🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋
Hop. Run. Jump. Dash. Dash.
Clad in sleek black ninja suits, Freya and I blended seamlessly into the dim ruins of MAGIA Academy Division I. Our fitted attire, woven with reinforced fiber and laced with subtle aether inscriptions, allowed for both agility and protection. The dark fabric hugged our forms, absorbing the faint moonlight, making us near-invisible specters against the desolate backdrop. Only the faint shimmer of our aether watch, glinting under the occasional flicker of magical energy, betrayed our presence.
Freya and I moved swiftly, weaving through the ruins like shadows. The air was thick with humidity, the scent of decayed foliage and damp atmosphere clinging to my skin. This was a Danger Level 3 zone—hostile territory.
Our mission? Simple on paper, terrifying in execution.
I had to bring back the head of a General-tier Overgrowth entity. A humanoid insect, at least seven feet tall. Personally, I was hoping for something mantis or beetle-like. They were predictable, easier to counter. If I got unlucky, I might run into a variant—something fast, something venomous.
The thought sent a rush of adrenaline through me, but I pushed it aside.
Sol might brag about his years of experience battling calamity entities, but I had mine too.
Grandfather made sure of that.
Ever since middle school, he had been throwing me into hellholes like this, forcing me to complete "missions" under the guise of training. Survive for 24 hours. Eliminate a set number of entities. Gather a certain amount of Blood Crystals. The objectives varied, but the lesson was always the same:
Adapt. Endure. Win.
Some of his missions were outright ridiculous.
Like that one time he ordered me to steal a nurse's uniform from the academy clinic. I still have no idea if there was a deeper lesson there or if he just wanted to mess with me.
A sudden sharp glance from Freya snapped me out of my thoughts.
Right. Focus.
We were close to the Reconnaissance Area. The broken remains of Division I's outer buildings loomed ahead, covered in twisted vines and jagged chitin. Freya stopped behind the remains of a collapsed walkway, crouching low as she activated her scanner.
"Alright, listen up." Her voice was steady, but I caught the undertone of concern.
"Your mission is to eliminate a General-tier Overgrowth. Based on the terrain and scanner readings, your best entry point is the east wing of the academy ruins."
She glanced at me, her piercing eyes locking onto mine.
"As much as possible, avoid direct confrontation until you confirm the presence of a General-tier. Got it?"
I smirked, rolling my shoulders. "Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about me."
Freya didn't smile back.
Instead, she reached out and gave me a firm tap on the shoulder.
"Be safe. And… don't drag anything to the northern part of the academy."
My expression shifted. "Why?"
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
"I don't know," she admitted, her voice dropping to a whisper. "But… I sense something strong in that direction. Something… different."
For a moment, I considered pushing for more details. But Freya wasn't the type to exaggerate. If she said something felt off, I trusted her instincts.
I exhaled through my nose, cracking my knuckles. "Noted. I'll be careful."
She finally allowed a small smile to cross her face.
"You better be."
I grinned. "Relax. After this, maybe Grandpa will finally let me graduate."
Freya let out a soft chuckle and shook her head.
"Go show me what you've got, Ryuji."
I didn't need to be told twice.
With one last glance at my partner, I took a deep breath—
—and dashed into the ruins.
Dash
I moved swiftly, my footsteps silent against the cracked stone tiles of the Academy's East Wing. The corridor curved like a serpent, cloaked in gloom. Moonlight bled weakly through fractured stained glass high above, casting shards of blue and red across the walls like fractured memories. Outside, thunder rolled low across the night sky—storm clouds veiling the moon, sealing the Academy in a deeper darkness.
This place was once sacred. Now? A carcass.
The air was thick with the scent of mildew, scorched parchment, and something fouler—something metallic and raw. Blood, old and fresh. I pressed my back against the cold stone, breath steady, ears tuned to every shift in the ruined silence.
Up ahead, beyond the shattered archway to the library, movement stirred.
Not just one.
Several.
Scattered between the fallen shelves and broken chandeliers were bodies—but not all of them were still.
The Mantid Blades didn't come alone.
Its minions—smaller mantid kin, half-formed and twitching—skittered across the rubble. Their limbs clicked grotesquely against wood and stone as they scavenged like carrion beetles, jaws dripping with acidic saliva that hissed when it struck the floor. Some gnawed on corpses. Others simply waited, staring into nothing, until something triggered their frenzy.
