The medallion struck the ground, spun twice with a metallic clink, then came to rest beside the toe of my boot.
I lowered my gaze.
There it was—a circle crossed by three diagonal lines.
The same symbol from the crates, the same seal we'd found in the records, and the only lead that had dragged us all the way into the hell that was Vahr-Nei.
I slowly raised my head.
The man remained seated in the chair, perfectly still, as though the chaos of the city around him meant absolutely nothing.
Now that I was actually looking at him, I realized my first impression had been wrong.
That wasn't heavy armor. Quite the opposite.
The black plates, carrying faint bluish reflections, followed the contours of a tall, lean body with almost anatomical precision.
There were no massive pauldrons, thick slabs of metal, or unnecessary bulk.
The protection resembled a second metallic skin, narrow segments covering his chest and ribs, connected by flexible joints that left his arms, waist, and legs completely free.
It was armor forged for speed.
Not to endure a blow, but to never be where the blow landed.
The only truly extravagant part of his appearance was the enormous red crest attached to his helmet, long enough to stream behind him like a lethal tail whenever the city's filthy wind swept through the street.
Beside his chair, planted in the ground, rested his weapon: a dark spear, unusually long and slender.
Its green tip gave off a dull, sickly glow I couldn't identify.
Tsukumo stepped forward.
"You know about the belt."
The figure tilted his helmet slightly.
"Yes."
"How?"
"Information."
My jaw tightened.
"What a wonderful answer."
The dark visor turned toward me.
"It's the only one necessary."
"Not for me."
The figure remained motionless, and Tsukumo continued questioning him, his voice carrying a calculated chill.
"You know we crossed Yorm. You know people died at the checkpoint, and you know we've been here for hours."
"So either you were following us..." He let the sentence hang, allowing the implied threat to fill the silence.
"...or someone else was."
A muffled sound escaped from inside the helmet. It might have been a dry laugh, or simply filtered breathing.
"You came here believing Syfles was a border."
The figure slowly uncrossed his legs and rested one metal-covered hand on his knee.
"It isn't. It's a throat. And everything that passes through it leaves something behind."
Tsukumo remained completely silent, letting the stranger continue.
"Two unknown divine signatures enter the belt," the man listed, raising one finger with each point.
"An old code is used. An inspection post records divine blood. Five men stop responding. Two credentials disappear."
His hand closed into a fist again.
"And shortly afterward, two strangers wearing uniforms from that same post arrive on Vahr-Nei."
My stomach tightened.
"Syfles warned you about us."
"Syfles warned everyone who pays to be warned."
I glanced around, studying the street.
The flow of people remained frantic—merchants, hunters, and porters arguing over prices in some guttural dialect.
No one appeared to be paying attention to us.
But suddenly, I found myself wondering how many faces in that crowd were only pretending not to care.
The muffled voice from beneath the helmet cut through my thoughts.
"The information arrived before you did."
Tsukumo gestured toward the medallion on the ground with his chin.
"And the symbol? Does it belong to a Messenger?"
The figure remained silent for several long seconds, and the dense pause was enough to irritate me.
"You just said we know too little," I snapped.
"So answer. Maybe we'll spare you a fight."
The helmet tilted a few degrees toward me.
"You still think Messenger is someone's name."
I remembered what Kânia had explained.
It was a title.
But the way this man spoke made it sound like something far larger—and far more dangerous.
"Then what does that symbol mean?" I demanded.
He stared at the medallion.
"It means someone far above the men you killed wanted those shipments to reach their destination."
"Who?"
"No one currently on Vahr-Nei."
My expression hardened as frustration crawled up my throat.
"So we wasted our time."
"No."
The answer came immediately, sharp as a blade.
"You simply learned that you've been looking in the wrong place."
Tsukumo stepped closer, shortening the distance between them.
"You keep avoiding the main question. Who are you?"
Silence.
The red crest drifted lazily in the polluted wind.
"Someone who got here before the others."
I didn't like that answer.
Instinctively, my hand lowered, hovering dangerously close to Kazekiba's hilt.
The man noticed.
Of course he noticed.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Turn anxiety into violence."
My gaze hardened.
"You don't know me."
"I don't need to. I've seen enough of your kind."
