The smoke came like a starving storm stretching, coiling, twisting the air inside the emergency stairwell as if trying to rip that space out of reality.
Arel jerked back, nearly tumbling down the steps. Mira stood firm, her small blade looking painfully insignificant against the horror unfolding before them.
"Cursed smoke," Mira hissed. "Arel, cover your nose. Don't breathe anything in."
Arel pressed his arm over his mouth and nose, but the smoke felt as if it seeped straight through the fabric like it wanted to slip into his pores.
The masked man raised his hand, forming a long, sweeping gesture.
"This smoke is hungry, Tang heir," he said. "And it does not distinguish between skin and soul."
The smoke lunged
and in a split second, Mira yanked Arel sideways, dragging them both into the small hallway leading toward the 70th floor. The black smoke slammed into the wall, leaving behind fractures thin, jagged, like broken bone.
"It… leaves marks?" Arel's eyes widened.
"That's not smoke," Mira panted. "It's… leftover souls. Spirit fragments trapped from their old rituals."
Arel shivered.
Spirit fragments.
Souls.
The smoke wailed. Not like wind
More like someone being dragged screaming out of the world.
Mira pulled Arel back to his feet. "We can't keep running. We have to"
She didn't finish.
The smoke struck again this time straight at Arel.
Arel threw up his hands instinctively
And the world exploded in light.
Not soft white.
But gold. Dense, like molten plasma, wrapping itself around Arel's skin.
The smoke shrieked recoiling, cracking, splitting apart like glass thrown into flame.
Mira's eyes went huge. "Wh what did you just do?!"
Arel stared at his own hands. The light crawled over them like glowing roots… then sank slowly into his skin.
"I… I don't know," he said, panicked.
But one thing was unmistakable:
The smoke was afraid.
The masked man stopped on the stairs above. His breathing echoed through the mask.
"The inheritance… already awakened? Impossible."
Mira grabbed Arel's arm with both hands, her eyes blazing.
"You just used your first ability, Rel! That that wasn't some small spark! That was pure energy! Energy from… the Fruit!"
Arel tried to protest, but the golden warmth throbbed beneath his skin like something ancient waking from a long sleep.
The masked man raised the dark scroll again.
"We need only your blood. With it, Edenveil will open."
Mira growled. "You want him? Get through me first!"
She charged her blade slicing the air, her movements sharp and trained. The masked man swung his roning blade, blocking her strike. Dark red sparks burst from the clash not flame, but something like vaporized blood.
Arel stood frozen. The golden glow within him pulsed.
Then he felt it.
A pull.
As if invisible roots were coiling inside his chest.
For a moment, he saw
A black forest. A red sky.
A colossal tree bearing radiant fruit.
Edenveil.
And a voice: "Awaken, Tang heir."
Arel screamed. Golden light burst from his palms
And the entire hallway shook with the force of it.
The black smoke shattered. Mira was thrown aside. The masked man slammed into the wall; cracks split his mask.
"W-what… what was that?!" he gasped, horrified.
Arel trembled violently.
"I don't know!!"
Mira struggled to stand, coughing. "That… that was resonance. The Fruit responded to you. That's… a calling force."
The masked man staggered upright, mask cracked to reveal terrified human eyes beneath.
"The fate of Edenveil… is rushing toward you…"
He raised the scroll again.
But before he could release a second spell
A massive rumble shook the entire tower.
Not from them.
Not from the smoke.
From below.
The floor trembled.
Lights died completely.
The air turned freezing cold bone-deep.
Mira froze.
"Arel… that's the fourth sign."
Arel stared at her, barely breathing.
"What's happening?"
Mira swallowed hard, her face pale.
"Edenveil… is moving."
The rumble shifted
into a low roar, like a giant creature waking from a dream.
Arel felt his world tilt.
And far away, in a dark room lined with monitors, Dr. Lynette Varro stared at an energy graph spiking by the hundreds.
"The fourth sign came too early…" she whispered.
"This should only happen when the Fruit reaches its final phase."
Then she saw it.
In the center of the energy surge
a new signal appeared.
Not an object.
Not a location.
A name.
AREL JIAN TANG
Lynette covered her face with both hands.
"Dear God… you truly chose him…"