But I wasn't here for them.
There—center of the chaos.
The Mantid Blades.
Seven feet of cold precision. Four arms, each ending in a gleaming blade curved like a butcher's hook. Its carapace glistened like black oil under the emergency lights that flickered behind it. Chitin cracked with every motion—alien, insectile. Its dragonfly-like wings twitched, sending out brief gusts of dry air that rustled the hanging pages of ruined tomes.
Its head turned—slowly—angled unnaturally, scanning. Its slitted eyes shimmered with a strange refracted glow, mapping the dark like sonar. I froze, breath caught.
It was fast. Faster than the eye could follow.
But I didn't need to be faster.
I just needed to be unseen.
Unpredictable.
One step ahead.
🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋
I slipped into the library's broken threshold like a phantom, each movement stitched into the darkness. The air was thicker here—choked with dust, decay, and the faint static of Aether tension. A shattered chandelier hung above like a skeletal maw, swaying slightly with every tremor the Mantid Blades made below.
Staying low, I weaved between overturned tables, fallen shelves, and broken pillars, their cracks glowing faintly with residual energy from previous clashes. The minions continued their crawl—jittery, predatory, aimless until triggered.
They hadn't seen me yet.
Good.
I ascended the crumbling staircase at the flank, stepping only on the stable slabs I'd memorized during surveillance drills. My heartbeat was a war drum in my ears, but my mind was still.
Top floor. North corner. Clean angle—full view.
I crouched, eyes locking onto the target.
Time to set the stage.
With a flick of my wrist, I launched a spear—Spear Cannon—toward the creature. The same attack I used in training with Freya—only this time, I amplified it tenfold.
The technique was simple in principle but devastating in effect.
By compounding its fall velocity with gravity and reinforcing the structure with layered Aether, the spear avoided early disintegration from atmospheric pressure. Each microsecond of descent increased its kinetic load exponentially. By the time it reached terminal velocity, it struck with the weight of a meteor—guided, focused, and brutal.
It plummeted toward the Mantid Blades like a divine hammer.
A clean shot. Direct.
Unstoppable—
But it saw it coming.
With unnatural precision, the creature shifted its weight and raised its left scythe-arm.
A deafening clang ripped through the library as blade met spear, the collision unleashing a shockwave so violent it knocked books off shelves, shattered nearby windows, and cracked the marble floor beneath it. Several of the mantid minions were caught in the blast—flung across the chamber like brittle dolls, limbs snapping against stone.
He blocked it…?
That was fine.
That was expected.
Or else this would be boring if it was too easy.
Because by the time the explosion rang out, I was already airborne—launched from the upper balcony, Codex Nexus next summon boosting my momentum. My suit flared behind me. My hand gripped the hilt of the blade I'd pulled mid-leap. The target below hadn't even finished recovering from the shockwave.
The real strike was coming now.
Mid-air.
Mine.
A jumping slash—
My greatsword descended, Aether crackling along its edge, heat and pressure rippling in its wake. A finishing strike, honed to cleave through carapace and bone. I aimed directly for its skull.
But the Mantid Blade wasn't just fast.
It was instinctive.
At the last second, it twisted—unnaturally fluid—its right scythe-arm snapping up to intercept.
CLANG!
Sparks erupted. Steel screamed against hardened chitin. The force reverberated up my arms, threatening to dislocate my shoulders.
I grit my teeth and pushed harder, blade grinding downward inch by inch.
But the Mantid shifted again—dropping its stance, absorbing the force like a spring—and redirected it. My momentum betrayed me, dragging me forward off balance.
Its left arm twitched—but it was still damaged from the earlier spear, hanging limp. Useless.
So it adapted.
It spun.
A flawless mid-air twist.
360 degrees.
In that single motion, its right scythe arced cleanly—
Toward my exposed nape.
He's fast!
I barely had time to react.
With a surge of Aether, I summoned a–Spartan shield– behind my back.
The mantis blade punched through, metal shrieking as it embedded halfway deep.
Even reinforced, it buckled under the monster's raw power. The creature hissed, twisting the embedded arm, trying to wrench it sideways—carving for bone.
I can't let him control the pace.
I dispelled my greatsword in an instant and formed a spear in my left hand—its weight familiar, but now far deadlier.
Aether surged, roaring through my veins as I primed the technique.
Spartan Thrust.
Modified into Spear Cannon—point-blank.
