Ash couldn’t believe his eyes. At first, he tried to dismiss this as a vivid dream, blinking hard and slapping himself multiple times to wake up from the nightmare. But the stinging pain on his cheek was entirely real.
The person standing in front of him was his eldest brother, Maxwell Burns, one of Varagos’s most renowned scientific prodigies. More importantly, Max belonged to a rival faction that strictly opposed Apex. Why did he join Apex? How did Apex’s screening process not catch this?
’Dammit, what is he doing here?’
A sudden, dangerous warmth swelled in Ash’s chest, born from the instinctive love he still felt for his brother. The entire reason he had run away was to protect his family from the curse of his fire core. Now, his brother had foolishly tracked him down.
"Max, what are you—"
"Hey!!! I found something!"
A loud shout from across the clearing shattered the moment. Ash and Max immediately turned their heads toward the commotion. The other miners and troopers were already crowding around a deep excavation pit.
Kelvin marched to the front of the crowd, with his hand resting on his sidearm.
"What is it?"
A miner holding a shovel pointed down into the mud. Resting at the bottom of the pit was a bizarre-looking chest. It was heavily bound in thick, rusted chains, its surface deeply etched with strange, ancient drawings and faintly glowing symbols.
One of the troopers leaned over the edge, inspecting the metal.
"Hmm... looks like an artifact from whatever civilization used to live here."
Another trooper looked up at Kelvin.
"Should we open it?"
"No! Are you an idiot?"
Kelvin snapped.
"We have no idea what those symbols mean, and something highly dangerous could be sealed inside. It’s best to transport it directly back to the flagship for proper examination. This planet is practically bleeding ancient magic, and I am not risking a containment breach."
The first trooper nodded in agreement.
"True... this place is crawling with anomalies. The Third Commander actually acquired her very first Soulbound on this world."
Suddenly, a voice chimed in from the back of the crowd.
"Wait, what if that chest is already full of Soulbounds?"
Ash’s eyes widened. The voice had come from right next to him. He whirled around and hissed under his breath.
"Hey! What are you doing...?"
Max stepped a bit closer, speaking from the corner of his mouth while keeping his eyes fixed on the pit.
"I’m curious, obviously! It’s an ancient chest with weird symbols. If they take it back to the flagship, I’ll never get a chance to examine it, or worse, find out what’s hidden inside."
Ash stared at him in disbelief.
"Argh... Shouldn’t you stay quiet? Do you want to blow your cover?"
Max let out a low, quiet chuckle.
"You don’t have to worry about me. I won’t get caught. Besides, why would I be the first to get caught when Tyrin hasn’t been caught yet? Also, opening that chest will create the perfect distraction for our escape."
Ash froze, the word ’escape’ echoing in his mind. But a second later, the rest of Max’s sentence registered. He spun fully around, barely containing a shout.
"Wait... Tyrin is here too?!"
Up ahead, the trooper standing closest to the chained artifact turned back to Kelvin, clearly swayed by the recruit’s suggestion.
"They have a point, sir. What if it is full of Soulbounds? Do you really want to hand whatever’s inside over to upper management without taking a peek first?"
Kelvin stared at the chest, his eyes narrowing as greed wrestled with his caution. After a long, tense silence, he finally grunted.
"Alright. Open it."
The trooper grinned, reaching down to pull at the rusted chains.
"Wait."
Kelvin’s voice cut through the air. The trooper stopped, looking back in confusion.
"What is it, sir?"
But Kelvin didn’t answer him. He pushed through the crowd, walking straight toward the back until he stood directly in front of Ash.
"How about you open it?"
Ash stared at the trooper, completely overwhelmed. He was still processing the fact that both of his brothers were on this godforsaken planet, and now he was being dragged into a highly volatile situation.
"Why me?" Ash asked flatly.
Kelvin glared down at him.
"Do I need a reason to choose you? Go. Open the chest."
Ash looked back at the large artifact. Normally, an odd, potentially lethal object would be the perfect tool to finally end his cursed life, but Ash knew better.
Remembering the cliché plot armor from the webnovels he used to read when he was younger, Ash knew that touching a mysterious ancient relic usually resulted in some kind of power-up or a Soulbound. He wasn’t taking that gamble.
Just as he opened his mouth to refuse, Max spoke up beside him, altering his voice behind his mask to sound like a standard recruit.
"Does he have to, sir? The commander explicitly stated he wanted the boy kept alive. That implies the kid has some sort of importance to Apex."
Kelvin turned his cold gaze onto Max.
"And why is a mere recruit questioning his superior?"
"I’m not questioning, sir. Just offering logical advice. If the boy dies here, we might all face the consequences from upper management."
Kelvin stepped closer to Max, his expression darkening.
"And so what... we can just pin the blame on the kid."
He looked at Ash.
