Far outside the boundaries of Voidspire, where the city's lights could barely be seen through the darkness, stood a place most ordinary people avoided.
Witches' Point.
The area had earned its name long before the current generation of awakened existed. Strange Aether fluctuations were common there, and rumors surrounding the place had kept travelers away for decades.
Hidden somewhere within the surrounding wilderness was one of the Hollow Choir's concealed bases.
Tom stood before its entrance, his hood pulled over his head.
He hadn't come here as a teacher.
He hadn't come here as Arthur's mentor.
Tonight, he had come because he needed help.
The Midnight Church had become too dangerous to investigate alone.
And if the Hollow Choir couldn't help him...
Tom wasn't sure who could.
The entrance to the Hollow Choir's hidden base was concealed beneath the rocky terrain of Witches' Point.
Tom descended the narrow passage until he reached a large chamber illuminated by dim Aether lamps. Several members of the Hollow Choir immediately noticed him.
One of them stepped forward.
"You're back."
Tom lowered his hood.
"I need to speak with your leader."
The member shook his head.
"He's not here."
Tom frowned.
"Where is he?"
"We don't know."
Tom stared at him.
"You don't know where your own leader is?"
"Not even we know."
Tom took a slow breath.
"Then I need to speak with whoever has the authority to make decisions in his absence."
The member's expression remained firm.
"We can't help you."
Tom's patience began to wear thin.
"The Midnight Church is becoming active again."
Several members exchanged uneasy glances.
"We know."
"They're experimenting on awakened."
"We know."
"Then you understand why I'm here."
The member nodded.
"Our leader gave us strict instructions."
Tom waited.
"We are not to engage the Midnight Church until he gives the order."
Tom's eyes narrowed.
"People are going to die."
"We understand."
"Then why are you standing here?"
"Because an order from our leader isn't something we ignore."
Tom clenched his fist.
"Let me speak with him."
"We already told you."
"He isn't here."
"Then find him."
"We can't."
Tom stared at them.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Finally, Tom sighed.
"Then tell me where Yuri is."
That caused another silence.
The members looked at one another.
One eventually answered.
"She's missing too."
Tom's expression hardened.
"Yuri?"
"She was the last person trusted with information about his whereabouts."
"And nobody knows where she went?"
"No."
Tom slowly lowered his head.
Two people were missing.
The leader of the Hollow Choir...
And the one person who apparently knew where he had gone.
Tom looked toward the members.
"Please."
The word left his mouth quietly.
Several of them looked surprised.
Tom rarely begged.
"I need your help."
His voice became more urgent.
"The Midnight Church isn't something we can simply ignore. If they're doing what I think they're doing, waiting could make everything worse."
The member looked away.
"I understand."
"Then help me."
"I can't."
Tom stood silently.
His expression gradually hardened.
"Fine."
He turned toward the entrance.
But before leaving, he stopped.
"When your leader returns..."
The member looked at him.
"Tell him I came here."
"I will."
Tom pulled his hood over his head again.
"And tell him something else."
"What?"
Tom looked back.
"If he intends to wait until the Midnight Church makes the first move..."
His eyes narrowed.
"...he might not like what they're planning to move first."
With that, Tom walked away.
The heavy doors closed behind him.
For a moment, the Hollow Choir remained silent.
Then one of the members whispered:
"Do you think he knows something we don't?"
The other member looked toward the sealed entrance.
"Probably."
Outside, Tom stepped into the cold night air.
Witches' Point stretched endlessly around him.
He looked toward the distant horizon.
The Midnight Church.
The Hollow Choir.
The missing leader.
The missing Yuri.
Too many pieces were disappearing from the board.
Tom pulled his coat tighter.
"Where the hell are you two?"
He started walking.
He had come looking for answers.
Instead, he had found another mystery.
And somewhere in the darkness beyond Witches' Point, something was already moving
Tom hadn't gone far from Witches' Point when he heard footsteps behind him.
At first, he ignored them.
Then he heard several more.
Tom stopped.
