"Conduit: Staff Of The Chosen Axis"
Otto extended his hand, and black essence coiled around his fingers like liquid shadow, gathering and hardening into a long staff. Its surface was smooth and metallic.
He had short blond hair neatly swept back, pale skin without a single flaw, and a perfectly fitted white suit jacket paired with black dress pants and polished shoes.
Sprinting through the lot, Bael crushed the bishop piece in his hand, his vision warping as he flickered out of reality and reappeared near the parking lot's edge, the open city lights stretching before him like salvation. Without wasting a breath, he snapped two pawns between his fingers, pressure in the air distorting violently as his body blurred forward again and again, each teleport carrying the momentum he had built up.
The wind hit his face; freedom was only a leap away.
His last rook piece weighed in his palm — escape was one simple jump and a single teleport into the building ahead.
But the world never played fair.
A shriek of car alarms blared from behind him, chaotic and overlapping like screaming metal, and Bael instinctively turned just in time to see an entire vehicle airborne, hurled straight at him with murderous force. Reflex overtook thought. The distance between him and the opposite building wasn't enough — even with the rook, he would only make it halfway and end up with his feet swinging in the air. So he crushed his final pawn instead.
He twisted his whole body left as he vanished in a blink, the car passing him by inches as it roared past and exploded into the guard rails with a violent crash that shook the entire parking floor.
He landed, momentum turning into a messy tumble instead of a run. His breath tore from his lungs — and then the real danger hit.
A crushing force slammed into his chest.
Gravity spiked.
Air refused to enter his lungs. His vision wavered behind his eyelids as the asphalt swallowed him deeper and deeper.
He was slammed into the asphalt so hard that the ground cratered again beneath his spine, the force spreading like invisible hands gripping every bone in his body, pressing him into the broken concrete as if the earth wanted to swallow him whole.
His rook piece rolled from his fingers.
Soon, Otto's figure blurred past Bael's field of view, crashing into the burning vehicle from the earlier explosion. The shockwave dampened the flames, though fire still clung stubbornly to the twisted metal.
Through the flicker of heat and smoke, Otto stepped out, patting dust from his white coat with a small, annoyed sigh.
"It has been a while since I did something like this," he muttered, voice tired like a man complaining about his joints. "I swear, I am getting too old for this."
He looked down at Bael, pinned to the cracked asphalt, cracking his neck with a slow tilt that sounded like bones shifting back into place.
"You young ones really know how to make a mess," he said, exhausted amusement lining his words. "No sense of simplicity anymore."
Bael, struggling to breathe or move, forced the words out between clenched teeth. "You're… from Hybris?"
Otto chuckled softly. "Seems like you have a weak memory." He paused, tilting his head as though genuinely curious. "Does Ottous Jack ring any bells?"
For a moment, Bael's mind drew a blank — but then flickers surfaced.
Teenage years.
Memories surfaced of a man well into his fifties with deep wrinkles carved beneath eyes that had never shown compassion, a gaze that saw weapons instead of young children.
Bael's eyebrows furrowed, disbelief forming as his gaze locked onto the younger face above him. His eyes widened.
"You're not joking," he rasped. "You're… that old man!"
The gravity intensified instantly — a crushing weight, rupturing weakened organs and stealing the air from his lungs.
Otto's smile thinned.
"Yes," he said, voice firm and proud, "I have reached the third stage. Age no longer limits me."
"Who ordered my death?" Bael asked. No matter what happened, even if he couldn't move or run, he needed to know. He needed a reason.
Otto crouched down and leaned forward, just enough for Bael to clearly see the cold thrill dancing behind his eyes.
"Who else had the authority to send me?" he chuckled, voice lowering into something almost playful, "of course, it was our House Master."
The amusement on his face didn't fade, not even as his head turned slightly. Otto's expression tightened. Heavy footsteps echoed from above — reinforced boots, multiple sets. The deep mechanical rumble of armoured vehicles vibrated through the concrete.
