The mission sounded simple.
"Investigate a pulse. Lower West District. Possibly a failed Ringbearer," Mira said.
But she didn't come.
Instead,Elior was assigned to a scouting team:
—Kade, the quiet swordsman with two rings and no small talk.
—Juno, the sharp-eyed empath who didn't believe in optimism.
—And Lyric—a red-haired girl who talked too much, smiled too fast… and could burn through steel with her bare hands.
"This is your field test," Juno said. "We're not babysitting."
The pulse led them to an abandoned shopping mall.
Dust. Silence. Old mannequins staring from shattered glass.
Elior touched the wall. His Second Ring hummed.
Something passed through here. Recently. And not alone.
"Tracks lead down," Kade muttered. "Sub-levels."
They descended.
Then the lights flickered.
A sound—like glass shattering inside the walls.
Juno froze.
"Feel that?" she whispered.
Lyric stopped mid-step. "Someone's here. Watching."
The hallway twisted slightly—Elior saw it.
Not physically. But in the ripples.
Someone was shaping space.
Suddenly—movement.
A figure darted past the far corridor.
Kade ran after it without a word.
"Wait—" Juno called, but he was gone.
Then the doors behind them slammed shut.
They were trapped.
"Split reality pocket," Lyric whispered. "Someone's using a Ring."
Elior focused. Second Ring pulsing.
He saw the threads—this wasn't natural. A ring-shaped construct… but wrong. The curves bent backward. Tearing at the air.
Then a voice echoed through the halls.
Not loud.
Just wrong.
"You burn, but you don't know fire.
You see, but you've never watched."
Lyric shouted, "Show yourself!"
Silence.
Then—screams, far down the hall.
Kade's voice. Brief. Then cut off.
Juno cursed. "Trap. This isn't a failed Ringbearer.
This is a hunter."
They tried to break out.
Lyric burned through three walls. Elior bent a doorway open.
But the space folded in on itself—like a Möbius loop.
Then suddenly—
It stopped.
The air collapsed inward. Sound snapped.
And they were back in the real hallway.
Lights flickering.
Silence.
Kade was gone.
Only three of them walked out.
No pulse left on the scanner.
No trace of what hunted them.
Juno reported it in two sentences. No emotion.
Lyric didn't speak for hours.
Elior… didn't sleep that night.
He sat in the dorm's common hall, staring at his hand.
The rings pulsed slowly.
Something in the city had seen them.
And let them live.