Chap 165: Armageddon Virus
The Yllithor beast’s eye flared without warning, a beam of raw energy striking Kie square in the chest. The shockwave hurled all five Sentinels down the jagged mountainside below Primus HQ.
Saeda and Zod reacted instantly, conjuring protective orbs of Ultramana energy around themselves, Miko, and the falling Kie. Tee’s salvation came from her own dark energy, wrapping her in an obsidian sphere.
Static still clung to Kie’s body as he floated in Saeda’s levitated orb, unconscious and pale.
the Commander’s voice cut sharp through their telecoms. “Back to the jet. Now.”
“That thing’s awake,” Zod stammered.
“Not exactly,” the Commander replied, summoning a hologram—the Yllithor’s eye now petrified into stone.
Their gazes returned to Kie.
Saeda reached toward him and screamed. Images tore through her mind: fog-choked streets, bent lamp posts, something vast with four glowing red eyes looming in the haze.
“Zee!” Miko appeared in a flash, catching her before she hit the ground.
“Do not make contact,” the Commander ordered, his tone sharp enough to slice steel.
And then—Kie rose on his own. His eyes opened, glowing white.
Vergant tech whisked him into containment, a special chamber deep within Primus HQ. The elders arrived in a flurry of robes, their presence oppressive. A few Vergants with bright colored hair and simpler garb stood apart, their unease thick in the air.
Kie hovered above the bed, white light pouring from his eyes, his hair and clothes stirring in an unseen wind. He looked… peaceful. Tee could not say the same for her throbbing right arm—injured because he’d shoved her out of harm’s way. Out of fear she might mutate.
Annoyance burned through her. She’d been blasted, stabbed, even dropped into lava, and never once had she mutated. He’d brought that on himself. She owed him nothing.
Miko’s gaze flicked to Tee, a shadow of recognition in her eyes, before turning away sharply. The tightness in her posture betrayed a lingering tension she struggled to hide.
Tee thought of only one word.
Xenogenist.
Her senses prickled—someone was watching. A Vergant in a dark red hood glanced away. His build suggested youth, not age. Probably nothing.
In truth, it was Aven, apprentice to Elder Earvangar.
“Never have I witnessed such a thing,” murmured Elder Menrith.
“Nor I,” said another in crimson.
Earvangar’s eyes narrowed. With a sweep of his hand, glowing symbols spiraled into the air, condensing into a single pulse of crimson energy. It surged toward Kie—only to rebound off an unseen barrier, blasting through the far wall.
Elder Menrith’s own eyes glowed as she reached out, sensing the force field now fully visible, swelling around Kie until his form was hidden entirely.
Vergants near Tee began edging away.
“Leave at once!” Elder Menrith’s command rolled through the chamber, rattling the high arches above.
The great doors slammed shut, sealing the elders inside with Kie.
In the corridor, Zod, Miko, and Saeda stared after Tee. Saeda’s glare was knife-sharp.
“It’s not Tee’s fault she’s a Xeno-victim,” Miko said.
“She lied and deceived us,” Zod shot back.
“I just want us together again,” Miko murmured. “Maybe I can convince her to get the Seal.”
“Good luck,” Saeda muttered.
Tee’s voice cut in, flat. “I can hear you.”
They froze.
When Tee turned, Miko was suddenly there. “Hey, Tee… where are you headed?”
“Nowhere.”
“Sounds great. I’ll come with you.”
Tee paused. “…Okay.”
They walked in strained silence. Behind them, Zod and Saeda looked away quickly when Tee glanced back. Zod thought Miko was too nice.
Tee kept her thoughts guarded. Kie had brought that on himself, yet she couldn’t help hoping he’d pull through. He was a good guy and didn’t deserve to die protecting someone like her.
In the kitchen, Miko handed her a casserole dish. Their fingers brushed. Miko recoiled as if burned. The dish shattered.
Tee could have caught it. She didn’t.
Miko muttered something about getting the sweeper and fled.
Tee knelt, pushing the mall cleaning drone aside. She picked up the shards by hand, squeezing until blood welled between her fingers. The sting grounded her. Proved she was awake.
Why did she bother anymore?
Kie remembered the moment—he’d taken a blast for Tee.
When his consciousness stirred again, he found himself in the same place as the Yllithor beast’s eye… or so he thought. The surroundings looked different. He was far below it, on wide horizontal ledges instead of the towering height from before.
A faint sound reached him—crying.
He followed it until he saw her. A young woman kneeling alone, white hair falling like silk in the dim light. She looked up.