Even as a Stage Three Awakened — Eclosioned — his senses weren't as sharpened as Lea's when using her Art. But even he could feel something large and well-armed closing in on the upper floors.
His grin straightened, losing its humour.
"Well… that's inconvenient."
Otto turned his gaze back to Bael.
Bael's teeth bit into his own lip until a thin line of blood trailed down his chin. His eyes burned, no longer sane. His fists clenched so hard his nails dug into his palms, blood seeping between his fingers.
Otto remained perfectly calm, raising his staff as the pressure increased again, now seven Gs… suddenly spiking to ten.
Bael's vision flickered. His black essence pool was almost dry; he only had a few pieces left, and even if he used his queen, Otto would track him instantly. Still, he wanted to try. He recalled the fallen rook into his black spheres, slightly replenishing his essence. He prepared himself to escape, but—
A figure emerged from the darkness.
His fur coat swayed lazily with each step, his left hand raised as he casually waved toward Otto.
For a while, Otto had noticed foreign footsteps. They were steady and unrushed, not carrying even an ounce of panic. Amusement spread across his face as he soon recognised the person's facial features.
"It would be nice if my butler didn't die," the newcomer said with a smile.
Maren continued, his tone casual, "Someone has to take care of my spoiled brat of a life."
Bael's head tilted just enough to see Maren, surprise flickering across his face — then his eyes rolled shut as the pressure spiked past twelve Gs, knocking him unconscious.
Maren glanced at Otto. "You find pleasure in slow torture?"
Otto shrugged lightly. "No. It's just a habit."
Suddenly, Otto's phone rang. A single name glowed on the display:
Hybris
His brows furrowed as he lifted the phone to his ear.
Heavy boots struck the ground behind him.
A squad of armed soldiers took formation, rifles raised and fingers tense on the triggers. They parted as one man stepped forward — long black hair, sharp blue eyes, and a military vest strapped over casual clothing. A microphone rested in his left hand, a duralite-loaded rifle in his right, and a sword was sheathed at his waist.
He tapped the mic twice.
"Testing—testing. Ugh…" He grimaced. "I'm not military, but yeah, I think it goes like this: drop your weapons and hands behind your back?"He thought for a beat. "Oh yeah—also kick it toward me while you're at it."
The soldiers exchanged uneasy glances. They expected a licensed awakened, sure — but certainly not someone who clearly wasn't military. And the procedure he shouted was something the police would say, not the military. Normally, they would have been ordered to shoot on sight. Some already cursed under their breath about their rotten luck.
Otto looked over his shoulder at Maren, who stood beside Bael, staring at his injured body with no visible emotion.
"Hey—catch," Otto called.
Maren blinked — barely a reaction — but caught the phone anyway. He turned the screen around and noticed the ongoing call.
The long-haired, blue-eyed man announced once again, "You have ten seconds to surrender."
Otto faced the man with the microphone, lowering his voice so only Maren could hear:
"And you have five minutes, tops."
Otto raised his staff. A circular stream of gravity enveloped a nearby car in the pointed direction. It pushed the vehicle diagonally, first sliding, then rolling over the ground, its speed akin to a boulder let loose from a steep ramp as it hurtled toward the blue-eyed man.
Maren's gaze drifted from the dust cloud rising where the car had struck to the phone in his hand as the voice on the line spoke — a single question.
A flicker of shock widened his eyes, then vanished just as fast, replaced by a calm, flat expression. The question wasn't just a question.
"Well… if I had to say, Jesus Christ."
...
Bael's eyes snapped open.
Cold slammed into him first. A freezing wind tore against his skin like sandpaper. His vision flickered through a blur of white — snow whipping sideways, desert dunes half-buried beneath ice.
The parking lot was gone.
His body dangled helplessly, Otto's left arm locked around his chest like a steel clamp. Gravity itself formed a dark silver stream beneath them, carrying the three of them forward at terrifying speed — cutting through the storm as if the earth had tilted just for them.