The night became strangely quiet.
He slowly turned around.
Five awakened stood several metres away.
They looked exhausted.
Their clothing was torn from travel, and their expressions were unfocused. Their Aether was behaving strangely, flowing unevenly through their bodies.
Tom's eyes narrowed.
"What happened to you?"
One of them stepped forward.
"Give us..."
His voice trembled.
"...more."
Tom immediately understood.
The pills.
"You took them."
Another awakened suddenly lunged toward him.
Tom moved aside, allowing the attack to pass before stepping backward.
"Stop."
They didn't listen.
The five awakened surrounded him.
Their movements were erratic, almost desperate. They weren't fighting like trained awakened anymore. Their bodies were reacting faster than their minds could properly control.
Tom sighed.
"You weren't chosen for the tournament, were you?"
One of them laughed bitterly.
"We were supposed to be."
Another clenched his fists.
"Thousands were chosen."
"We weren't."
Tom's expression softened slightly.
"So you took the pills because you wanted to become stronger."
Nobody answered.
That was enough.
Tom looked at them carefully.
Their Aether wasn't simply increasing.
It was becoming unstable.
"You need to stop using your abilities."
One of them screamed and charged again.
Tom raised his arm and redirected the attack, sending the awakened stumbling past him.
"Listen to me!"
The others attacked almost simultaneously.
Tom moved through them with controlled movements, avoiding their strikes rather than trying to seriously injure them.
One attack came dangerously close.
Tom caught the attacker's wrist.
"You're losing control."
The awakened stared at him.
His eyes were unfocused.
"I..."
He suddenly grabbed his head.
"Make it stop."
Tom's expression changed.
The anger disappeared from his face.
"That's what the pills are doing."
The awakened dropped to his knees.
Another began breathing heavily.
Tom looked at all of them.
"They didn't give you power."
His voice became colder.
"They gave you something your bodies can't handle."
One of the awakened suddenly screamed and released another burst of unstable Aether.
Tom stepped forward.
His own Aether surrounded him.
The pressure alone forced the others to stop.
"Enough."
The word echoed through the night.
The five awakened froze.
Tom looked at them one by one.
"You wanted to become stronger because you lost your place in the tournament."
He lowered his hand.
"But if you continue like this..."
His expression became grim.
"...you won't get another chance to prove yourselves."
The group slowly collapsed to the ground, exhausted... And exploded from having their aether cores expand. They all died from the same explosion ... Very unfortunate.
Tom walked toward them.
For the first time, he noticed the small containers lying near their feet ... Or remains
Several empty.
One unopened.
Tom picked it up.
His eyes narrowed.
The label was unfamiliar.
But he knew exactly where it came from.
The Midnight Church.
Tom closed his fist around the container.
"So that's how you're doing it."
He looked toward the darkness surrounding Witches' Point.
"They're not just recruiting people."
"They're manufacturing weapons."
Tom looked back at the awakened's remains lying on the ground.
" Rest in peace young ones I shall avenge you all "
And suddenly, his meeting with the Hollow Choir felt far more urgent than it had a few minutes ago.
The Midnight Church wasn't waiting for the tournament to end.
They were already preparing for whatever came next.
Tom left Witches' Point before sunrise.
The five awakened were still alive, but he couldn't stay. He had already contacted people who could take care of them, and there was nothing more he could do for them at the moment.
The small container from the Midnight Church remained in his pocket.
He needed answers.
There was another Hollow Choir base far from Voidspire, positioned dangerously close to the border of the Black Continent. It was the closest location where Tom believed he could find someone capable of helping him investigate what was happening.
The journey would normally take several days.
Fortunately, Voidspire had changed the world in ways Tom still found difficult to appreciate.
The city had developed technology that allowed awakened and ordinary people to travel across enormous distances far more efficiently than previous generations ever could.
Tom took advantage of it.
Several hours later, he stood beside a sleek black motorcycle.
He pulled on his black jacket and adjusted his black jeans before putting on his helmet. His white hair and beard were visible for only a moment before the helmet covered most of his head.
