High above the devastated district, within the floating observation deck of the Academy, the atmosphere was thick with dread. Governor Nex paced the floor, his boots clicking sharply against the glass. He turned to the Principal, his face etched with lines of deep concern.
"We are standing on the precipice of annihilation," Nex declared, his voice trembling with a rare flash of fear. "If we do not intervene now, the cultists will succeed. They are gathering the fragments, Principal. If they manage to resurrect The Hollow, there won't be enough left of this world to bury."
The Principal stood by the arched window, his hands clasped behind his back. He looked out at the bruised sky, where the remnants of the Black Sun were still fading. "The Hollow is a hunger that cannot be sated," the Principal murmured. "A void that predates the light. But look there, Nex. Look into the eye of the storm."
He pointed toward the horizon. There, suspended in the air like a dark god, was the silhouette of Leo. He stood motionless amidst the swirling clouds, his presence alone acting as a tether to reality.
"The board has changed," the Principal added. "We are no longer the only ones fighting the dark."
The Price of Arrogance
Back on the blood-stained earth, the silence was heavy.
Indra gasped, his lungs burning as if he had swallowed molten lead. His eyes flickered open, but the world was a blur of grey and crimson. For a long moment, he couldn't remember where he was. Then, the weight of the sword—the blade that had pierced his chest—came rushing back to his mind.
He groaned, rolling onto his side. Just a few feet away, he saw Destiny. She lay perfectly still, her golden aura completely extinguished, her face as pale as marble. The sight of her sparked a flicker of life in his heart.
"Destiny..." he wheezed, his voice little more than a whisper.
He looked past her and saw the mangled remains of the dark man she had fought. The villain was in pieces, bisected by a strike so powerful it had left a permanent scar on the ground. Indra felt a surge of grim respect. She did it, he thought. She used the last of herself to end him.
Indra looked down at the wound in his own chest. The blade had been pulled out, likely by the force of the final explosion, but the hole it left behind was weeping dark, celestial blood.
"I was careless," Indra spat, a bitter taste in his mouth. "I underestimated his malice. I allowed my pride to blind me to the danger of the Narma siphon. A warrior of my rank... falling to such a cheap trick. Pathetic."
The Blood Art
He knew he didn't have much time. His vision was beginning to tunnel, a sign that his soul was leaking out alongside his blood. He had to stabilise himself if he wanted to save Destiny.
Indra sat up with a guttural scream of pain, crossing his legs in a meditative stance. He placed his trembling palm directly over the gaping wound in his chest.
"Blood Art: Crimson Suture," he growled.
As he spoke the words, the blood flowing from his wound didn't fall to the ground. Instead, it began to vibrate and thicken. The droplets turned into needle-thin threads of dark red energy, weaving themselves back into his flesh. It was an agonizing process—a forbidden technique that used one's own life force to physically stitch the body back together.
His skin knit shut with a series of wet, snapping sounds. The internal bleeding stopped, though the ache in his bones remained. He was far from healed, but he was no longer dying.
The Burden of a Comrade
Indra stood up, his legs shaking like a newborn deer's. He stumbled over to Destiny and knelt beside her. He checked her pulse; it was faint, like the fluttering of a moth's wing, but she was still there.
"I won't leave you in this graveyard," Indra whispered.
With a monumental effort, he slid his arms beneath her and lifted her up. She felt unnervingly light, her magic-depleted body having lost its natural density. He tucked her head against his shoulder and began the long, slow walk out of the crater.
Every step was a battle. Every breath was a victory. Above him, the sky continued to shift as Leo descended toward the earth, but Indra didn't look up. He had only one mission now: to get his comrade to safety before the shadows of The Hollow began to rise from the deep.Chapter Eleven: The Mask of Sorrows
Far from the battlefield, in a sanctuary hidden within the folds of a pocket dimension, two figures stood in the flickering light of a dying hearth. A tall man, draped in robes of charcoal silk, stared into the embers.
"He is gone," the man said, his voice devoid of any emotion.
Behind him stood a young woman, her posture rigid. She did not look at him. "I am aware," she replied, her voice as sharp as a winter frost.
The man turned slightly, the firelight catching the edge of a porcelain mask—identical to the one worn by the warrior Destiny had just slain. "The world believes we have failed. They believe Lucifer's fall was our defeat. But they are blind. We have succeeded in our objective without a single soul being the wiser. The seeds of the Hollow have been sown."
He paused, his eyes narrowing behind the mask's slits. "I know you, Elara. I know that beneath that cold exterior, you are burning with rage. Ron was your companion. His death at the hands of that girl... it must sting."
The girl didn't flinch. "He was a soldier. Soldiers die. It makes no difference to me."
"Very well," the man whispered, his body beginning to dissolve into a swirl of black feathers and smoke. "We shall meet again when the bells of the Abyss toll. Do not fail me."
With a sudden rush of air, he vanished. The girl stood alone in the silence. For a long minute, she didn't move. Then, slowly, a single, crystalline tear escaped the edge of her mask and traced a path down the porcelain cheek. She didn't wipe it away. She simply stared into the dark, a silent vow of vengeance settling in her heart.
The Erased History
Back in the heart of the crater on Earth, the dust was finally settling. Leo stood amongst the cinders of Lucifer, his hands tucked into his pockets, looking remarkably calm for a man who had just collapsed a singularity.