"Isn’t he that troublesome, suicidal miner? Even the commander knows this kid actively seeks death. If he were truly precious, Apex wouldn’t have thrown him into a slave labor force in the first place. The only reason he’s alive right now is because of sheer pity for the Burns name."
Max stared back through his visor, his tone entirely calm.
"Do you honestly believe Apex would show pity to any Sons of Flame if they captured them?"
Kelvin’s jaw tightened in anger.
"Recruit, I ask you again... why are you questioning your superior? It seems you’ve forgotten the rules of the corps. I noticed you were defective the moment you ran up to the commander earlier. I suppose executing you right here would save Apex a lot of future trouble."
Seeing Kelvin’s hand drift toward his weapon, Ash immediately stepped between them.
"Enough... I’ll open it."
With a heavy sigh, Ash walked down into the pit toward the chest.
Up close, the chest was massive, large enough to easily fit a full-grown human inside. Ash took a sharp breath and glanced back at Max, who subtly shook his helmet, signaling him to stop.
Ignoring the warning, Ash let the pickaxe slip from his hand, and it struck the ground beside him with a dull clang. He grabbed the thick chains and pulled. To his surprise, the metal shattered instantly, dissolving into a fine cloud of rust and dust under his grip. The disintegrating chains were a testament to how long the chest had been buried beneath the earth.
He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then reached for the heavy stone lid and heaved it open.
Immediately, a blinding, searing white light erupted from the depths of the chest. It was followed by an agonizing, echoing scream that tore through the air, violently shaking the entire forest.
The surrounding miners and troopers cried out, clapping their hands over their ears in absolute horror.
Ash gritted his teeth against the deafening noise. A screech of this magnitude would undoubtedly draw every predator on the planet straight to their coordinates.
Enduring the pain, Ash reached out to slam the lid shut, but the moment his fingers brushed the escaping light, his skin began to blister and burn.
He didn’t care about the pain. He threw his entire weight onto the lid, but for some reason, the lid refused to close.
’What the hell is going on...?’
Kelvin shouted frantically from the edge of the pit, his voice barely audible over the screech.
"Hey! Close that damn chest immediately!"
Ash yelled back.
"What do you think I’m trying to do, you moron?!"
He poured his strength into the stone lid. As an Ascended with a Tier 5 vessel, he should have easily been able to crush the chest entirely, but an invisible force was pushing back from the inside, actively fighting his pressure.
Suddenly, the ground violently vibrated. The sheer force of the tremor knocked Ash off balance, forcing him to lose his grip. The lid swung violently open, the concussive force blasting Ash backward into the dirt.
As he hit the ground, the deafening scream from the chest abruptly died out. The sudden silence felt almost unnatural, replaced only by the deep, rhythmic rumbling of the earth beneath them.
The monsters of the planet were already arriving.
"Shit!"
Kelvin bellowed, abandoning all protocol.
"Everyone scatter into the woods! Regroup at the secondary site once the horde clears out!"
But before anyone could run, a miner pointed a trembling finger toward the pit.
"Hey... what the hell is that standing next to the chest?!"
Ash, who was still recovering on the ground just a few feet away, snapped his gaze toward the relic.
Standing right beside the broken artifact was a creature unlike anything he had ever seen.
Its skin was pitch-black, and its featureless black eyes stared eerily down at Ash. Despite its monstrous appearance, its anatomy was flawlessly human.
’Huh...’
Ash felt an immediate, deeply unsettling sense of familiarity looking at it, even though he knew with absolute certainty that this entity was not human.
The light from the chest had vanished, leaving the relic in pieces. The black creature tilted its head to the side, curiously studying Ash. Then, its lips parted into a creepy, wide smile showing its black teeth.
’What a weird bast—’
Ash’s thought cut off instantly as the creature’s right hand was suddenly engulfed in something resembling black flame. It lunged forward, bringing its blazing fist straight down toward his head.
Even though the flame was black, Ash’s eyes widened as he instantly recognized the ability. He threw himself backward, narrowly escaping the blast as the black flames scorched the earth where he had just been lying.
’No way... How is it using that?!’
Max rushed into the pit, grabbing Ash by the arm and pulling him to his feet.
"Hey! Are you okay?"
Ash nodded rapidly, his eyes never leaving the entity.
"We’ve got a problem. That thing has a Fire Core. It just used the Fire Palm ability."
Max turned to look at the dark entity, his brow furrowing beneath his visor.
"Huh... doesn’t he look incredibly familiar to you?"
Ash glared at his brother.
"Do you know him?"
"They’re here!!" a trooper screamed from above.
Before Max could answer, the dim light of the clearing vanished entirely. The dense forest grew pitch-black, plunging them into a sudden, unnatural shadow. Ash looked up into the foggy sky, his heart stopping at the sight.
Tearing straight through the thick layer of fog and shattering the ancient forest canopy was a colossal hand, descending upon the clearing with the crushing weight of a falling mountain.