At the Null Haven, Koma stood anchored in the clearing alongside Hykee watching Lokee heal Kaola.
Without a single sound, the air imploded. The siblings noticed Dual was back, but she wasn't alone. She was in the grip of Apex. He threw Dual casually into the dirt behind him and started walking directly toward Idle's fallen frame.
The moment his boots pressed into the grass, his gravity Yen activated.
An invisible, catastrophic field of immense weight slammed down across the entire perimeter. The force was absolute. Lokee, Hykee, and Kaola were instantly pinned flat to the ground, the air forced from their lungs as the soil beneath them cratered.
Koma gritted his teeth, his presence flaring wildly as he forced a minor level of resistance against the crushing pressure, but it wasn't enough. The gravity weighed heavy on his shoulders, forcing his knees to buckle as he was also being pinned down
Apex kept his hidden gaze fixed on Idle's body, his steps slow and unbothered. He turned his blindfold slightly toward Koma.
"I'm not here to fight," Apex said coldly, keeping his presence steady. "I only want to retrieve my foolish brother's body. You will sit there until I leave."
Lokee spoke with intense struggle, her cheek pressed hard against the damp mud as she choked on the air.
"Who... who are you?" Lokee coughed out.
Koma roared, as he fought the absolute gravity pressing on his spine. Forcing his muscles to lock, Koma stood upright through sheer, unyielding willpower and glared at the intruder.
"Answer the question," Koma spat. "Who are you?"
Apex let out a soft, weary sigh. Slowly, he reached up with one hand and lifted his blindfold.
The moment his eyes exposed themselves to the world, the atmospheric pressure mutated. An instantaneous tenfold gravity boost detonated across the clearing.
The localized weight didn't just bend the landscape, it flattened the earth by meters.
Kaola forced her chin up through the brutal pressure, her trembling vision locking directly onto his exposed eyes.
"Those eyes," Kaola whispered, her voice fracturing as her heart rate completely failed under the mass. "They aren't normal."
The crushing gravity immediately snapped her focus. Her head dropped heavily back into the wet grass, passing out completely from the immense pressure as her world went dark.
Lokee and Hykee violently started to cough up blood alongside her, as their remaining internal systems completely weakened under the mass. They collapsed as well.
Even Koma was driven back down, his stance breaking as blood spilled past his lips.
"I am number one," Apex said, his voice echoing with absolute authority through the crushed woods. "We are Gen Five."
Before anyone could draw another breath, Apex grabbed Idle's body and disappeared. He appeared instantly in front of Dual, grabbed her by the collar, and vanished from the mountain entirely, leaving only a cratered wasteland behind.
The crushing mass abruptly vanished from the clearing, leaving the atmosphere hollow and thick with the scent of ozone.
Koma spat a thick glob of blood into the shattered dirt, his fingers digging deep into the mud as he forced his broken stance back upright. He stared blankly at the empty space where the catastrophic pressure had just existed.
"Number one, huh?" Koma whispered, his dark eyes narrowing as a dangerous, silent fury settled deep into his chest.
Deep within the silent subterranean vault, the cold remained absolute. Saint paced along the northern corridor, his heavy boots kicking up crystalline dust as his elemental frost crawled across the ancient floorboards. He turned his gaze toward Aliv, his jaw tight with a dark irritation.
"Explain it to me," Saint growled, his voice echoing off the high stone arches. "Apex took her back to that mountain. What did she do out there? Why can't I feel Idles essence?"
Aliv adjusted her collar, her eyes glassy as her world knowledge filtered through the residual energetic frequencies left behind in the dirt.
"She was late, Saint. Idle was already laying down in the grass at the mountain base when she arrived, but he told her he could take on all three. She said that was fine by her because she didn't want to get dirty anyway.
Saint stopped in his tracks, his eyes locking onto her. "So she just stood there?"
"She stayed back while the engagement shifted, leaving Idle to drift through the clouds," Aliv continued, her hands trembling slightly. "He was fighting Koma up in the high skies, but he was not trying at all, easily slipping his strikes. Dual only unsealed her wrist shackles down below after the twins managed to make her bleed."
Saint sneered, the dark frost around his knuckles hummed with violent sparks. "She threw a tantrum because a couple of children clipped her?"
"The shockwave from her unsealed energy rippled up into the high skies, drawing Koma's attention," Aliv whispered, fresh tears pooling in her eyes. "He used his phantom step to lock onto Idle's collar, throwing him straight down through the canopy to the valley floor right before Dual's feet."
"And she just watched him fall?" Saint demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low rumble.
"Before anyone could speak, Koma stepped instantly in front of Idle as he stood up, punching a clean, gaping hole straight through his torso," Aliv wept, her voice breaking completely. "His life force went entirely dark. Then she fled."
Saint's jaw tightened so hard the bones groaned beneath his flesh. "The lazy bastard didn't take a human seriously. He left his chest completely wide open."
Before Aliv could answer, the air in the center of the monolithic ring buckled. A sudden, violent vacuum imploded within the space, and Apex materialized out of thin air.
His blindfold was still lifted from the mountain, the catastrophic pressure of his unsealed gaze instantly consumed the subterranean vault the exact microsecond he arrived.
The atmospheric weight mutated into a crushing, invisible mass that slammed down onto every corner of the room. Aliv immediately fell to her knees under the sudden, immense gravity, her vision swimming as she started to cough and wheeze against the stone floorboards.
Apex didn't return alone. He threw Dual onto the stone floorboards. She collapsed heavily, whimpering from the dirt as more blood spilled past her lips, pinned entirely flat under her brother's active presence while she huddled into a silent, trembling frame.
Resting over Apex's left shoulder was the limp, cold body of Idle. The charred hole right through his sternum was still smoking faintly with the residual trace of Koma's Yen energy.
Apex casually stepped down from the center stone, his posture rigid and entirely unbothered by the crushing mass he was carrying. He walked toward the western masonry where Idle usually slouched, dropping his brother's torso onto a flat slab of fallen rock.
As his hands released the cold skin, a heavy, dark promise hardened within the absolute quiet of his mind.
My sweet baby brother, Apex thought, his internal voice echoing with a freezing, absolute finality. Every single Speedhardt will pay for harming you.
Saint stood his ground against the crushing weight that had filled the cavern since their arrival. He was not that much weaker than Apex, and his body was well accustomed to navigating this brutal threshold.
His dark frost cracked under the pressure, but his posture remained anchored. He simply glared across the room, his voice calm but sharp as the dense atmosphere pressed around them.
"Cover your eyes, Apex, before you kill them," Saint said, his tone carrying a firm edge.
Apex stood completely motionless by the rock slab, his exposed gaze tracking across the weakened forms of his sisters. For a long, dead second, the heavy silence remained suffocating.
Then, with a slow, deliberate movement, Apex pulled the blindfold back down, securing it tightly over his eyes.
The crushing field vanished instantly. The sudden displacement of mass left the air freezing cold, allowing Aliv and Dual to finally draw breath as the heavy weight left the room.
Apex kept his covered face directed toward the western rock slab for a moment before turning slightly toward his sisters. His broad chest rose and fell with a long, controlled breath.
"I apologize," Apex said, his tone flat but dropping into a rare, quiet gravity. "I was distracted by the state of our brother. I didn't mean to nearly take your lives."