In the bastion, the night had passed normally.
The guards had completed their rounds. The soldiers had slept. The fires had gone out one by one.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing alarming.
The following morning, no one immediately noticed the patrol's absence.
Patrols sometimes took time.
It was not unusual.
So they waited.
The hours passed.
It was only toward the middle of the day that someone raised their eyes to the sky.
And saw something.
A silhouette.
In the atmosphere.
It was falling more than flying — an erratic, uncontrolled descent, like a being that had lost all control of its own body.
A soldier cried out.
Then another.
Others rushed forward.
The silhouette landed heavily in the courtyard of the bastion, raising a cloud of dust.
When it cleared…
It was one of the patrol soldiers.
His armor was damaged.
But he…
He was standing, barely. His eyes were open — wide open — but they looked at nothing. They passed through the faces around him without seeing them. His lips moved slightly, producing no sound.
The soldiers rushed to him.
Some called him by name.
He did not respond.
Sabelle Orageval arrived moments later, alerted by the noise. She knelt immediately at his side. Her fingers moved across his wounds with expert precision — closing, stabilizing, applying subtle but effective energetic treatment.
She analyzed each wound carefully.
Some were clean, caused by a blade. Others were torn and irregular, like scratches left by something that was not an ordinary weapon.
Sabelle remained silent for a moment.
It was not the wounds that troubled her.
It was him.
An elite soldier. A man who had survived dozens of battles. He had already seen blood. He had known worse. And yet he was trembling. His eyes were those of a man who had looked at something incomprehensible — and had not yet found his way back.
« What happened? » she asked, her voice firm but gentle.
The soldier gathered all his strength.
« I… I don't know. »
He swallowed with difficulty.
« It was… as if… my body… no longer belonged to me. »
Sabelle frowned slightly.
This was not simply the shock of an ambush. This was not the ordinary fear of a wounded soldier. Something else had occurred in that solar system. Something this man could not name.
She had him transported to the command quarters.
Ignivar Valeflammis was waiting for them.
His blazing eyes settled immediately on the soldier. He stepped forward, his face tense.
« What happened? »
The soldier straightened slightly. He answered the questions clearly, precisely, without hesitation.
His name. His rank. The patrol route. The moment contact had been lost with the others.
Sabelle opened her mouth to ask the next question.
It was at that instant that the air changed.
Not gradually.
Not progressively.
In a fraction of a second.
Something in the atmosphere of the room shifted — an invisible pressure, a tension that had not existed a moment before and that suddenly filled every centimeter of the space.
Sabelle felt it before she saw it.
Her muscles contracted instinctively. Her energy swelled, deploying like a reflexive shield around her, responding to a threat she had not yet identified but that every fiber of her being recognized.
The soldier took a step forward.
A single step.
But in that step, there was something unreal. The air around him began to distort — a subtle, almost imperceptible warping, like heat shimmering above a flame.
His internal energy was rising.
Too fast.
Far too fast.
Sabelle understood at the same moment as Ignivar.
The soldier was no longer himself. Something inhabited him — something that had been waiting for this precise moment, in this precise room, before these precise people — and that was preparing to consume everything.
He was going to explode.
Ignivar moved.
It was not a movement. It was a decision transformed into pure action, with no space between the two.
His lance traced an arc through the air.
And the soldier's head flew.
All of it took less than a second.
Less than a heartbeat.
The head rolled across the stone floor and came to rest against the base of the wall.
The body remained upright for a fraction of a second too long — the span of a suspended breath — then collapsed slowly, the energy that had accumulated within him dissipating into the air like smoke unraveling.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Sabelle stared at the body.
She was still searching — by reflex, by professional instinct — for the trace of what had just happened. A signature. A residue. Anything.
Nothing.
The energy that had swelled inside the soldier had vanished as if it had never existed.
As if something had withdrawn it at the last moment.
As if a candle had been blown out.
Ignivar stood motionless, lance in hand.
His face was perfectly calm.
But his eyes burned with an intensity his commanders rarely saw.
He had killed one of his own soldiers.
He'd had no choice.
And the most troubling thing was not the act itself.
It was that something, somewhere in this solar system, had planned for it to happen exactly like this.
He slowly turned his eyes to his commanders.
« Assemble all soldiers. »
His voice was calm.
Perfectly calm.
