So how do Spectrums actually work? The strongest emotions in the human heart turn into power, opening the door for humanity to evolve.
More than a thousand years ago, humans were forced to awaken their Spectrums. At decisive moments, when hope was exhausted, the heart continued to beat, and that was enough for the power to explode.
Experiences generate the deepest emotions, but it is critical moments that cause those emotions to explode with force.
Can this turn humans into monsters? Absolutely. But there are several nuances to consider. One of those nuances touches on a very important point.
The day after Nova fell into the portal, Viktor flew all night from Lightflower to Luminaris to break the news to Adelaide. He rode on Maia's back, staring blankly ahead.
The cold morning wind caressed his face. A cold, hollow feeling spread through his chest, as if something in his family had snapped.
The tall buildings of the city rose in glory; there lay the innocents of this broken world.
He landed in front of Adelaide's house and stared silently at the window, preparing himself for what was to come. He climbed down from Maia's back, took a key from his pocket, and opened the metal door with hesitation.
He knocked twice on the door. He waited. Finally, Adelaide appeared.
"Viktor?"
Adelaide was surprised by the unexpected visit, but when she saw her brother's empty expression, she soon realized that something was wrong.
"What? What happened?"
Viktor clenched his fist and looked down. With all the pain in the world, like a child watching others with dull eyes, he said:
"I'm sorry, Ada..."
The woman didn't know what to say.
After a brief pause, his voice somber and broken, Viktor continued:
"Yesterday afternoon, at 12:34 p.m., during a raid on the city of Lightflower, a Situational Portal opened in the foothills of the Calem mountain range. At 12:35 p.m., Nova Asmodai—twenty-one years old, a renowned Seventh Level Empath in the support branch—was thrown into the portal by an unknown force. The portal closed moments later, preventing any rescue attempts. Nova disappeared forever on the other side."
A heavy silence followed.
After a few seconds, Adelaide finally reacted with a worried expression.
"What are you saying, Viktor?"
Like any mother in that situation, she froze. She looked at her brother as if she thought he was joking, but when she saw his trembling voice and downcast gaze, full of guilt and sadness, she understood that it was no joke.
Viktor tried to speak.
"I'm sorry, Ada. I..."
But Adelaide's broken and angry voice cut him off:
"It's not true..."
She looked angry.
"You're lying..."
She refused to believe it.
"The day before yesterday, my son was here. He said goodbye to me. He went to see his friends."
"Yes. I know," said Viktor.
Desperate, he tried to contain his helplessness as he listened to his sister's broken voice. With that same desperation, he imagined how horrible it must have been for Nova to be trapped in another world.
With how weak the boy is compared to other Empaths of his level, he has most likely already been killed by some Aberration.
That thought, that horrible thought, was what sealed the moment.
Still refusing to accept this sudden tragedy, she grabbed Viktor by the shoulders and forced him to look at her.
"Then why? Why isn't my son back? Why didn't you bring him back?"
As he looked up, he felt a lump in his throat at the look on Adelaide's face. She had always been a trusting woman; her kind smile—tired, broken, and hopeful—said everything about her and her life.
It forced Viktor to look away, wishing his words were a lie. But reality was crueler than fantasy, and Ada's reaction to her brother's indifference plunged the family into an abyss from which there seemed to be no return.
Adelaide's weary smile faded, replaced by growing anger.
"Viktor... You promised."
She raised her voice, squeezing Viktor's shoulders tightly.
"You promised you'd take care of him!"
She shook him, waiting for an answer. In turn, those words, like painful daggers piercing the soul, stuck in Viktor's mind, who couldn't respond. He just stood there blankly.
"No..."
Adelaide's anger turned to Grief.
"My son..."
Tears slid down Ada's cheeks. Her hands released the man. She took a step back, leaning her back against the door. Then she fell silent as the floor and the air became cold and lonely.
"Get out of my house..."
Her whisper cut through him. That whisper exploded into a scream:
"Get out of my house! Get out!"
Viktor nodded without looking Ada in the eye. He turned his back on her as he walked away with his draconic friend, but in the distance he heard his older sister's sobs.
As he left, he looked at Maia silently and then turned his gaze to the house where his nephew had grown up. Adelaide was gone. The door remained frozen; a slight icy mist floated in the air.
"Maia..."
Viktor looked up at the sky.
"Have I lost my family again?"
***
In the present, on the other side of town, in a small one-bedroom apartment, Miyu lay on the futon covered from head to toe by a white blanket, leaving only her face exposed.
She had large dark circles under her eyes; her hair was messy, her face red and sore from crying so much. Boxes of instant food littered the floor, and like its owner, the entire place was a mess.
She stared silently into space when suddenly, someone knocked on the door. She glanced sideways at the door, then returned to drowning in her own misery.
"Are you there, Miyu?" asked a voice on the other side of the door. It was Elara, although she no longer sounded as cool and serious as usual.
Lazily, Miyu sat up. Still covered with the blanket, she walked to the door; her hands felt heavy, but she had enough strength to turn the knob.
The door opened; Elara, in her shining armor, waited on the other side.
"What do you want?" Miyu said, her voice dull and lifeless.
Elara opened her mouth, trying to say something. Unease washed over her, but she put on a serious and mature face.
"I want you to take a bath, get ready, and go out with us to kill Aberrations."
Miyu was silent for a few seconds and then replied:
"Go by yourself. I'm busy."
She slammed the door in Elara's face. With that, Miyu returned to her original position, but Elara knocked on the door again.
"You can't stay there forever. You're hurting yourself, Miyu."
The cat-girl buried her face between her knees.
"Ellie... I went to his funeral..."
