Kai’s pov Morning bled through the hospital blinds, casting a washed-out gray light across the sterile room.
Alexander Voss stood by the window.
The Sentinel watched the cleanup crews moving through the ruined city streets below.
He hadn’t left all night.
Confined to the narrow hospital bed, Kai tracked the man’s movements.
The only sound in the room was the steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.
Beside the bed, his grandfather and Raina slept hunched in uncomfortable plastic chairs.
Voss finally turned away from the glass.
His boots muffled against the linoleum as he approached, stopping right at the foot of Kai’s bed.
“Your family is asleep,” Voss said.
His voice was a low, gravelly rumble that barely carried over the monitor.
Kai kept his mouth shut.
Gritting his teeth against the sharp burn in his ribs, he shifted his weight.
He angled his body just enough to place himself directly between the Sentinel and his family.
Voss caught the micro-movement immediately.
“Relax, kid.
If I wanted to hurt them, I wouldn’t have waited for you to wake up.
You can be at ease.” Kai’s shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch.
His eyes stayed locked on the man.
Pulling up a metal chair, Voss sat.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“I’m going to ask you a direct question, I expect a direct answer.” Kai locked his jaw.
“And what if I don’t want to answer?” Voss didn’t blink.
“Look,” Kai continued, keeping his voice quiet so he wouldn’t wake Raina.
“You saved my family.
I’m grateful for that.
I’ll do whatever it takes to repay you someday.
But guys like you?
Higher-ups?
You don’t give a shit about people like us.
You only move when there’s profit.
You only step in when you have something to gain.” Kai gripped the thin hospital blanket.
“I don’t know what you want from me, but I’m damn sure it’s going to cost me.” He braced his core.
He had just stepped directly on a landmine.
Peasants didn’t talk back to shining collars.
He fully expected the Apex Sentinel to lean over and drive a fist straight through his broken ribs.
Instead, a low, faint chuckle rumbled deep in Voss’s chest.
“You’re older than your age, kid.” Voss’s expression smoothed back into a mask of cold authority.
“Don’t worry.
I don’t need anything in return.
Just answer the question.” Kai hesitated.
His guard remained firmly up.
“Fine.
What is it?” “What do you know about the White Ghost?” Kai frowned, his brow furrowing naturally.
“The what?…..No.
I’m hearing that for the first time.” Voss leaned back.
The metal chair groaned under his massive weight.
“Fair enough.
But the boy rose right in front of your eyes.
I saw a body drifting into the crater just underneath him.
I presume that was you.” Kai kept his face entirely blank.
“I didn’t see much of anything.
A monster hit me, my body gave out, and I passed out.
I can’t tell you about things I didn’t see.” Voss studied him.
The Sentinel’s icy blue eyes dug in, searching for the lie.
For a long minute, neither spoke.
Then, Voss stood up.
His massive frame cast a heavy shadow over the bed as he turned and walked toward the door.
Right at the threshold, he stopped.
He didn’t look back.
“If he is your family,” Voss rasped, his voice dropping to a dangerous, heavy whisper.
“And if he is still human…
don’t go to the Federation.
Come to me.” Voss turned his head just enough to catch Kai’s eye.
“That is, if you and your family want to live.
Got it?” The door clicked shut.
Kai let out a shaky breath.
The silence of the room rushed back in, suffocating and thick.
He looked at Raina, sleeping peacefully against Grandpa’s arm.
“Lucen…” he whispered to the empty room.
⋙ ──── ✦ ──── ⋘ Several hours later, the ward finally began to wake.
Raina stirred first.
She rubbed her swollen eyes, blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights.
The second she saw Kai was awake, she scrambled out of her seat and perched on the edge of his bed.
She didn’t cry this time.
She just grabbed his hand and held onto it with a desperate, grip.
Grandfather woke a few minutes later with a heavy groan.
His bad knees popped loudly as he pushed himself up.
He rubbed the back of his neck, scanning the room.
“Where’s the Sentinel?” “He left,” Kai said.
Before Grandfather could ask anything else, a sharp spike of noise drifted in from the hospital corridor.