Like a man who understood that if he did not keep his voice at exactly this level, something far more fragile might begin to break around him.
« All commanders. »
He looked one last time at the body on the floor.
« Immediately. »
The assembly took place in the great central courtyard of the bastion.
The elite soldiers lined up in perfect ranks beneath the white sun of the solar system. Their armor gleamed. Their faces were serious, professional.
But in their eyes moved something new.
A silent unease.
Rumors had already begun to circulate — as they always did in an army. A patrol gone missing. A survivor returned in an incomprehensible state. Something that had occurred in the command quarters that those who were present refused to describe.
The soldiers looked straight ahead.
Upright. Disciplined.
But some had their jaws slightly clenched. Others breathed a little too regularly — that forced regularity of someone controlling their breathing because if they stopped, something else might show in its place.
Ignivar stepped onto the central platform.
He did not hurry.
He stopped at the center. Drove his lance into the ground. And let the silence settle.
Then he spoke.
« A patrol of twelve soldiers disappeared last night. »
Absolute silence.
« Only one came back. »
He let those words settle.
« He came back with a broken mind. »
A pause.
« I do not know what happened out there. I do not know if it was an enemy soldier. A divine creature. A being of a nature we have not yet encountered. »
His gaze moved slowly across the ranks.
« What I know is that something is in this solar system. »
He paused.
« We are launching an immediate investigation. Across the solar system. Across the surrounding space. Across every accessible dimensional layer. We will analyze every zone, every anomaly, every fluctuation until we find out what it is. »
His voice hardened slightly.
« Solo patrols are over. Every movement is carried out in groups. Every soldier watches »
each other. Every report of an anomaly goes directly to the commanders. »
He paused.
« We are the elite of the Kōyōjin. Not prey. »
His voice hardened slightly on those last words.
« Conduct yourselves accordingly. »
While the soldiers returned to their posts, Sabelle organized the analysis.
She had selected a dozen specialists — soldiers trained in the detection of energy fluctuations, capable of perceiving residue left by unusual powers. Together they moved through the ranks methodically, passing from soldier to soldier, extending their perceptions toward each presence.
Sabelle directed the operation herself.
She closed her eyes at intervals.
Searched.
Probed.
Nothing.
No foreign energy residue. No anomaly in the flows. No trace of an infiltration, a seal, a mental manipulation.
The soldiers were exactly what they appeared to be.
Her specialists confirmed the same thing, one after another.
Negative. Negative. Negative.
Sabelle stood motionless for a long moment in the center of the courtyard after the last report was given to her.
Her grey eyes contemplated something the others could not see.
This was not reassuring.
If she detected nothing…
Either there was nothing to detect.
Or what they were facing surpassed her capacity to perceive it.
And that second hypothesis was infinitely more disturbing than the first.
But there was something else.
Something she had not yet said aloud.
When she extended her perception across the solar system, she could feel everything. The energy currents. The gravitational flows. The residual signatures of every living being in this bastion.
But there were places where she felt nothing.
Not the void of ordinary space.
Not the normal absence of presence.
Something different.
Points in the solar system where energy simply did not circulate. As if something was preventing reality itself from functioning normally in those precise locations.
Like holes.
She kept that thought to herself.
For now.
The commanders' meeting took place in Ignivar's private chamber at the top of the bastion.
A sparse room, lit by the white sunlight filtering through tall openings. A large stone table at the center.
Ignivar stood with his arms crossed behind his back, facing the windows.
It was Bram who spoke first.
His voice was low, but the frustration in it was palpable.
« A patrol of twelve elite soldiers. Vanished. Without a trace. Without detectable combat. Without energy residue. »
He placed his fists on the table.
« And a survivor who decapitates himself in front of us without apparent reason. »
His gaze moved around the room.
« How is that possible? »
Kael answered without raising his eyes.
« Because whatever this is does not fight frontally. »
He turned an object slowly between his fingers.
« Twelve soldiers who disappear without leaving a trace. One who returns — in a state that makes any interrogation impossible, then dies before he can speak. »
He finally raised his eyes.
« This is not an attack. It is a message. »
A tense silence settled.
Aethron spoke, his voice cold and precise.
« Kael is right. The way this is orchestrated is too deliberate to be random. »
He crossed his hands on the table.
« Someone wants us to know they are here. But not who they are. Not what they want. »
A pause.