Her hair was cut short in a long pixie style, baring the graceful line of her neck—smooth, unmarked. No curse mark. Her pale eyes were framed by warm brown skin.
It was Tee.
Kie approached quickly.
“What happened? Where’s everyone?”
She rose slowly, disbelief in her gaze. They both froze—then gasped. They were eye to eye. That wasn’t right. Tee had always been shorter.
After a rapid back-and-forth of events and facts they knew, she came to an outrageous conclusion that he was two years behind. That was the future.
Kie scoffed—Tee was a notorious liar—but the facts nagged him. She was taller. Her hair had changed. Her neck… had no mark.
He tried to dismiss the thought that she might be using concealer to hide a curse mark. If that was truly an older Tee, she had aged beautifully—her haircut framing her face and drawing attention to that elegant neck.
Tears cleared from her vision. It wasn’t her Kie. But emotion overcame her. She hugged him. She could actually touch him. That wasn’t a hallucination.
Then something strange happened. Kie felt her—through her clothes, as if the fabric wasn’t there—her bare skin against his hands.
Flustered, he stepped back. “Weird… I could feel your…” He trailed off. “I mean, you feel really… nude.”
“Nude?”
She snatched a branch growing nearby and swung it at his head. He raised a hand to block it but it passed right through him.
A ghost.
Her eyes dimmed. “You’re not real. I saw everyone die… Zod, Miko, Saeda… you. Everyone.”
“I’m real,” he insisted, touching her shoulder. Again, his hand faded through her clothes to her skin. She flinched, then realized she could feel him too. Maybe it was an advanced hallucination.
She began tracing glowing white symbols in the air. A swirling white vortex appeared, light pouring out.
Kie stared.
She grabbed his arm and they dove through.
The world on the other side was… wrong. A once-bustling neighborhood, with overhead hoverbike tracks and towering rentals, now lay silent and abandoned. The sky was dim, the air biting cold.
“Prodigy happened,” she said flatly.
“That’s impossible,” Kie replied. “Varrak’s dead. We killed him.”
“Varrak has clones. That’s how he survived—again and again. The threat never ended.”
She opened another vortex. They emerged atop a high building. Far below, the massive Priman HQ lay crashed and lifeless, its bulk having torn a swath through the city.
Kie swallowed hard. “You teleported us twice. Since when can you use sorcery?”
“When you’re training to become an elder, you learn a few tricks.”
He blinked. “You… an elder? What happened to the team—to fighting the Harbingers?”
“The Harbingers vanished a year ago. With no one chasing the fragments, you all returned to normal lives. I scout fragments and the Omega stone alone. If I need help, you guys are just a teleport away.”
She blushed slightly, eyes downcast. “You… visit me sometimes. A lot, actually.”
She stepped close, caressing his cheek. “I have the Balance Seal now. You don’t have to be afraid.” Her voice dropped, almost a whisper. “Get as close as you want.”
Hope surged in him. If she had the Seal, maybe she was safe. But she could still die. And she’d said he did die. Which meant… he died first.
She gave him space, then said quietly, “Take a good look around.”
He did. Everywhere was lifeless. Buildings stood open, no grilles, no defenses against Xenosapians. It didn’t make sense.
Her voice took on the weight of despair. “Prodigy used the stolen heart stones, thinking compacted Ether energy could create a barrier against evil spirits—and cure the Xenogene. The curse mark vanished, victims came out of hiding… and for a year, no new mutations. Even Varrak’s father was cured.”
“Varrak’s father?” Kie interrupted.
“But then they mutated. All at once. One touch of their blood, and you turned instantly. He didn’t create a cure. He created the Armageddon virus. You either die screaming… or join them.”
Kie’s voice was tight. “So why are you still alive?”
“The dark energy inside me makes me immune.”
She stepped closer. “If you’re real, I brought you here to stop this future. The Yllithor beast is trapped in all times at once—past, present, future. It might send you back as well.”
“How?”
“When it dies.”
“What? How long will that take?”
Her lips curled faintly. “Unless you want me to kill it.”
“No,” Kie said quickly. “We’ll find another way.”
She sighed. “Then kiss me, and let’s make the last moments count.”
He recoiled. “Why would I kiss you—now? Don’t tell me we’re… together?”
She didn’t answer. “When you died, you took everything from me. Who knew you’d leave the world before I did?”
She moved in for a hug. Time seemed to slow.
Part of him wanted to push her away—didn’t want to feel her skin again—but she seemed genuine, almost desperate. What had happened between them in that timeline?
The hug never came. Both froze—senses flaring.
Then they saw it.
