so needlessly dangerous? You gambled with your own life. With Yul's life. Over a stone none of us even understand."
"I know." Kei held his ground, meeting the old man's glare without backing down an inch. "But given what was happening at the time, it was the only choice that made any sense. The man who hurt Yejin had vanished, body and all, and others were already down there hunting the same crystal. If I'd waited even a little longer, they'd have found it first, and we'd have lost any chance to stop them."
"And where is it now?" Lingshu snapped, folding his arms. "They got it either way, didn't they?"
"Not exactly." Kei shook his head. "After we came to, we ran into them a second time. Whoever's controlling them knew exactly what he was doing — they burned themselves alive rather than let us take them for questioning. But the fact that they were still down there weeks later, still searching, tells me they hadn't found it either. As far as I could tell, we're both still looking for the same thing."
Lingshu's jaw worked silently for a long moment, some private argument playing out behind his eyes, before he finally gave a slow, reluctant nod. "Fine. You were right to act, even if I don't like how you went about it. We need to find that crystal before they do, and soon. I'll speak with the Shogun myself — have him double whatever measures are guarding that cave."
"Thank you, Grandmaster Lingshu." Kei glanced around the room then, and something felt off. He turned to Yejin. "By the way, where's Vincent?"
"Oh, he went back to Elion. About a week after you and Yul were declared dead." Yejin's tone softened, apologetic. "Your order must have made the call to withdraw him. He said he'd probably be redeployed with a new partner, though. I just agreed to it — we'd already formalized the partnership with your order by then, so there wasn't much reason to object."
"I need to reach them right away." Kei's mind was already moving. "Is there a wisp anywhere nearby?"
"I've got one in my room." Yejin said, already turning toward the door. "Come on."
Wisps, as it happened, were strange little entities. They are small, semi-sentient bundles of pure prana that never age, never rot, though a hungry enough predator can still eat one whole if it fed on prana the way some creatures did. Wisps are not hatched or birthed. They simply grow, like fruits, off a rare kind of tree that sprouted in scattered regions of the world, unpredictable. When left alone, a wisp just floats in its location, aware but unreactive. A pale grey orb doing nothing at all — until someone feeds it a touch of prana, at which point it flushes green and comes alive, soaking up every sound and sight around it like a sponge. That window only lasts about thirty seconds, though; anything longer than that dissolves into chaotic static, a blur of noise no one could make sense of. Once the message was locked in, the sender had to picture their destination clearly in their mind — a place, a person, didn't matter which — and the wisp would pull that image straight out of their thoughts and use it as a compass. Then it would simply fly, faster than sound, crossing however much distance stood between here and there. People usually filled one with as much prana as it could hold, enough to circle the entire globe a dozen times over if it needed to, which was why a wisp failing to find its target was almost unheard of. It was, in short, the fastest way anyone had to send word clear across the world.
Yejin opened a small wooden container by her bedside and lifted out a dull grey orb, holding it out toward him. It drifted the last few inches on its own, settling gently into his open palm.
"Thank you." Kei fed it a small measure of prana, and the grey dimmed into a soft, glowing green. He began speaking, steady and clear.
"I already know you've heard I'm dead. That's not true. I'm alive. And I believe I've found one of the Heavenly Crystals — but something, or someone, is hunting for them too. From what I've seen, they intend to destroy them, for reasons I don't understand yet. Vincent, if you're hearing this — come back. As soon as you can. I need you here."
He fed the wisp a second, larger measure of prana, this time picturing their old hideout back in Elion as clearly as he could hold it in his mind. The wisp pulled the image straight from his thoughts, and a heartbeat later it shot upward through the open window and out into the sky, already gone, already halfway to somewhere he could not see.
Yejin settled onto the edge of the bed beside him, quiet for a moment before she started telling him what had happened to her in the cave — the parts he had not heard yet. "I think what I saw might help you piece this together. Before I let my guard down, that man cut Minseok's heart out to perform some kind of ritual — a way to speak with his master. Zhuanxu, he called him." She wrapped her arms around herself, the memory clearly still cold. "It was eerie. Cold. Evil, if that's even the right word for it. I've fought soldiers from the Southern Alliance more times than I can count, and I've never felt anything like what came through in that voice."
Kei's gaze drifted toward the window, unfocused. "Zhuanxu. Sounds like the name of a fiend, not a man." He frowned slightly. "I've run into cultists calling out to Lapiztoceles before. Mamon too. But Zhuanxu's a new one to me."
"The summit between Horris and our Empire happens next week," Yejin said, worry creeping into her voice now. "We'll already be stretched thin defending Iona and the summit grounds both — the SAT's certain to invade again. And now we've got this whole business with the cultists on top of it." She let out a slow breath. "As if that weren't enough, those pirates out of Xebec Isles hit the village of Baoahong too just recently. It feels like everything's coming apart at once."
"Then we prepare for all of it." Kei's voice was steady, resolved. "Once Vincent's back, we start digging into who these cultists actually are, what they're connected to." He looked out through the window again, toward the horizon. "If only Haein were here too."
"Haein?" Yejin tilted her head. "Sounds like a woman's name. Who is she?"
"A member of the Fabled Class. Like us." Kei's expression stayed unreadable. "Her parents were part of a cult, actually — here, in Iona."
"She's from the Empire?" Yejin blinked, surprised. "I had no idea any of your order had ever set foot here before you two."
"Deikher probably recruited her, back when he was still active in this region." Kei's voice dropped, quieter now. "Haein went through something horrific. Her sister was taken, sacrificed by the same kind of people we're dealing with now. Her parents didn't lift a finger to stop it — didn't even seem to care, from what I understand. So eventually, she killed them herself. All of them." He exhaled slowly. "She'd be a real asset here, if she ever came."
"Then why not ask for her?" Yejin said, straightening. "This is serious enough that I'm sure your order would understand the need."
"You said Vincent might get paired with someone new." Something almost hopeful crossed Kei's face, just for a second. "I'm hoping it's her."
They left the room not long after. With Yul's unit still out on patrol duty, Kei and Yejin made their way to the training grounds instead, neither of them quite ready to sit still with everything that still hung unanswered in the air.
Meanwhile, far to the north, the cold plains of Freor stretched out white and empty under a sky the color of old iron. Wind cut low across the snow, kicking up thin sheets of frost that hissed along the ground like something alive.
A lone man stood in the middle of it all, seemingly unbothered by the cold. He wore a wide conical hat, its brim dusted with fine snow, and beneath it his eyes caught the pale light strangely — amber, edged in gold, like something lit from within rather than reflecting the sky above him.
Across from him, two figures waited. Hooded, cloaked in black, their faces lost entirely to shadow except for a pair of eyes each — glowing, unmistakably purple, burning steady despite the harsh wind trying to tear the world apart around them.
"Another variable in our plans," one of them said, voice flat and cold.
Neither wasted time on more words than that. Flame burst from their palms in twin arcs, roaring low across the snow toward the man in the conical hat — but he barely moved. A wall of packed earth tore itself up out of the frozen ground in front of him, catching both jets of fire and swallowing them whole, the impact barely disturbing the snow at his feet.
They came at him next, closing the distance fast.
But they did not get far.
Two spikes of stone erupted from directly beneath them, faster than either could react, punching clean through both hooded figures at once. They died standing, mouths still parted around whatever they'd meant to say next. Their eyes were wide open and fixed on nothing. The purple light in their eyes flickered, dimmed, and finally went dark, leaving only two motionless shapes slumped against the stone that had killed them, blood spreading dark and fast across the white snow beneath.
The man in the conical hat lowered his hand slowly, and the earth spikes sank back into the ground without a sound, like they had never been there at all.
He turned his gaze east, toward the horizon, something in his posture shifting — alert now, listening to something far beyond what any ordinary ear could catch.
"Things are getting more serious," he murmured, low, almost to himself, "by the day."
Then, the air in front of him split open without warning, tearing along a jagged seam of black and violet light, and a Gate of Abaddon yawned into existence right there on the frozen plain, hungry and pulsing.
His expression, calm until now, hardened into something far more serious.