His mind struggled to form a single thought.
Where—
A fist cracked against his cheek. Hard.
Bael jerked, choking on the cold air. Maren — on Otto's right — didn't even look at him.
"He's awake," Maren said, voice flat, as if punching Bael was just a casual notification.
Bael's thoughts scrambled, "What… is happening…?" he rasped, but the wind swallowed most of it.
Otto didn't look at him — his eyes stayed ahead, focused, but strained. Blood smeared across his white coat, dark and thick, soaking through torn fabric along his ribs. Even the staff in his right hand trembled slightly — the gravity stream around them shuddering with every pulse of effort.
"I'm running out of essence," Otto said, voice dry, calm, like stating the weather. "This is my final stretch."
Only then did Bael notice the burn in the air — a pressure that kept dropping and spiking — Otto's control fraying with every breath.
Bael stared at him, realisation slowly blooming into a cold dread.
"…You're bleeding? What's happening?" Bael muttered.
Otto exhaled with a tired laugh.
"Yes, well… dragging two bodies against a desert snowstorm isn't exactly easy," he replied, the smirk in his voice almost mocking his own limitations. "On top of that, I had to face a military force with trained Eclosioned. The bastard cut off my arm."
The wind howled louder, sand and snow slashing at their faces until the world became nothing but white chaos and night shadows.
Bael's brain tried to catch up — parking lot… gravity crushing him… Maren walking in… soldiers arriving…
Then—
This.
A desert storm. Otto flying. Maren punches him awake.
None of it made sense.
His heartbeat hammered against Otto's grip as he stared at the two men holding him, the cold carving deeper into his bones.
…What the hell did I wake up into now?
Otto exhaled once — long, steady — and the silver gravity stream supporting them collapsed.
The three of them dropped into a steep parabolic fall, the storm's howl turning into a downward roar as snow and sand whipped violently around them.
Bael's eyes widened. Pure panic snapped through his nerves.
"Have you lost it?!" he screamed, voice cracking under the rush of air. He twisted toward Maren, fury overtaking fear. "Also—who even are you!? You're definitely not that emo brat!"
Maren slowly turned his head, hair shooting straight up from the wind like shocked quills. His face remained blank, a deadpan expression.
"I think he has amnesia," he said.
Otto nodded seriously, still holding onto both of them
"Maybe."
"I'll hit him again," Maren offered, raising his fist.
The ground rushed up to meet them — jagged dunes and dark stone cliffs forming a deadly welcome.
Bael clenched his teeth, rage boiling beneath the panic. These two idiots were going to die — and take him with them.
"Stop it!" Bael barked, but they were already ignoring him.
Otto looked completely unbothered by the fact that they were falling to their deaths. His voice remained perfectly calm — too calm.
"Use your essence to teleport us horizontally," he instructed. "I'll take care of the rest."
Bael didn't have time to argue. Didn't have time to breathe.
"Conduit: Carissa's Rule."
He reached inward to his mindscape — the black essence swirling into his palm. A white queen materialised between his fingers. His visor flickered to life, calculating the trajectory, air resistance, and the remaining distance before impact — only a few meters from the ground.
He crushed the queen.
Space ruptured ahead of them, shards of reality splitting like glass. Bael forced the teleport at an acute angle against gravity, bending their plummet sideways. Their fall stretched into a violent horizontal burst, skimming just above the ground like bullets ricocheting off the world.
But the speed was still too much. Even with the reduced momentum, Otto and Bael might survive a tough landing — but Maren, being a Blightborn, had a much lower chance of enduring the impact.
Otto used the last reserve of essence he had saved, generating a counter-gravity stream beneath them. The force pushed upward, slowing their descent further — but the crash was still inevitable.
They slammed into the layered sheet of snow over the Denver dunes. The impact tore them apart from each other, bodies tumbling violently down the inclined sand hills, rolling through ice, grit, and freezing dust until everything became a blur of white and black.