"For whatever reason, plenty of gods and demigods have crossed these routes to reach this filthy place over the last few years."
The figure finally stood, revealing his true height.
He was tall, but considerably narrower than Tsukumo.
His lean frame almost disappeared beneath the fitted plates, yet there was something lethal in his posture that made it impossible to mistake him for fragile.
He pulled the spear from the ground with absurd ease.
No stone cracked.
No scrape of metal echoed through the street.
The weapon simply left the ground as though it weighed nothing.
"You two walked in here like hunters," he said, lightly spinning the spear between his fingers.
"But Vahr-Nei has already decided that you're the prey."
I frowned.
His free hand moved to his waist and pulled out a thick stack of papers.
With a sharp flick of his arm, he threw them toward us.
Sheets scattered across the street in the wind, some striking my legs while others slid across the gravel.
One caught against Tsukumo's boot.
I bent down and picked up the nearest one.
My own face was printed across it.
A remarkably accurate rendering of us—my long hair tied back, part of my face concealed beneath the shadows of the stolen coat.
Below the image, the words stood out like a death sentence.
UNIDENTIFIED DIVINE HUMANOID
HIGH BLOOD CONCENTRATION
DEAD OR ALIVE
OPEN BOUNTY
Something cold slid through my stomach.
I grabbed another flyer.
Tsukumo.
UNIDENTIFIED DIVINE HUMANOID
HIGH BLOOD CONCENTRATION
DEAD OR ALIVE
OPEN BOUNTY
The entire planet was buying our heads.
I looked back at the armored figure, anger overtaking the shock.
"So you knew. And you let us keep walking around the city. Why?"
The dark visor remained fixed on me.
"I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice."
That irritated me more than it should have.
I was about to answer when a dry metallic click sounded to my left.
The merchant who had been standing a few meters away had vanished behind his own stall.
In his place, three heavily armed men rose.
One held a short rifle with three parallel barrels.
Another spun a thick metallic chain around his forearm.
The third wielded a heavy weapon that looked more like a hunting harpoon than a spear.
Another click came from above.
I looked up and found four marksmen positioned along a metal walkway.
Two more appeared in a window to the right.
Behind us, a heavy armored gate slammed shut, cutting off our escape route as the awnings of nearby stalls were hurriedly pulled back.
The conversations in the street began to die.
One by one.
The chaotic noise of Vahr-Nei faded with unsettling speed, but not because people were running away.
They were simply making room.
And watching.
I extended my senses.
Hostile signatures began appearing from every direction.
"Tsukumo."
"I know."
He remained still, his eyes sweeping across the buildings.
"Twenty-six."
I expanded my aura perception, feeling vibrations through the ground.
More figures emerged from alleyways and rooftops.
"Thirty-four."
"Forty now," he updated.
My jaw locked.
The armored figure didn't seem remotely concerned about the army closing around us.
"You set this up?" I asked without taking my eyes off the shooters.
"No. But I allowed it to happen."
He casually rested the spear across his shoulder.
More bounty hunters sealed both ends of the street.
Some smiled in anticipation of the money.
Others wore completely cold, professional expressions.
No one looked afraid.
That bothered me deeply.
They knew exactly what we were.
Gods.
And they were still coming.
The armored figure turned his back and began walking away.
"Wait!" I called.
He stopped.
"You said we're looking in the wrong place. Where should we be looking?"
The helmet slowly turned, the dying star's red light reflecting across the metal.
"If you're still alive after this... meet me in the Red Deserts."
My eyes narrowed.
Then he disappeared.
An explosive shot shattered the ground between us, throwing up a cloud of smoke and gravel.
There was no more time for conversation.
"ALIVE!" a rough voice shouted from the top of a building.
"THEY'RE BOTH WORTH MORE ALIVE!"
The street erupted into motion.
The first attack wasn't gunfire.
It was three harpoons.
They weren't aimed at us.
They deliberately passed around our bodies—one above, two below—before burying their thick tips into the surrounding structures.
The instant the metal pierced stone, blinding lines of energy connected them, weaving a geometric field around us.
I felt the change immediately.
Something invisible and impossibly heavy forced my aura back into my body.
I tried to propel myself upward, but I barely made it two meters before I was slammed back into the gravel.