Shouts.
Startled gasps.
A crowd of nurses, doctors, and walking patients was gathering around the mounted television out in the hallway.
Grandfather stepped out of the room to get a better look.
Raina and Kai shared a quick glance.
Pushing through the pain, Kai swung his legs over the side of the bed.
He grabbed his IV pole and dragged it across the linoleum, limping his way toward the doorway.
The news anchor’s voice echoed down the hall.
“…we have just received leaked, recovered footage from the Sector 135 battlefield…” The screen displayed shaky, drone-captured video of the ruined district.
Thick black smoke billowed into the stormy sky.
Fire gutted the remaining skyscrapers, casting an ugly orange glow over the rubble.
Then, the camera zoomed in on the absolute center of the destruction.
A figure hovered in the air.
It was wrapped in a blinding white aura.
A jagged, dark horn protruded from its skull, glowing with a sickly violet light.
The footage glitched as a massive Mawlord charged the floating figure, jaws unhinged.
The boy simply looked at it.
The monster vanished.
It wasn’t burned.
It wasn’t blown to pieces.
It was cleanly, terrifyingly erased from existence.
The camera panned out.
The battlefield was littered with dead Riftborn, all bearing those same impossible, perfectly circular voids through their armor.
Raina pressed both hands over her mouth.
Kai’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Grandfather stared at the screen, completely motionless.
They didn’t need to see his face.
They knew the shape of his shoulders.
They knew how he held his head.
They knew that silhouette better than their own.
“Lucen,” Raina whispered.
Her voice cracked right down the middle.
A heavy, suffocating weight lifted off Kai’s chest.
He let out a breathless, broken laugh, leaning heavily against the doorframe.
He wasn’t crushed under the rubble.
He wasn’t dead.
His little brother was actually alive.
But the relief didn’t last.
The broadcast abruptly cut from the battlefield footage to a live press conference.
Director Sterling stood behind a polished Federation podium.
His face was pulled into a mask of grim, practiced sorrow.
“The incident at Sector 135 has resulted in an unacceptable loss of civilian life,” Sterling announced, his voice echoing through the silent hospital ward.
“After a thorough internal review, the Federation has determined that our vanguard response was severely compromised by poor leadership.” Kai’s smile vanished instantly.
A photograph flashed onto the screen next to the politician.
It was Lucy.
She was wearing her crisp Sentinel uniform, her face serious and proud.
The bold text below read: LUCY BERNCOF – DISHONORABLE DISCHARGE.
“The responsibility for the catastrophic failure of this operation rests heavily upon the Sentinel commander assigned to the perimeter,” Sterling continued smoothly, not missing a beat.
“Effective immediately, Lucy Berncof has been stripped of her rank and privileges pending a full military tribunal.” Kai gripped the metal IV pole.
“No…” Sterling lowered his head, a perfect picture of political regret.
“On behalf of the Federation, I apologize to the families who lost their loved ones.
We will ensure this never happens again.” Grandfather let out a harsh, bitter scoff.
His eyes were cold as he glared at the politician on the screen.
“Actions speak louder than words,” Grandfather muttered, his voice dripping with disgust.
“That’s how the suits handle their mistakes.
They find a good soldier standing beneath them and crush her to protect their own necks.” Kai remembered Lucy sitting beside his bed just days ago.
He remembered her exhausted, hollow eyes.
He remembered the sheer devastation she carried after losing her entire squad to save people she didn’t even know.
“She wasn’t incompetent,” Kai said, his voice trembling with a quiet, dangerous rage.
“The threat was just too big.
It wasn’t her fault.” But the truth didn’t matter.
You reap what you sow, unless you have the power to make someone else harvest it.
The Federation needed a scapegoat, and they had just publicly executed her career.
⋙ ──── ✦ ──── ⋘ Days bled into a week.
Sector 135 slowly started to breathe again.
Heavy machinery cleared the rubble from the main roads.
The temporary medical tents were packed away, and construction crews were already rebuilding the shattered perimeter walls.