A tidal wave of bodies, rushing in piles. Flesh-twisted humans, black-eyed, shrieking. Claws scraped against walls as they swarmed upward.
And they were coming for them.
Tee stretched out one hand and summoned an energy construct wall, a shimmering barrier rising between them and the advancing mutants. It glowed with a soft white light, starkly different from the usual blue shimmer of Ultramana energy. Something was off—that power was unfamiliar, raw.
The wall crackled as the mutants slammed against it, buying them precious seconds.
Without hesitation, Tee grabbed Kie’s hand and took off running. With a sweep of her free hand, she conjured glowing energy steps beneath their feet, floating in the air like a stairway to safety. But as Kie stepped onto them, his feet passed right through—he was intangible, a ghost to her constructs.
Quickly, he summoned his own steps, solid and blue, to keep pace.
Tee released his hand, and soaring above the creatures, she summoned dark mana in one hand and the familiar blue Ultramana energy in the other. With a forceful clasp, the two energies collided in a brilliant clash, sending white glowing symbols spiraling into the air.
A swirling teleportation vortex opened, pulsing with light. She grabbed Kie’s hand once more, and together they leapt through the portal.
They landed roughly on the side of a collapsed, leaning building and slid down its rubble-strewn face until they hit the cold ground.
Finally, silence.
Tee’s voice broke the stillness. “It’s like this every day. I keep running… There’s no one left. Everyone’s gone.”
They walked side by side through the dim, desolate cityscape. Overhead, ancient constructs creaked and cracked, their once-sleek forms now decrepit. The sky was a permanent overcast, a cold wind biting at their skin.
Tee squeezed Kie’s hand briefly, then let go, blushing faintly. “Just making sure you’re still here.”
“So you’re cured?” Kie asked cautiously.
“You could say that.” Her voice was heavy with sorrow. “But everyone else is dead. So what’s the point?” She sighed deeply. “Seems like I just can’t win when it comes to my fate.”
Suddenly, a sound—scrambling and snarling—from a nearby building to their left. A stampede of mutants burst forth, crawling and dashing wildly toward them.
But just ahead, a group of Vergants arrived on a floating mini-ship, speeding toward them like a last hope.
Yet the mutants poured in from every direction, surrounding them quickly.
Tee smiled grimly. “Survivors.”
She stretched both arms wide and released a wave of white Ether energy. The monsters halted mid-charge, their pitch-black eyes glowing pure white, frozen in place for miles around.
“I can buy you time,” Tee told the Vergants as they drew near.
Kie and Tee scrambled aboard the ship. Kie had to stand on his own energy constructs to avoid fading through the deck. The Vergants couldn’t touch him either—he remained intangible.
Onboard, five Vergants stood alongside four terrified modern-world humans—a woman and three children. Their eyes were wide with fear, haunted by what they had seen.
As the ship rose and put distance between them and the mutants, Tee released her control over the creatures.
“Are you sure they’re not infected?” Tee asked, glancing at the rescued civilians.
The Vergants nodded solemnly.
Kie’s gaze was drawn upward. Four massive, glowing red eyes hovered ominously above the skyscrapers—a monstrous presence looming over the cityscape.
“The MegaSapian,” Tee whispered in his ear. “Varrak’s father.”
Before Kie could react, the Vergants began a teleportation chant.
In a flash, they arrived at a new place. Dim skies drizzled a light rain over lush green trees—an unexpected haven on one of the lost islands, far from the devastation of Geovalon.
Kie looked around and saw more survivors—mostly Vergants. Almost everyone on Geovalon was either dead or mutated into mindless creatures. Worse still, the massive MegaSapian roamed freely.
No Vergants could touch Kie, only Tee.
The tents around them were primitive, shaped from earth itself by Vergant sorcery. They lacked the futuristic technology typical of their kind—earthy slabs leaned against each other to form shelters, a symbol of their battered spirit.
Tee explained, “We have to keep moving. We can’t stay in one place for long. The virus is spreading into the Vergant world too.”
She fashioned a simple tent for herself—a pair of long earthen slabs propped up with one end closed off.
Kie looked at her. “I thought only you could mutate into a MegaSapian.”
“A MegaSapian is a Xenosapian with the power to bring destruction on a global scale,” Tee said grimly. “That thing controls the other mutants. Have you seen its size?”
Her sharp hearing caught the sound of running water nearby. She smiled faintly. “I’m going to take a bath. Want to join me?”
Kie blurted out, “I’ll pass.”
Tee’s smile faded. “You may go back to your time before I return. If so, take care of yourself, Kie.”
That night, Kie fell asleep but woke to the soft sound of Tee crying.