Despite his age, Tom's posture remained remarkably straight.
He mounted the motorcycle.
The engine came alive.
Tom looked toward the distant horizon.
"The Black Continent..."
Even after everything he had experienced, the name still carried a certain weight.
Nobody truly understood what existed beyond its borders.
Not the gods.
Not the Watchers.
Not the Hollow Choir.
Not even those who had survived encounters near it.
Tom accelerated.
The motorcycle tore down the road.
The landscape around him gradually changed as Voidspire disappeared behind him. Dense forests gave way to enormous plains, followed by rocky terrain and abandoned roads that had been constructed years earlier.
Tom kept moving.
Hours became a day.
Then another.
He stopped only when necessary before continuing.
The motorcycle made the journey far faster than travelling on foot ever could, but the distance remained enormous. Of course he had to use aether to power up the bike although it was riskyand a bit difficult to absorb it , change it to personal aether then fuel the bike at the same time .
On the seventh day, Tom finally noticed the landscape becoming darker.
The air felt different.
The Aether was heavier.
Tom slowed the motorcycle.
Ahead of him, beyond the distant mountains, was the territory surrounding the Black Continent.
He had been here before.
Not long ago.
It was the same general region where Arthur had fought the half-corrupted being.
Tom remembered the reports.
Arthur had survived.
Barely.
Tom's expression became serious.
"That place..."
He looked toward the horizon.
"Something is wrong with it."
He continued forward.
The road eventually became narrower, and the signs of civilization became scarce.
The Hollow Choir's second base was somewhere ahead.
Tom knew he was getting close.
He accelerated once more.
The black motorcycle disappeared into the distance, carrying an old man toward one of the most dangerous places in the world.
And beneath the helmet, Tom's expression remained grim.
He wasn't going there because he wanted to.
He was going because the Midnight Church had given him a reason to be afraid.
And if their activities were connected to the Black Continent...
Then whatever was coming next could be far worse than the tournament.
As Tom continued toward the distant Hollow Choir base, the road became increasingly empty. The roar of his motorcycle was almost the only sound for miles, and the approaching darkness of the Black Continent remained visible beyond the horizon.
For the first time in hours, Tom's thoughts drifted away from the Midnight Church.
Yuri.
He wondered where she could possibly be.
Tom had known Yuri long before the Collapse. Back in Dimension Echo, she had been one of the most carefree people he had ever met. She could turn even the most exhausting training session into something that felt almost effortless, always smiling and joking even when Tom was pushing her to her limits.
She had also been his best student.
Tai Chi.
Kung Fu.
Kickboxing.
Yuri had learned all three under him, and she had possessed an unusual talent for combining their principles rather than treating them as separate disciplines. Tom still remembered how quickly she had learned to read an opponent's movements.
She hadn't simply been strong.
She had been adaptable.
And, more importantly, she had been someone Tom trusted.
Then the Collapse happened.
The world they knew disappeared, and the two of them were separated.
Tom never knew where Yuri ended up.
Years passed.
Eventually, he found traces of her again through the Hollow Choir.
And somehow, the carefree student he remembered had become one of the few people trusted with knowledge of the organization's leader.
Tom's eyes narrowed beneath his helmet.
"Where are you, Yuri?"
He wondered whether she had changed.
Whether the Collapse had taken that carefree woman away from her.
Or whether she was still somewhere out there, laughing at the world despite everything it had thrown at her.
Tom tightened his grip on the handlebars.
"If you're still the same Yuri I knew..."
A faint smile appeared beneath his beard.
"...you've probably gotten yourself into trouble again."
The smile disappeared almost immediately.
Because this time, something felt different.
Yuri was missing.
The Hollow Choir's leader was missing.
And the Midnight Church was becoming increasingly active.
Tom looked toward the distant Black Continent.
"Just don't let me find out you're involved in something stupid."
The motorcycle continued forward.
Tom had no idea that finding Yuri might become far more important than discovering what the Midnight Church was planning.