The city was trying to heal.
Kai was finally discharged.
His ribs still burned with a dull ache every time he took a deep breath, and he walked with a heavy limp, but he was on his feet.
That evening, he sat alone in a dimly lit, dusty hunter’s bar on the edge of the district.
The neon sign outside buzzed with a faulty wire.
A glass of cheap whiskey sat untouched on the sticky table in front of him.
He stared at his phone.
He had tried calling Lucy’s military comms five times today.
He had even limped his way down to the Vanguard headquarters to ask for her at the front desk.
The answer was always the same.
She disappeared after her discharge.
We don’t know where she is.
Finding a disgraced Sentinel was easier said than done.
Kai put the phone face-down on the table and rubbed his tired eyes.
At the booth next to him, a group of off-duty Hunters was drinking heavily.
Their voices carried over the low hum of the bar.
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t a monster,” a hunter said.
He slammed his empty mug down for emphasis.
“Did you see the footage?
That White Ghost thing wiped out an entire Disaster-Class wave without throwing a single punch.
Holy shit, it was beautiful.” “Yeah, and the Specimen Division is absolutely losing their minds,” another Hunter laughed, wiping beer foam from his beard.
“They went down to the crater to harvest the Riftborn armor.
Found nothing.
The ghost just deleted all the good parts.
No blood, no chitin, just perfectly smooth holes.” “Fuck the Specimen Division,” a younger Hunter sneered.
He raised his glass in a sloppy toast.
“That ghost saved our asses.
I don’t care if it’s an alien, a god, or a damn demon.
I’m a lifelong fan.” The table erupted into rough laughter, clinking their heavy glasses together.
The bartender walked over, tossing a dirty rag over her shoulder.
She dropped a fresh round of drinks on their table.
“No matter what that Ghost is,” the bartender said, nodding toward the muted news playing on the corner TV, “we’re better off staying far away from it.
It is what it is.
Now pay your tab before I throw you out.” The Hunters groaned and dug into their pockets.
Kai listened in silence.
He traced the rim of his whiskey glass, keeping his head down.
A tiny, bittersweet smile touched the corner of his mouth.
He looked up at the ceiling, staring past the cheap plaster and the flickering lights, looking out toward a sky he couldn’t even see.
“Where are you, Lucen?” he whispered.
⋙ ──── ✦ ──── ⋘ Far away from the neon lights and the ruined streets of Earth.
Lucen opened his eyes.
The first thing he registered was the freezing, wet mud pressed flat against his cheek.
Every single muscle in his body screamed in pure agony.
It felt as though his bones had been shattered with a hammer and glued back together with liquid fire.
The heavy, metallic smell of the city was completely gone.
In its place was the sharp scent of rotting leaves, and ancient, salt water.
He tried to push himself up.
His arms refused to move.
The pain locked his joints in place, paralyzing him in the dirt.
Then, he heard the breathing.
It wasn’t human.
It was a heavy, wet, rasping sound, coming from just a few feet away.
Lucen forced his heavy eyelids open.
His blurred vision slowly adjusted to the deep gloom of the forest.
He was surrounded.
Strange silhouettes stood over him in the darkness.
They didn’t have the jagged black chitin or the violent red eyes of the Riftborn.
These things were entirely alien.
They were small, wrapped in thick, coarse fur and bone plating that looked like natural armor.
Dozens of eyes stared down at his broken body.
They didn’t attack.
They didn’t bare their teeth.
They just watched him.
Lucen let out a weak, agonizing gasp.
His fingers twitched uselessly in the cold mud.
The largest creature in the pack took a slow step forward.
It lowered its head toward him.
The creature opened its jaws and let out a deep, vibrating resonance that literally shook the mud beneath Lucen’s chest.
KRRRMMMM—TK—KRRRMMMM.
Lucen stared up at the impossible beasts.
He had no idea what planet he was on.
He didn’t know how to get home.
He certainly didn’t know that his own world was already hunting him down as a monster.
He only knew one thing for certain.
He was alive, and he had just landed straight at the bottom of the food chain in the world of Orrak.