« Which means they are not finished yet. »
Sabelle nodded slowly.
« I analyzed every soldier in this bastion. My specialists did the same. »
She paused.
« Nothing. Not the slightest fluctuation. Not the slightest trace of a foreign presence. »
She looked at Ignivar's back.
« What is out there… I cannot see it. »
Then she added, lower.
« But I can sense where it is not. »
All eyes turned toward her.
« There are zones in this solar system where energy does not circulate normally. Places where my perception finds nothing — not because there is nothing there, but because something is preventing reality from existing normally in those precise spots. »
A silence.
« Like holes, » said Kael.
Sabelle looked at him.
« Exactly like holes. »
Ignivar finally turned.
He stepped toward the table and placed both hands flat on its surface.
His gaze passed over each of his commanders.
« Here is what we are going to do. »
His voice was calm. Absolutely calm. But in his eyes burned something intense and unshakeable.
« Sabelle will deploy energy detection beacons across the entire solar system. Not just around the planet. In every sector. Every zone of space. If anything moves in this system, I want to know. »
Sabelle nodded.
« Aethron, you will map every shadow zone in the system. The places where the sun's light does not reach. The asteroid belts. The zones of abnormal gravity. Everywhere something could hide. »
Aethron noted this mentally.
« Bram, you reinforce the bastion's defenses. I want a double line of protection around the planet. Nothing enters and nothing leaves without direct authorization. »
Bram nodded, his face grave.
« And Kael. »
The master of ambushes looked up.
« I want you to think like whatever is doing this. »
A silence.
« If you wanted to sow chaos in an army like ours without showing yourself… how would you do it? »
Kael offered an imperceptible smile.
« I already am. »
Ignivar gave a slight nod.
« Good. »
He straightened.
« We do not know what we are facing. We do not know its capabilities or its intentions. »
His gaze hardened.
« But we are going to learn. »
He let the silence stretch for a moment.
« Questions? »
Bram crossed his arms.
« One. »
He looked the general directly in the eyes.
« When we find it… do we eliminate it? »
Ignivar held his gaze.
« When we find it… »
A pause.
« We will see what it is. »
Later that night, in the lower corridors of the bastion, two soldiers were completing their night rotation.
Their pace was steady. Professional.
But their silence was different from the nights before.
It was no longer the silence of discipline.
It was the silence of two men who did not dare say aloud what they were thinking.
The older one spoke first. His voice was low. Almost a murmur.
« You were there. In the courtyard. When it happened. »
The second soldier did not answer immediately.
His eyes continued scanning the corridor ahead. The shadows. The intersections. The dark spaces between the torches.
« Yes. »
A silence.
« And? »
The second soldier inhaled slowly.
« He was walking. Talking. »
He paused.
« He was answering questions. »
His voice was perfectly flat. Like someone reciting facts to avoid having to feel them.
« And then his head… »
He stopped.
The older soldier waited.
« There was no blood. No impact. No energy. Nothing. »
He shook his head slightly.
« Like something inside him had simply… decided to stop. »
They continued walking.
The torches cast their moving shadows across the stone walls.
« Sabelle found nothing, » said the older one.
It was not a question.
« No. »
« Aethron either. »
« No. »
Silence.
« Then what is it? »
The second soldier did not answer immediately.
They reached an intersection. He looked in every direction before continuing.
A new habit.
A recent one.
« I don't know. »
His voice was calm.
But something inside it had changed.
The tone of someone who had understood that not knowing is sometimes the most terrifying answer there is.
They continued their rounds.
Without speaking.
The shadows followed them.
Ignivar remained alone long after his commanders had gone.
He stood at the window, looking out at the immensity of the solar system. The white sun burned at the center, impassive. The infinite darkness between the stars stretched out to where his soldiers had disappeared.
He had told his commanders what he believed.
But there was something he had not told them.
Something that had settled in him since the survivor's return.
A certainty, irrational and absolute, lodged somewhere behind his sternum like a cold ember.
What was out there was not just watching the army.
It was watching him.
Specifically.
Personally.
As if, among all the beings in this bastion, it had already decided that Ignivar was the only one worth its attention.
He did not know if that should terrify him.
He did not know if it did.
He only knew that he had not slept since the patrols began.
And that the darkness between the stars felt, tonight, closer than it ever had before.