Using the same principle as my thrown spear, I began teleporting the spear's tip forward—
once,
twice,
ten times in rapid succession.
Each flash snapped space. Each jump added catastrophic speed.
The tip blurred into invisibility, the air around it compressing into a violent cone.
The sound bent, warping into a screech—like the world itself was flinching.
The floor cracked beneath me. The recoil was already ripping the atmosphere apart.
Below, the Mantid Blades' slitted eyes flared wide.
It knew.
It tried to move.
All around us, its minions shrieked—sensing their alpha's panic.
They leapt from beams, clambered over shelves, desperate to reach it.
One even flung itself toward me mid-thrust—too late.
Same as the Mantid Blades sensed it—too late.
Its right blade was still lodged in my shield. Pinned.
It yanked hard, exoskeletal joints creaking in panic. Its wings buzzed into a shrill whine.
I saw it.
The decision.
It couldn't block.
It couldn't dodge.
So it sacrificed its left arm.
BOOOOOOM!
The explosion ripped through the library like a wrathful god had struck down from above.
Aether ignited mid-air, detonating in a shockwave that sent the charging minions flying—bodies flailing like shattered puppets, limbs torn from sockets. Some were launched into walls, others hurled across broken furniture. A few, caught at the epicenter, simply disintegrated—vaporized by the concentrated aftershock of the impact.
The spear had pierced clean through the creature's scythe limb with a sickening crunch, detonating upon exit like a missile breaching armor.
A thunderous blast followed.
Bookshelf columns collapsed like dominos. Glass shattered overhead.
And the Mantid Blades—its entire frame consumed by the explosion—was hurled backward, crashing through the upper alcoves and sent spiraling out of a shattered stained-glass window. hurtling him outside of the library
Debris rained down.
And I stood there, at the center of it all.
Like a Spartan in his moment of glory—one arm holding the smoking spear, the other holding a shield.
Breath calm. My eyes locked onto the ruined garden outside the library, just beyond the wreckage.
There.
The Mantid Blades staggered to its feet.
Its body was cracked, twitching, smoke rising from deep ruptures in its armor. One limb gone entirely—just a gory socket leaking green, bubbling insectoid fluid that hissed as it hit the cold stone.
And yet…
It stood.
Proud. Defiant.
Even half-broken, it raised its remaining blades—shaking, but ready.
It wasn't done yet.
And neither was I.
Then—
A sound broke the tension.
Sharp.
Thin.
"Eek… eek…"
The Mantid Blades… was laughing.
Not in mockery.
Not in arrogance.
But in euphoria.
Its mandibles twitched, throat clicking with a sick, rhythmic rattle—a sound that vibrated through the wreckage like twisted applause. It wasn't angry.
It was thrilled.
It had found a worthy opponent.
The creature reached across with its remaining arm, gripped the shredded remnants of its left limb—
—and tore it off.
A wet, tearing snap echoed through the library.
It tossed the limb aside without hesitation.
Not as surrender.
But as a statement.
No weakness.
No fear.
Only battle.
I stepped forward, walking through the smoke and shattered stone toward the gaping hole it had carved into the wall.out of the broken library and into the moonlit garden—where the Mantid Blades stood waiting, its silhouette framed by shattered stone and swirling mist.
Each step echoed louder than the last.
My heart didn't race.
My hands didn't shake.
Then, faintly—
A voice.
A woman's voice.
Sweet. Gentle. Distant.
A memory wrapped in warmth—like sunlight breaking through a storm.
"Remember this, Ryuji... whenever you're scared, only say this..."
I dismissed my spear.
The Spartan shield faded into light.
My lips parted, the words rising—not from thought, but from the core of my soul.
"As I walk through the shadow of death…"
The wind stirred.
The creature flared its wings, its stance shifting. Ready. Watching.
At my side, the Codex Nexus bloomed to life—a burst of radiant blue.
Pages unfurled with a whispering hum, each inscribed with pulsing glyphs that glowed like starlight.
Aether surged through my veins, alive and aware.
"…I fear no evil."
I stepped forward. The ground crackled with residual energy.
The Codex vibrated in harmony with my pulse.
"…for God is with me."
My eyes locked onto the monster ahead.
You don't scare me.
Head high.
Shoulders squared.
My fingers grazed the glowing script—calm, steady, resolute.
Round Two begins now.
🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋✦ AetherBorne: The Archivus Legacy ✦🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋🜋