I woke up on cold, hard metal. My head throbbed in a rhythm that matched the humming of the walls.

  “I’m… cold,” I muttered, trying to push myself up. “My head… ow. What happened? Where’s my armour?”

  As awareness crept back, I realized my hands weren’t free. My wrists were locked in glistening metallic handcuffs. A brilliant gold shimmer emanated from the restraints, and the bars connecting them hummed with a constant electric charge… a palpable barrier to freedom.

  A single, luminous silver line ran along the ceiling, casting a sterile, unblinking glow upon the room.

  “Wow,” a voice sneered from above. “You must have dementia or something. Kinda sad. Wait, are you sulking again?”

  Bǎo was sitting on the metallic bunk, swinging her legs, looking down at me with zero sympathy.

  “You,” I groaned, struggling to sit up. “This is your fault. Why!? Was it worth it? You put me in a box!”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, grinning without warmth. “Could’ve been a grave if my hand had slipped. You should try gratitude instead; anger makes your face wrinkled and ugly.”

  “… I hate you so much.”

  “It’s not too late to put you in that grave, piggy.”

  “SHUT UP, YOU TWO!”

  A deep voice boomed from the cell directly above us.

  “WE’RE ALL STUCK HERE TOGETHER, AND WE’RE ALL BOILING TO BE HERE! IF MY MAGIC WAS WORKING, I’D BOIL YOU TWO TO DEATH!”

  Bǎo rolled her eyes. “Sucks to be you! Bǎo doesn’t need any magic to kill you, yapping dog.”

  The bars of our cell shimmered, then parted to create a doorway. A grey Nuxxani woman entered. She wore ragged white robes beneath a pristine black coat with embossed silver seams—a clash of refugee and official. A conical hat embroidered with stars sat on her head.

  “Mr. Tanaka,” she said, smiling. “My name is Seraphel. I hope the room is comfortable.”

  She folded her hands, her rings catching the sterile light. “You’ve caused quite a stir.”

  “This... wasn’t how I imagined it going,” I said.

  Her gaze flicked to my cuffs. “You know what that does?”

  “Uh… stops us from using magic and escaping?”

  “It also restricts metabolic irregularities,” she said pleasantly. “Meaning, if you try to use magic, the cuff hard-faults your heart.”

  She tapped a control on her tablet. A holographic display shimmered above the table: images from the Kemijoki event. Frozen frames of the snow, the static bursts, the auroral bloom. In each one, my silhouette glowed faintly green amid the chaos.

  Seraphel rotated the feed until my face filled the projection.

  “Let’s start simple. You were there when the Corpse Fauna—who you know as Doctor Vainio—fought my wounded Star Dragon.”

  “Y-yeah… I couldn’t do much, sorry about that…”

  “And you helped recover the dragon sphere, which still connects you.”

  “Uh, ‘helped’?”

  She ignored that. “Then you were brought to Edenfall by Oruun. You understand the sensitivity of what you’ve encountered?”

  “Not even remotely… aha…”

  “You’re in over your head,” she said. “At least you’re honest.”

  Bǎo snorted from the bed. “Great, Bǎo loves condescending monologues. You practice that in alien HR?”

  Seraphel didn’t blink. “Do you speak for the VIPs or the room’s noise quota?”

  “Both,” Bǎo said. “Depends on who pays faster.”

  “Silence.”

  Seraphel didn’t raise her voice, but the cuffs on Bǎo’s wrist flickered red. Bǎo choked, clutching her chest for a second, silenced instantly.

  Seraphel turned back to study me. “Nuxx is very interested in you.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I don’t care about Nuxx,” I said, panic rising. “I just want to live. Please.”

  Seraphel tilted her head. “He doesn’t kill. He only watches.”

  “I’d rather be dead than stuck here for the rest of my life with her…” I gestured vaguely at Bǎo.

  Something warm passed behind Seraphel’s eyes. She clasped her hands again, the picture of calm administration.

  “You’re not under arrest,” she said. “You’re under Policy Custody, Section 14. Observational detainment with discretionary release. It’s meant to be painless.”

  “Oh my God…”

  “You would cooperate, provide information, and maybe survive the paperwork. Live in containment.”

  The cuffs on my wrists pulsed once, faint and warm. I looked down.

  “While I do not care for you, Arata Tanaka, I cannot let your story end here,” Seraphel whispered. “With my power… perhaps you can be freed.”

  She reached out, touching my forehead with a long grey finger.

  “Embrace.”

  Instantly, I was somewhere else.

  I floated in black without edges. The void felt endless and close at once, like a held breath that never released. Then the dark folded, and I was looking through someone else’s eyes.

  A crater rim. Gold shrapnel. A woman seated like the pit was her throne. Seraphel.

  Then wings thundered. A red beast dived from the sky. Gold dust settled on her shoulders. Her laughter was calm, commanding.

  “Hear now, beast. You will obey me.”

  The voice filled me, heavy with warm light and age.

  Star Dragon. Our minds are linked. Watch. Learn my history. Understand my creator.

  In the vision, Seraphel spoke with the calm of someone who had never been refused. “My power exceeds your understanding. I will shape you into the image of a god, if you heed my command.”

  “Within thirty moons, bring me a fire dragon’s egg and a sphere from your kin. For the protection of our races and our future.”

  The beast bowed. “As commanded.”

  She touched the scaled brow. “Be swift. Be true. Be hope.”

  She taught the creature warmth and mission: burn, then heal. The vision deepened, shifting to Seraphel’s voice narrating the memory.

  “The dragons were not of Earth,” she said. “They crossed the void from their home in Thyracia and settled in Nomadara for an age. Earth was a trial. I designed the Star Dragon you carry to burn it down when that trial failed.”

  “You made it to destroy Earth?” I asked, my voice echoing in the void.

  “I did. But it disobeyed me. It did not follow the path and crashed through the Kuiper Belt’s icy debris. Thoth had ruined everything. When he fought Nuxx, he pulled a frozen remnant from the early Solar System beyond Neptune, barring the path. The Kuiper Belt can turn even its Celestial golden scales black and blue.”

  She stepped closer in the vision. “You are lucky that the Corpse Fauna needed your world alive and lusted for their Celestial power.”

  I was stunned. Not only by the implication my planet had been saved because an ape-eating fly wanted a snack, but because we’d have been turned into dust if this dumb alien had a working GPS system.

  This was all getting too ridiculous. I almost burst out laughing.

  Then, I felt those large, black eyes looking through my very soul. None of this was a joke.

  “… What about Edenfall?” I asked.

  “Nuxx adapted. It learned desire and hierarchy. It took a throne on my clean world. Every solution I created grew teeth and bit me back. So, I tried to uproot everything.”

  “Then what do you want from me? I’m useless now.”

  “Not obedience.” She touched the edge of my golden scale in the memory. “Understanding. Destroy Nuxx. Restore balance.”

  “I keep… thinking these words. Creation. Control. Corruption. Collapse. Is that the dragon’s cycle?”

  Her mouth softened. “That is what the Star Dragon said before it fell. You are the last chance, Arata. Do not fail your creator the way I failed mine.”

  The world dissolved.

  I woke with a jolt. The cuff on my wrist disengaged with a quiet click. My wrist felt bare.

  Bǎo sprung up immediately and headed for the door, like she was about to sprint out.

  Seraphel looked at me, then at Bǎo. “You’re making a mistake. The moment he’s outside a containment zone, the lattice will reactivate. Be patient.”

  Bǎo rose. “Then it’ll be a very educational mistake for Bǎo.”

  Seraphel didn’t move to stop her. Maybe she couldn’t. She opened the door. No one touched it; it reacted to Bǎo’s presence. I stood, half-expecting resistance.

  “Twenty seconds,” Bǎo murmured. “That’s how long the door stays open. Walk, not run.”

  “Is there any other way?” I asked.

  “Nuxx will…”

  “She’s taken the choice for you,” Bǎo said, already moving. “You were too busy glaring at walls.”

  “I was considering which one to bash my head against.”

  I had no choice. Dejectedly, I walked after Bǎo. Seraphel’s gaze followed us.

  “You think he’s letting you escape,” she said. “He’s not. He adds system flaws to keep the experiment alive.”

  “Aren’t we lucky,” I said, and stepped through.

  The corridor was a sterile white throat, long and humming with the low-frequency throb of a machine that never slept. Behind us, the heavy security door sealed with a final, pressurized hiss—the sound of a breath being held by a god.

  We breached the prison unit, and the world fractured.

  Oruun was already there, standing in the center of the hall. He looked different than he had in the kitchen. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, jagged desperation.

  He was speaking to the prisoners in a voice that carried the ancient authority of his Kal Dem ancestors.

  “Sit back,” he said, a sharp, dangerous smile cutting across his face as he began to glow with a violent, ultraviolet radiance. “And watch a professional.”

  “A true hero…! Where have you been all my life?” an alien prisoner cried out, eyes wide with the desperate hope of the damned.

  “Why are you helping us?” I shouted, running toward him. “You sold us out!”

  Oruun turned, his eyes burning. “The kitchen is gone, Arata. Nuxx lied. He took it anyway.”

  He didn’t wait for my response. He threw out spheres of gravitonic energy that didn't just open the cells—they shredded the reinforced bars like wet paper, hundreds of locks failing in a single, synchronized heartbeat.

  My mind reeled. He had been so vulnerable during the interrogation, yet here he was playing the saviour because he had nothing left to lose.

  The silence was obliterated. The screams of hundreds of freed captives turned into a flood of greyed, skeletal figures that poured from their cells, eyes feverish and wild.

  But the air changed before they could reach us. An invisible pressure slammed into the crowd, a tidal wave of force approaching with the inevitability of a glacier.

  Then came the voice. It was quiet as rainfall but threaded through every nerve ending I possessed.

  “Oh, this is getting interesting…! I’ve been betrayed.”

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