The Principal approached him, his robes singed but his expression unreadable. "It is over," the old man said. "But the victory tastes like ash. Lucifer was merely a symptom, Leo. He was a fragment of the Erased History of Calking—a past that the universe tried to forget, but failed to bury."
Leo turned his head, his grey eyes piercing. "The history doesn't matter. Only the future does. Where are the others?"
Governor Nex stepped forward, pointing toward the crumbling staircases of the Great Hall that led down from the Academy's upper tiers. "Look for yourself."
The Reunion
At the base of the shattered marble steps, a figure emerged from the settling fog. It was Indra.
He looked like a man who had walked through hell and back. His chest was crudely stitched with dark, dried blood, and his breath came in ragged gasps. Slumped over his shoulder, unconscious but breathing, was Destiny.
A heavy iron gate groaned open as Indra reached the bottom of the stairs. He stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening as he saw Leo standing there, looking perfectly pristine despite the chaos.
Leo smirked, a flash of his old arrogance returning. "Look at you two," Leo remarked, his voice smooth. "Still breathing? I'm almost impressed. You actually managed to survive."
Indra let out a dry, pained chuckle, shifting Destiny's weight on his shoulder. "Is this really the time for jokes, Leo? We almost died back there while you were playing god in the sky."
Leo walked forward, patting Indra's shoulder with a rare, genuine nod of respect. "Congrats, Indra. You held the line."
He looked at the unconscious Destiny, then at the horizon where the black sun had finally vanished. "But don't get too comfortable. The war with the Morning Star was just the beginning."
As the screen fades to black, a series of ancient, glowing runes appear in the air, pulsing with a blood-red light
The battlefield had cooled, but the scars remained.
Near the scorched crater where the singularity had bloomed, a man stepped through the settling ash. He moved with the silence of a shadow. He stopped when he saw it—the charcoal-grey overcoat Leo had discarded before the fight. He knelt, his gloved fingers brushing the expensive British wool.
"How many years has it been, old friend?" the man whispered to the wind. He picked up the coat, folding it with meticulous care. "The world is changing again. I can feel the gears turning."
The Recovery
In the high-tech medical wing of the Academy, the air was sterile and quiet. Destiny lay in a suspended healing bed, her breathing steady for the first time in days. Indra sat in a chair beside her, his chest wrapped in thick bandages, his eyes dark with exhaustion.
As the morning light filtered through the blinds, Destiny's eyes fluttered open. She saw Indra immediately.
"You're awake," Indra said, his voice unusually soft. He looked at his hands, struggling with the words. "I... I wanted to say thank you. You saved my life back there. If you hadn't taken that final stand, I wouldn't be sitting here."
Destiny sat up abruptly, a spark of her usual fire returning to her eyes. "Oh, shut up, you grumpy fool! Don't get all sentimental on me now."
She tried to swing her legs off the bed to stand, but a sharp, biting pain shot through her lower half. She looked down and saw both of her legs encased in reinforced magical casts.
"Fractured?" she wailed, throwing her head back against the pillow in frustration. "Both of them? Ugh! Why does this always happen to me? I win the fight and I still end up stuck in a bed like a broken doll!"
Indra couldn't help it; a small, ghost of a smirk appeared on his face. "Perhaps it's the universe's way of telling you to slow down."
The Grave of the Fallen
Across the city, in the silent rows of the Memorial Gardens, the atmosphere was far more tragic. Leo stood before a fresh headstone.
NOLAN – A GUARDIAN UNTIL THE END.
Alice stood beside the grave, her shoulders shaking with silent, uncontrollable sobs. She had lost everything in the crossfire of Lucifer's ambition.
Leo watched her, his expression unreadable, but his eyes were like cold flint. Governor Nex stood a few paces back, his hat held against his chest.
"He was a good man," Nex murmured.
"He was a casualty," Leo corrected, his voice devoid of warmth. "And he won't be the last. We need to prepare ourselves for a threat far greater than Lucifer. The 'Hell Arc' is not just a name; it is a promise. From this point on, the deaths will only become more frequent. The blood has only just begun to flow."
Three Days Later: The Secret Mission
The sun was setting behind the Academy spires when Indra found Leo on the balcony. Indra was dressed for travel, a heavy cloak concealing his still-healing wounds.
"I'm leaving, Leo," Indra said firmly. "I can't sit in those halls while the ones who did this are still drawing breath. I need my revenge."
Leo didn't turn around. "I understand. The fire of vengeance is a powerful fuel. I can help you find them, Indra. I can give you the coordinates to the first gate of the calikng ."
Indra stopped. He hadn't expected Leo to be so cooperative. "What's the catch?"
Leo finally turned, his gaze locking onto Indra's. "No catch. Just a message. When you find the one who orchestrates the suffering—the one behind the masks—tell him this exactly: 'Who is the one who only seeks the good of all, yet wishes to see everyone perish?'"
Indra frowned, repeating the riddle in his mind. "I don't understand it, but I'll say it."
Leo stepped forward and placed a hand on Indra's shoulder. For a moment, the cold Sovereign looked almost human. "Good. And Indra... try to smile once in a while. You're heading into Hell. You might as well go in with a grin."
Indra nodded once, adjusted his cloak, and vanished into the shadows of the evening. The hunt for the truth had begun.
[CALKING: THE MOVIE – END]
[LOADING... THE HELL ARC]