The night was cold in the ruined city by the ocean, a biting chill seeped through the cracks of the crumbling buildings and whispered through the empty streets. The sky was a deep, velvety black, punctuated by a smattering of distant stars that offered little comfort to the desolation below. The moon, half-hidden behind a veil of clouds, cast a pale, ghostly light that flickered on the jagged edges of what remained of the city's once-proud skyline.

The air was thick with the scent of salt and decay, mingling with the faint, briny tang of the nearby ocean. Waves crashed rhythmically against the shore, their sound a distant, melancholy roar that echoed through the empty avenues and alleyways. Broken windows stared like hollow eyes from the facades of dilapidated buildings, their shattered glass glinting faintly in the moonlight.

Here and there, rusted cars lay abandoned, half-buried in rubble, their frames twisted and skeletal.

This was once a city before the Fall, with so many people living here. And now…it was just an echo of what it was previously.

Amidst the ruins, two lone figures moved. Their blades rang as they engaged in a furious fight.

One was a girl with raven black hair, her skin glowing under the gentle tease of moonlight. She moved flawlessly with her black blade as she deeply engaged herself in this current fight. If it weren't for the small cuts on her white tunic, she would’ve looked like a deity dancing under the faint moonlight.

Her opponent was a tall woman with serious sapphire blue eyes and messy dark hair, wielding a silver Jian that blurred under the moonlight sky as it danced along with her vicious nature.

Luna managed to push the woman back with a pinch of her strength which caused her opponent to somehow startle. Then, she strategically used the small seconds of her opponent’s loss of focus to swiftly strike the Jian out of her hands.

The beautiful Jian flipped through the air and pierced a loose piece of concrete, marking the end of their sparring session.

Darkness forced out a grin, her chest rising and falling at a concerning rate. "I guess you're in good condition if you can fight like that. You demoness," she hissed and stared at one of the wounds Luna had delivered during the session. It was a shallow cut on her arm that closed immediately once the zenshi noticed it.

Luna gave her a faint smile and touched the air to summon a holographic panel displaying the multiple options for the training room. She gently tapped the 'End Session' option and the room's entire reality started to shift and crumble down, returning to its original.

For a brief moment, she stared at the ruins of the once mighty New York City as they disintegrated into pixels of augmented reality. Of course, the city didn't look this it looked like at the moment. This was too peaceful. Currently, it was crawling with all kinds of horrors since it was close to the shore. Areas close to the shore were hunting grounds for cursed creatures that lived mostly in the water.

Another thing humanity was afraid of.

She turned to Darkness and scoffed, "I only won because the room doesn’t support Auras. That's all."

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"What's the use of training rooms if they can't let the ascender go all out?" Darkness scowled, her face burning with annoyance.

Luna sighed and tried to give the woman a reasonable explanation. "Auras vary from person to person. Do you think this huge room will survive the full output of your Aura? Are you ready to pay for the damages done to Army Grade technology?" she raised an eyebrow.

Darkness frowned a little and clicked her tongue. "No. But at least they should make them sturdier."

Just then, the doors to the room slid open and Gail walked in. Behind him followed a young woman. She was shorter than him, with wavy black hair and fierce jade-green colored eyes, the freckles on her face made her only more beautiful and her greeting smile even more. She was clad in nanoskin armor—which was now a normality among military officials in the Southern Reach.

Even Luna had received hers a few days back. However, hers was said to have a few modifications from the upcoming models. Cool as it looked to have one, Luna decided to put on hers once she’s completely recovered and ready to leave the Hospital complex.

Which was soon because they were leaving for army command in a day. When there, Luna and her small team were to await further instructions from whoever was in charge of giving instructions.

'Geez…I'm not an army veteran. I was just a professor a few weeks back…'

“And a depressed gamer before that,” she murmured to herself as if responding to her thoughts.

All this looking-for-a-purpose stuff was getting hard, to be honest. If her mother hadn't made that request, Luna would probably be taking tea or going for a run on this Saturday morning.

'Instead, I'm going to spend my weekend hoping I don't die while mystery hunting.'

She sighed and then turned to Mira. The young woman was probably the only person she could relate to. Just like her, they were here because they had responsibilities as members of powerful families. The only reason she didn’t feel so bad about this was because this was her chance to protect Lena for once and also prove herself as the next heiress to House Feng.

Sure there was also the damn mystery in the background of an anomaly that might be a threat to Raphael’s master or the Mortal Realm. The strangest thing concerning all this was that no one ever talked about what exactly happened on the train that day after Mao Feng arrived and cornered the infected. The reports to army command had been made, but there was no mention of what Raphael said during their conversation. To every soldier, Raphael was speaking in a foreign language that only Mao Feng seemed to understand. A foreign language that Luna also secretly understood.

'All of this is making my head hurt.'

"Is something wrong Captain?" Mira now looked uncomfortable.

Luna's eyes flattered. "What?"

"You were staring at me with a weird look, is something wrong?"

Luna shook her head as she sheathed her black katana. She hadn't realized she had zoned out for a few seconds. "No. Nothing is wrong. By the way, did you get everything I asked you for?"

The young woman nodded. "Yes. All the available star data recordings before the fall were downloaded onto your datapad, captain."

“Thank you.”

As it turns out, Mira was a very resourceful person when she was not fighting. And since she chose to follow Luna to battle, she planned to utilize her abilities to the full extent.

With Mira’s help, she pulled a few strings and acquired a good number of star readings from the government’s secret vault of information. Most of the earlier star readings were hard to acquire, but the later ones were much easier to get since they were taken from the moon settlement. She was even lucky enough to get some readings after the fall.

Now that everyone was here, Luna took it upon herself to make an important announcement. "Today is our last day here. All of you won't be getting any good rest until the subjugation is complete, so I advise you all to get some rest."

Gail opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Darkness whose energetic voice overpowered Gail's in an instant. "We've been here for two weeks and the subjugation was to last three weeks. Next week should have been the second week."

Suddenly, the mood in the room turned solemn after Darkness's statement.

A few days ago, they received news of new powerful creatures emerging on the first level. And to make it worse, the interior looked nothing like the recordings taken by the drones. The interior of the tower was nothing like the inside of a castle or anything like that. According to recent reports, it resembled another world torn from a different reality. Many soldiers had already died at the claws or mouths of the cursed creatures that ruled the tower from within.

House Feng had also lost seven out of the total force of one hundred fifty ascenders, which was frightening to say because House Feng’s swords were powerful. There had been a big change in plans and the generals commanding both armies were now trying their best to make changes to cover for humanity’s miscalculation. Thankfully, the threat level hadn’t been increased.

This information had obviously caused a stir in the Eastern Settlement and the rest of the world in general. They had underestimated the threat; something that hadn’t happened since the War on the Moon.

With that, the subjugation time frame of three weeks had been changed to ‘unknown’