I skidded across the ground.
Flight suppression.
I didn't have time to get angry.
A glowing metal net launched toward me.
I drew Kazekiba and swept the blade through a rapid arc.
The first slash struck the mesh, and the instant the steel touched the wires, I felt my vital energy being violently drained.
I jumped back, my heartbeat accelerating.
"Don't touch the nets!" I shouted.
Tsukumo had already understood.
A second net flew toward him.
With a calm motion, he opened his hand.
Space folded.
The net froze in midair.
But only for half a second.
A device mounted at the center of the mesh began flashing rapidly, and Tsukumo's spatial restraint flickered.
The net forced its way forward another few centimeters.
His golden eyes narrowed in recognition.
"They came prepared."
"Yeah!"
Tsukumo twisted his wrist sharply.
Instead of continuing to fight against the net's resistance, he violently altered its trajectory.
The trap sailed past him and wrapped around three of the hunters instead.
The men collapsed as their own equipment began draining their energy.
They weren't amateurs.
But they clearly weren't prepared for Tsukumo's level either.
Five shots tore through the street.
I felt the displacement of air before the report even reached me.
I raised my free hand and compressed the wind into a curved wall ahead of me.
The projectiles didn't stop.
The airflow changed their trajectories.
Two shattered against a building.
One buried itself in the ground.
The remaining shots grazed the fabric of my coat.
A muffled blast detonated in the middle of the street immediately afterward.
No flames.
Only thick gray smoke swallowing everything.
My perception disappeared almost instantly.
I wasn't physically blind.
It felt more like someone had ripped out my internal radar.
"Shit!" I cursed, trying to see through the toxic haze.
They were attacking our senses.
A fast shadow appeared through the smoke to my left.
I ducked at the exact instant a blade hissed through the space where my neck had been.
Without hesitation, I caught the attacker's extended arm, pivoted through my hips, and threw him hard against the stone floor.
Another mercenary was already behind him.
Kazekiba swept through a short, lethal arc and cut the man's weapon in half.
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second.
Long enough.
I drove a heavy kick into his chest and sent him backward.
More footsteps sounded around us.
Fast.
Heavy.
Coming from every direction.
"Right," Tsukumo warned.
Three hunters burst through the smoke at once.
The first fired.
The second threw a weighted chain.
The third slid low with a short spear aimed at my legs.
I lowered my head, letting the projectile scream overhead, then stomped hard against the ground.
Earth answered.
A thick slab of stone erupted upward, intercepting the chain in midair.
The metal wrapped around the rock.
I pulled with everything I had, wrenching the hunter off balance.
Tsukumo completed the maneuver.
With a snap of his fingers, he locked the first man in midair.
I slid beneath him and drove Kazekiba's hilt into the third attacker's face.
We never stopped moving.
Our coordination had been forged through years of battle.
We broke through the smoke only to find an even worse war zone waiting outside.
More mercenaries had arrived, and several were already mounting strange devices onto the surrounding buildings.
Four metallic pylons flashed simultaneously around the plaza.
For one dizzying instant, the gravity acting on my body behaved incorrectly.
Tsukumo's aura tried to expand in response.
It flickered.
Failed.
He stared at the machines.
A massive scarred man laughed from across the street, pointing his rifle.
"WE GOT THE BIG ONE!"
Tsukumo turned his gaze toward him.
Not even a trace of irritation crossed his face.
For anyone who knew him, that was the worst possible sign.
"No," he said, his voice quiet and dangerous.
He closed his hand.
Nothing happened to the devices.
Then Tsukumo opened his fingers.
He didn't try to overpower the machines.
He simply removed the ground they were anchored to.
The slabs of stone beneath the stabilizers tore free from the street.
The field collapsed with a piercing hum.
The mercenaries' smiles vanished.
Tsukumo raised one eyebrow, composed as ever.
"Now, Suki."
I moved.
Fire formed around my left hand, contained and lethal, nothing like the volcanic explosions I would have unleashed in an open battle.
I compressed the flame into a thin, superheated line and, with a quick turn, severed the exposed cables of the fallen stabilizers.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
A frightening, deep, rhythmic sound echoed above us.
I looked up.
