Adam was used to galloping horses, and even the cars of Sutra had become a familiar sight, but flying was still alien to him, even after months of travel, especially the way the moths hovered so close to the ground.
He rode beside Lian Mei in the same moth they had taken to Sutra. The four flying butterflies moved in a diamond formation, with Adam and Lian Mei at the front. The moth at the back carried only supply boxes. The one on the left was loaded to about seventy percent capacity, the remainder reserved for Voss. The moth on the right carried Renn and Sable.
One full day had passed since their departure. The trip had been mostly silent , Adam and Renn tried to start conversations from time to time, but the other three were barely responsive, so the two of them ended up talking to each other about random things just to fill the quiet. They stopped twice to eat and rest, and at midnight they made camp, always keeping one person awake on guard.
By the second day's sunrise, after a full night of sleep, the atmosphere had softened. It was as if the new reality had finally settled into everyone's mind, and with it came a quiet, collective ease.
"Hey, I was wondering , why did Queen Selena choose the three of you specifically? I'm guessing you're some of the strongest holders in Sutra, like she mentioned?"
"Well, we don't really compare to Lian Mei and the other two monsters standing at mother's shoulders," Renn replied with a proud grin, "but when it comes to pure combat and experience, the three of us are probably among the best options available."
"Good to hear," Adam said, his voice brightening. "I'll do my best not to cause too much trouble. I've been training hard for the last five months, and thanks to Lian Mei's teaching, I can actually hold my own now."
"Have you figured out where that new power came from?" Lian Mei asked.
"No. Even the queen had no idea after all the brainstorming we did. We only managed to come up with a few shallow theories."
"Could there be something we're missing about the original curse?" Renn wondered. "Maybe it's not limited to the copy ability and the sinful eye?"
"That's impossible," Lian Mei said. "Mother couldn't have overlooked something so fundamental. The only conclusion we can draw is that somehow, at some point, the copying process occurred without Adam realizing it."
Back in Sutra, before the departure, Adam, Noah, and Selena had tried to work out what power Adam had awakened. They had only a few variables to work with.
Adam was certain he had never explicitly copied a curse, so that was ruled out entirely. The second piece of the puzzle was the book. After it was opened, Selena and Noah found the pages completely blank , unreadable. Adam, however, could only read the first story he had already encountered. The pages that followed were blank as well, broken up only by the phrase once upon a time appearing as a kind of checkpoint every few pages, written a total of twelve times. No conclusion could be drawn from it.
The third variable was the ring. Adam had told them about the old woman, and while Selena was unable to identify what she was, something troubled her: if the woman had given Adam the ring on the same day he took the bite from the apple, and that ring had reacted to something in the City of Light by heating up randomly, then it was almost certainly no ordinary ring. It most likely held power, and that power was most likely cursed in origin.
If the epoch had begun that same day, then only one thing followed: the ring was probably a Solomon's Remnant. Selena had information on six of the Remnants, and the ring was not among them. Not only did they not know its purpose, but the fact that it had come from an old woman who said they were waiting for Adam made it all the more unsettling.
To test their theory, they took the ring away from him, yet he could still use the gravity power. That confirmed two things: the ring wasn't directly supplying the ability, and the power had been copied and engraved into Adam's resonance. All of it pointed to one theory: the copying had occurred either through the ring or through the book. Adam had inadvertently absorbed someone else's cursed power through one of them.
Adam, however, harbored another theory. He had looped it many times over in his mind for some time , one he hadn't dared share with Selena. He had told only Noah.
"Hey, Lian Mei." Adam's voice was unusually quiet.
"Yeah? What is it?" She turned to look at him. Their eyes met for a moment, and Adam hesitated for a few seconds before pressing on.
"I've been training with you for quite a while now, wouldn't you say?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"Well, while training, I came to a realization. It's been bothering me for a while."
Lian Mei waited in silence for him to continue.
"When we were traveling to Sutra on this very same moth, Noah asked you how you had arrived so quickly, given that the moth couldn't possibly travel fast enough for you to have shown up when you did. You said you came on your own, that you crossed an entire continent in a single day, right?"
Lian Mei was quiet for a moment. "Yes. I remember."
"That was a lie, wasn't it?", the words finally leaving his lips.
Her expression shifted, a flicker of surprise she didn't quite manage to hide.
