No one moved.
Even the sound of their breathing seemed unbearably loud.
Above the Pacific Ocean, something that should never have existed was staring back at them.
Eclipse Devourer hovered in the sky like a living eclipse.
Its cosmic wings blotted out the stars.
Its colossal body split through the clouds.
Four violet eyes glowed coldly above the frozen ocean.
It didn't need to roar.
Its mere presence was enough to make the world feel small.
Aboard the research vessel, several crew members stumbled backward, their knees trembling.
Bimo swallowed hard.
"Okay..."
He stared at the creature without blinking.
"...if I pass out, please make sure I look cool."
No one laughed.
Still, he remained in front of two terrified crew members.
His body was shaking.
But he didn't retreat.
Sinta stepped into the middle of the deck.
Her face was pale. The hand gripping her radio trembled slightly.
Yet her voice remained as sharp as ever.
"EVERYONE, LISTEN UP!"
"Civilian crew, get to the safe room!"
"Farhan, bring the backup radar online!"
"Dika, check the engine room!"
"Bimo, help evacuate the rear deck!"
"NOBODY MOVES ALONE!"
Fear gave way to action.
People began to move.
Not because they were brave.
But because someone had given them a direction to follow.
Dika rushed toward the damaged section of the ship.
The engine room door was nearly torn off its hinges by the waves.
He braced the twisted metal with his shoulder, then dragged a trapped technician out from inside.
A wave slammed into his back.
He refused to let go.
"Get out first," he said curtly.
Farhan dropped to his knees in front of a scorched control panel.
Every primary system was dead.
He ripped out cables, opened the casing, and manually reconnected the circuits with hands still stained with blood from his earlier injuries.
Electrical sparks flashed across his face.
He winced.
Then kept working.
"Come on... come on..."
At last, a small screen flickered to life.
The radar was back online.
Lila immediately moved beside him.
Her eyes raced across the erratic data.
"It's not simply absorbing energy."
Farhan turned sharply.
Lila enlarged the resonance patterns.
"It's synchronizing the void frequency with the planet's Core."
"What does that mean?" Farhan asked.
Lila stared at Eclipse Devourer in the sky.
"If the synchronization is complete..."
"...the planet could be torn open from within."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Farhan whispered, "So it didn't come here to attack us."
Lila slowly nodded.
"It came here to harvest us."
At the far end of the deck, Arga stood staring at the sky.
The MBG Lunchbox in his hand trembled violently.
Twenty-six glowing grains spun inside it, their light pulsing like the heartbeat of the Earth.
At their center, the faint twenty-seventh grain flickered erratically, still unstable and incomplete.
Each pulse sent a strange vibration through Arga's body.
Kai stood beside him, barely able to keep himself upright. The golden light surrounding his body had dimmed considerably since summoning Aethernox.
His gaze never left Eclipse Devourer.
"I know that race."
Arga turned toward him.
Kai had rarely sounded afraid.
Now, his voice was close to breaking.
"They don't pursue victory."
"They know no mercy."
"They only hunger."
Arga tightened his grip on the lunchbox.
"Have you fought them before?"
Kai remained silent for several seconds.
Then he answered quietly.
"No."
He looked up at the darkened sky.
"I ran from them."
Arga fell silent.
For the first time, the mentor who had always seemed unshakable looked like someone carrying wounds that had never healed.
"I watched my world die," Kai continued.
"The oceans boiled. The sky shattered. Nothing was left."
He turned toward Arga.
"And I won't let that happen again."
In the middle of the ocean, the water suddenly exploded.
AETHERNOX rose fully from the depths.
Its ancient crystalline body towered like a living mountain range of blue light.
Leviathan Thalassa emerged on its left.
Thalorion appeared on its right.
Three Guardians of the ocean stood side by side.
The sea, which had seemed frozen only moments ago, began to glow.
RAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Their combined roar shook the clouds.
Waves of blue energy spread across the Pacific.
Far away, on other continents, the world began to respond.
In the Sahara, the desert trembled.
Sand cracked apart as golden light surged from beneath it.
Aurelion Siroth opened its golden eyes.
On the Fire Continent, Ignivar Draco erupted from the depths, blasting molten lava into the sky.
In the Amazon rainforest, Ursus Vitalis rose among glowing trees.
Across the frozen lands, Ursus Glacialis roared beneath the aurora.
In the mountains, Himal Yaksha struck the earth with tremendous force.
And deep within the planet—
Gaia Primordia unfurled its golden wings.
The planet itself was answering the threat.
Farhan stared at the readings, barely able to breathe.
"All the Cores are active..."
Lila whispered, "The entire planet is connected."
Eclipse Devourer gazed at the three ocean Guardians standing before it.
Then...
it smiled.
All four violet eyes blazed at once.
It opened its mouth.
No flames.
No lightning.
Only pure void.
WHOOMMMMMMMMM!
A beam of blackness descended from the sky, cleaving through the ocean.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The seawater surged upward as though the world itself had been split in two.
Aethernox met the attack with ancient blue light.
Leviathan slammed into the side of the descending beam.
Thalorion raised a colossal wall of rushing currents.
Three Guardians stood against a single void.
The sky erupted in blue, gold, and black.
Shockwaves battered the research vessel, nearly tearing the deck apart.
Sinta was hurled toward the railing.
Bimo caught her arm before she could fall.
"Got you!" he shouted, gasping for breath.
Sinta glanced at him.
"...Thank you."
"Remember that," Bimo replied. "It doesn't happen often."
Dika struggled to hold a broken communications mast in place.
Farhan kept the radar running with one hand.
Lila continued analyzing the energy patterns despite the violent shaking.
"The upper-left eye!" she shouted.
"That's the center of its synchronization field!"
Kai forced himself to look toward the point she had identified, though the effort made him stagger.
Arga felt everything around him.
His friends were wounded.
His team was holding on.
The entire world was fighting back.
And yet, beneath it all, he knew one thing.
The creature hadn't come for the ocean.
It hadn't come for the Cores.
It had come for him.
Eclipse Devourer abruptly stopped attacking the ocean Guardians.
Slowly, it turned its head.
All four violet eyes fixed on the tiny vessel in the distance.
On Arga.
Every sound vanished.
The MBG Lunchbox shook violently in his hand.
A thin crack appeared across its surface.
CRACK.
Arga froze.
Kai immediately forced himself in front of him, his weakened body trembling.
"Arga, run—"
Too late.
Eclipse Devourer raised one claw toward the sky.
The space surrounding the vessel began to fold inward.
Farhan stared at the radar, all color draining from his face.
"It's not attacking us..."
Lila whispered, her eyes widening as she watched the readings change.
"It's trying to pull us up."
Sinta screamed, "EVERYONE, HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!"
The deck began to rise out of the water.
Bolts tore free.
Metal screamed.
The entire research vessel slowly lifted toward the sky—
toward the waiting jaws of the predator.