A massive winged creature covered in tactical armor was diving between the towers, two heavy cannons mounted along its monstrous arms.
The weapons began to glow.
Tsukumo and I rolled in opposite directions.
The ground where we'd been standing a second earlier collapsed under an invisible shockwave.
My stomach twisted almost unbearably.
That energy didn't burn.
It didn't cut.
It disrupted the rhythm of my aura, making the Transformation inside me writhe and falter.
"That thing attacks our core!" I warned.
Tsukumo was already measuring the beast with his eyes.
He disappeared.
Reality folded.
The distance between the ground and the creature simply became shorter for him.
Tsukumo appeared above the monster and planted his palm against its armored shell.
The beast growled and tried to twist him off.
It couldn't move a millimeter.
Its entire body remained suspended and immobilized in midair.
Then the defensive systems across its armor began flashing red.
Tsukumo exhaled heavily.
He channeled aura through his hand.
The military armor convulsed under the force, and the creature was crushed beneath the pressure.
The street had already become an absolute battlefield, but something disturbing was becoming painfully clear.
These men weren't fighting like ordinary mercenaries trying to survive an encounter with gods.
They fought with surgical precision, like veteran hunters dealing with dangerous beasts.
Every squad had a clearly defined function.
The first suppressed flight.
The second blinded perception.
The third carried weapons capable of draining energy.
The fastest among them tried to entangle us.
No one fired or advanced without cover.
They did this all the time.
The realization sent a chill down my spine.
"Tsukumo!" I called.
He moved toward me, slipping past a harpoon without even looking at it.
"We need to get out of the city."
We broke into a sprint.
Kazekiba traced a perfect arc through the air, severing two weighted chains launched along the ground, exactly where the energy mesh couldn't make direct contact with my aura.
A marksman appeared in a second-story window, leveling his rifle straight at my face.
Instinct took over.
I punched the barrel upward.
The plasma shot punched a hole through the ceiling.
Using my shoulder and momentum, I drove the shooter back into the room and kept moving upward.
Seven armored mercenaries rushed Tsukumo at once.
With an almost lazy movement, he waved his hand.
All seven weapons stopped in midair as though embedded in invisible concrete.
The veterans abandoned their useless rifles instantly and drew backup pistols from their holsters.
Tsukumo's brow tightened slightly.
Impressed.
"Actually experienced."
"Yeah!" I shouted from above as I reached the roof.
I planted both palms against the concrete slab and closed my eyes.
Earth.
I felt the building's foundations.
The vibration of stone mixed with the metal supporting its central pillar.
I pulled only the exact amount of material I needed.
One support column cracked.
Then failed.
Tsukumo, perfectly synchronized with me, altered the center of gravity of the building's upper section.
The structure slowly tipped.
Its groaning became deafening as it came down, crushing everything beneath it and destroying the surrounding equipment—including the energy harpoons suppressing our flight.
The instant I felt my ability to fly return, I launched myself into the sky.
Tsukumo followed immediately.
"Those bastards!" I said from above, looking down.
"We underestimated them."
I shoved a hand into my pocket and pulled out the folded paper I'd taken earlier.
The bounty notice.
It had been crumpled during the fight, stained with dirt and soot, but my distorted likeness still stared back at me beneath thick letters.
I crushed the paper tighter in my fist.
"How long before this reaches other planets?"
Tsukumo's golden eyes swept across the dusty horizon, carrying an old, cold understanding.
"It already has."
I didn't like the answer.
Even though I knew it was absolutely true.
Their information network moved much faster than we did.
Vahr-Nei's sky looked even redder now.
Oppressive.
Sickly.
Beyond a low chain of black stone mountains, the terrain changed completely.
The sparse vegetation vanished.
Dark rock gave way to an immense expanse of red sand, suspended dust, and colossal stone formations, all dyed beneath the dying light of the star.
"The Red Desert."
"Looks like it."
The armored man's image returned to my mind in full force.
The crest dancing in the wind.
The lethal spear with its green tip.
The distorted voice echoing through my memory:
Meet me in the Red Deserts.
Tsukumo followed my gaze, studying the vast wasteland ahead.
"He knew we'd make it out."
I shoved the crumpled bounty notice back into my pocket.
"We'll find out."