"Through training, I worked out that such a feat is beyond impossible, even for you. I doubt any creature alive could perform it, your speed is burst oriented, like a sprint, perhaps you are so fast it’s hard to follow you with the naked eye in combat, you can’t keep it for kilometers."
Voss, Renn, and Sable listened in silence, none of them sure what this was about.
"Then there's the old woman who gave me the ring," Adam continued. "She was already in the city on the same day I took the bite , which also happened to be the exact day Queen Athena's bishops were supposed to arrive." He paused. "That's a lot of coincidences to swallow."
He turned back to the horizon. "The only way it makes sense is if some of you already knew what was going to happen. That's why you made the trip to the City of Light well before anything occurred."
His gaze returned to Lian Mei, his expression hardening. "I don't remember anything from that morning. It’s as if my memory of that day starts with Evelynn waking me up, nothing before that.", Adam took a deep breath, his grip tightened. "Which leaves only one conclusion: the apple wasn't a coincidence. It was planted. And certain parties knew about it in advance."
"Adam, it's not that, " Lian Mei began, but Adam cut her off.
"It's not that you knew. I figured that out. I'm pretty sure Selena didn't even tell you anything beforehand. I don't blame you, there's no need to worry."
Lian Mei went quiet. Sadness and guilt flickered across her expression, though she worked hard to keep it contained.
"I'm not sure what you two are talking about," Renn started, "but I'm certain mother is fully aware of what she's doing. We have to trus, "
"It doesn't matter right now," Adam said, cutting him off as well. "I'm planning to speak with Selena myself when we return to Sutra."
"Alright." Lian Mei's voice was soft and genuine , a rare tone for her. "I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, Adam. I can't disobey mother's orders under any circumstance."
"You should all focus on the mission ahead," Voss said. "It's a dangerous road we're heading into."
"Yes," everyone said in unison, turning their eyes forward.
A few hours later.
Evening settled over the plains, bringing a chill that bit through their cloaks. They made camp beneath the folded wings of the supply moth. Renn sparked a small fire, the crackle of dry wood breaking the heavy silence.
"So," Renn began, leaning back on his palms with that broad jaw and permanent grin of his, "the City of Light. I've read that your Queen Athena was a figure to be admired, like Mother. True, Adam?"
Adam managed a faint smile. "She absolutely was. The greatest queen , we also saw her as a mother to all of us."
Sable sat cross-legged nearby, firelight catching in her eyes as she looked up. "It's such a shame we never got to meet her."
Voss remained standing at the edge of the camp, her back to the fire. "Her kind heart kept her blind to the betrayal happening right under her nose. I believe rulers need a more ruthless side , it's necessary to maintain order."
Renn chuckled, tossing a twig into the flames. "Come on, Voss. Not everything has to be a tactical assessment. You're allowed to appreciate a kind and trusting woman. It's not her fault those bastards were bought by Utopia."
Voss didn't turn around. "Whatever you say, Renn."
Renn leaned forward, the playfulness fading from his face as his gaze settled on Adam. "But what about the end? The reports that reached Serica said the city didn't just burn. They said it was erased. Completely vaporized."
Adam's gaze dropped to the crackling fire. The warmth of the flames suddenly felt like nothing against the chill spreading through his chest. "It was," he said quietly. "The sky stopped being a sky. It turned red and came down."
Sable tilted her head. "Do we know how it was done, or by whom?"
"No." Lian Mei's voice was calm but low, drawing the group's attention. "It was not a weapon built by human hands, nor a conventional Eldritch attack. It was descending from the upper atmosphere when it triggered. The scale of the destruction could only mean it was the work of a Primal."
Adam nodded slowly, his hands tightening around his knees. "I remember the silence. It felt like the world stopped. Then the shockwave hit , it didn't just knock buildings down, it turned stone to dust. If Lian Mei hadn't grabbed us, we would have been vaporized along with everything else." He paused. "Countless lives. Memories. Dreams. All of it, burnt to nothing."
Voss finally turned to face the fire, her expression hardened. "To wield power on that scale..."
"Well, that's a grim road to go down," Renn said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm sorry for bringing it up. Let's talk about something else."
"So," Renn said, clapping his hands together to cut the tension. "What did you actually do for fun, Adam? Don't tell me it was just books and reading, I know you are more of the wild kind aren’t you."