Elara could barely hear her: Nova's funeral had been a few days ago. Those words made her throat tighten.
Unable to speak, she leaned her fist against the wall and listened in silence.
The feline girl's sobs mingled with mournful words:
"I went to the funeral of the boy I love..."
Elara leaned her forehead against the door and, with a contrite face, whispered:
"I know... I know..."
Nearby, in the van that took Nova straight to hell, Rober waited, his face looking permanently angry.
He was nothing but silence, discomfort, and anger. Unlike the others, Rober did not show his grief over the loss; he repressed it and buried it deep inside.
He stared out the window with a blank, lost expression. The silence perfectly defined how he felt: he had always been one of those who preferred not to talk about his emotions.
Rober sighed and muttered:
"They're taking too long."
***
In the distance of an abandoned world—where the voices of rational beings were no longer heard—the serpent opened its hungry jaws. It hissed, suffocating and terrifying, dripping yellow saliva onto the bones. It coiled its body, pressing its muscles against the stone, and from the cracks between its heavy, sandstone-like scales, it exhaled a thick, black gas.
The gas settled on the ground almost instantly, staining the bones. A deep smell of coal filled the air.
Nova spat blood in response. His vision, blurred, could not tear itself away from the serpent's field of vision. Furthermore, the gas that reinforced that smell on the ground caused heavy emotions in his mind.
'Damn... I can't move,' Nova thought.
Sensing the weakness of its prey, the Aberration swayed from side to side, as if hesitating over the moment of attack. It took no more than two seconds to make up its mind.
"Oh... I see..."
Through the pain, his eye fixed on the enormous jaw and the entire monster approaching with murderous intent. A single fang jutted forward like a blade as its thin tongue slipped back into its mouth.
'This is it...'
Defeated, he just gave up. There was nothing else he could do. His eye glowed a faint orange, but it wasn't enough.
The snap of the jaw closing echoed next to its head as it slammed into the wall.
Blood splattered on the rocks.
That should have been the end of Nova Asmodai.
But Nova opened his eye. Agitated, he breathed heavily; he coughed and spat blood, sitting up inside the hole in the wall.
"What? How? I... I saw..."
Incredulous and confused—his Serenity failing to calm him—he choked on his own voice.
Hiss...
The snake, hungry, opened its jaws, revealing the inside of its mouth. It coiled its body impatiently around the bones, fixed its murderous gaze on Nova, and prepared to attack.
'No way,' Nova muttered.
Fear—or perhaps the instinct for survival—made him act without thinking. With all his strength, despite the pain and blood flowing from the bones protruding beneath his skin, he pushed himself up with his hands to escape. He rolled into the void just as the snake lunged.
The Aberration hit the rock as Nova fell face-first down the slope. His body rolled to the bottom and came to rest against the bones.
'Crap. It hurts.'
He barely managed to lift his head and see the beast: the serpent was stunned, shaking its head to ease the pain and confusion of the blow. Small clouds of black gas escaped from its body and settled on the ground; unfortunately, the gas fell near Nova.
The boy looked at the gas, clenched his fist, and turned his gaze back to the ground, where the blackened bones lay silently.
With death still beneath his body, he thought:
'I don't understand. I thought he was dead.'
He rested his forearms on the bones and regained some mobility.
'But I saw it; my death...'
That death, however, had not happened: it was just a strange vision of something that never happened... or maybe it did. If that 'something' happened, how could Nova have seen it before?
Whatever it was, Nova clutched his chest in pain. He spat blood, with a lump in his throat and a heavy pain in his chest.
Instantly, the serpent hissed again. It was recovering, and its terrifying gaze was fixed on Nova once more.
'Won't you let me think for a moment?'
Never. The Aberration attacked. Nova had no time to react: in the next second, his body was torn to pieces inside its jaws.
In the perpetual silence, however, Nova opened his eye again. He screamed, bringing one hand to his left eye and clenching his fist with the other to endure the sharp pain in his skull.
He was kneeling on the bones, just as he had been moments before his supposed death. Crimson drops fell from under his left eye, like tears of warm blood, reminding him of the pain that had made him scream.
The serpent attacked again. Nova managed to anticipate the movement; strange as it may seem, he had seen it before.
'Crap!'
Just like at the beginning, he rolled to the side and dodged. He rolled over the bones as the serpent crashed into the ground again. The bones jumped with the impact and shattered, scattering everywhere.
This confused the Aberration once more.
Weak, with his bones about to give way, Nova stood up.
'I'm done with this. If I'm going to die, I'll stab you a couple of times first.'
In a split second, a storm of emotions swept over him. The gas penetrated his system more forcefully than it had during the entire journey through the tunnels; his Serenity, neutralized by the serpent's power, was overshadowed by fear and anger at the injustice. But something else accompanied it with intensity.
An orange aura enveloped him, flickering near his left eye with an otherworldly light. He drew his sword with labored breathing and launched an improvised feint at the serpent.
His feet acted according to his thoughts. In an instant, with its head close to the ground, the serpent sensed Nova's approach; his sword sank into its eye. Golden blood splattered the ground.
"Now you know how it feels!"
The serpent hissed in pain, which soon turned into a deafening roar. It moved its body and lashed its tail against the walls; a second later, it lifted Nova with the sword stuck in it as it swept the area.
"Ahhhhh! What the hell?"
Nova's body whipped through the air like a rag as he clung to the hilt stuck in the beast's bleeding eye.
The creature slammed into the walls again and again, trying to shake him off. Nova's stomach churned, but that was the least of his worries. His one eye glowed orange, and in the next instant, it was crushed between the wall and the serpent's head.