Adam laughed, a genuine smile finally breaking through. "It's funny you say that, because my friend used to read stories constantly and then come narrate them all to us. So, I basically read almost everything he did without opening a single page." He shook his head, still smiling. "And I spent a considerable amount of time hiding from Evelynn whenever she got bored. She always had me running the most ridiculous things."
Sable raised an eyebrow. "Is she the one we're retrieving on this mission?"
"That's her." Adam's smile softened.
"Like what? I love ridiculous activities", Renn said with the excitement of a kid.
"Well, for example, she once dared me to jump off the first-floor balcony into a wagon of hay. I missed the hay completely."
Renn let out a loud laugh. "You actually jumped?"
"You should be more surprised he survived than that he jumped," Sable added, dissolving into laughter herself.
"I was ten! And she told me her mother would reward anyone who did it with a tour outside the city walls."
"She lied, didn't she," Renn said.
"Are you seriously asking that," Sable replied flatly.
"She obviously did," Adam said. "But Queen Athena gave me the tour regardless, and also grounded Evelynn."
"Voss wouldn't have missed the hay," Renn teased, glancing over at her.
"I wouldn't have jumped at all," Voss replied, completely dry. "And for the record, mother sold us this boy as a smart one. Even for a ten-year-old, that's a sorry display."
"No sense of adventure," Renn grinned. "What about you, Sable? Any embarrassing stories?"
Sable thought for a moment. "I once ate poison to see if I could build a natural immunity. My master told me the human body can adapt to what it survives, so I figured I'd test it."
"HUH? Is everybody in this party stupid?", Voss asked.
Adam stared at her. "Seriously? What happened?"
"Nothing. It had no effect on me." She shrugged. "I suppose I was born different."
Renn choked on a laugh. "Are you absolutely certain about that?"
Lian Mei watched them from across the fire, quiet and still. For a brief moment, Adam felt the strangeness of it all , sharing the warmth of flames with near-strangers, laughing as if they were ordinary travelers with nowhere pressing to be.
The morning sun was bright, and it filled Adam's chest with something that felt almost like hope.
Camp was dismantled quickly and without fuss. The giant moths stretched their massive wings, antennae twitching lazily as they tasted the crisp morning air.
Adam climbed onto the lead moth behind Lian Mei, settling into the familiar spot near the creature's neck. With a powerful beat of their wings, all four beasts lifted off the ground and resumed their diamond formation, gliding smoothly over the rolling hills as the smoldering embers of camp shrank and disappeared behind them.
"We can do this," Adam said, his voice a quiet, fragile thing. "We bring back Evelynn. Find the Solomon's Remnant. Use it to locate Kaiser, and if he's even half the legend they say he is, we'll be fine." A short pause. "We can do this."
It was their second night out from Sutra. The journey had settled into a steady, gliding rhythm, putting mile after mile between them and the borders of Serica. A considerable distance, but not nearly enough.
The light came first.
Before any of them could register what was happening, the world was stripped of its shadows by a sudden, blinding flash. Adam, Lian Mei, Renn, Voss, and Sable jerked to a halt in unison, whipping around to face the horizon.
High above the distant silhouette of Serica, the sky was tearing itself apart. It wasn't simply red, the heavens were hemorrhaging. Clouds boiled and peeled back, dissolving into a bruised, apocalyptic crimson that soaked the landscape in the color of fresh blood.
For one long, agonizing moment, there was absolute silence.
Then the air shattered.
It didn't arrive as a sound , it arrived as a concussive wall, a shockwave tearing across the plains with an apocalyptic roar that vibrated through their teeth and rattled their bones. A deep, traumatic rupture of the atmosphere. A sound Adam had heard before. A sound he had never stopped hearing.
His breath was ripped from his lungs in a raw, helpless gasp as the hot wind finally reached them.
Beside him, Lian Mei stood completely still. Her eyes, usually unshakeable, always certain, were wide, reflecting the bleeding sky above Serica. For the first time since any of them had known her, she looked truly afraid.
"This can't be..." she whispered; her voice swallowed whole by the dying rumble of the earth.
Adam tried to speak. The words wouldn't come.
Voss, Renn, and Sable, none of whom had ever witnessed anything like it, were completely frozen.
"What is it?!" Renn shouted, his voice cracking as he turned to Adam and Lian Mei.
"That's the same thing," Adam said, his voice shaking. "The same thing that erased the City of Light."
"It's going to strike down,"