At the very peak of the Cosmic Tower—an edifice piercing clouds and stretching beyond the reach of ordinary dreams—there was a chamber the city called the New Babel.
A tower so absurdly tall no one had ever set foot inside to confirm what really lay at its summit.
Rumors were wildfire: a secret laboratory, a device to bend time itself, or perhaps a hidden council that ruled above every government on Earth.
The truth was none of those things—yet far more dangerous than all of them combined.
This was the High Council of Cosmic City.
A hologram shimmered across the oval table, projecting two universes in constant flux, their cold luminescence against unreadable faces. No one smiled. No one laughed. In this room, every word carried the weight of treaties… and silence was war inked without a pen.
"Honorable members, this emergency session convenes because something terrible has—"
"Eden's been breached." a voice cut in, sharp and immediate.
"Breached? Don't make it sound like popping a balloon. This was an invasion, deliberate and precise."
"The Ripper—it's no longer a rumor. It's a catastrophe on legs," an elder thundered, his tone cracking through the chamber. "And we're just going to sit here and watch?"
Around the table, heads bowed in silence, as if priests who knew the altar candles were about to snuff out. A low murmur began to ripple through the chamber.
"Calm yourselves," spoke the newest member, his stare pressing down heavily as if carved from fresh meteor stone. "What do they call it again…?"
He let the beat stretch. "…Every crisis is an opportunity—if you're patient enough to see it."
The room stilled. Attention sharpened. He was not a man who spoke the obvious.
"The Ripper might be a test… not a threat."
Now they were listening.
He leaned in, voice even, deliberate:
"We are not mere overseers. We are architects of tomorrow. And sometimes—" a pause, sharp as a knife, "—the future needs to be shaken awake."
Silence.
"Perhaps it's time to see how long each world can stand without our crutches."
Some smiled. Some thought him insane. Some… feared he might be right.
"We must not interfere," he concluded. "We only watch—closely."
The decision was not unanimous, but the weight of it pressed down as though the chamber itself had been forged from iron shadows. They left the chamber carrying the burden of futures unwritten.
Would this preserve cosmic balance… or hand the keys straight to the demon in the dark?
No one knew.
They only knew one thing—
The game had begun.
"Roxy, dinner's ready!"
The call floated in from the kitchen, carrying on the warmth of mushroom soup—enough to melt away a bad day.
Nine-year-old Roxy, fresh off a victorious pillow-fort siege against her little sister, grabbed Ellie's hand and charged into the dining room, a pint-sized soldier reporting for duty.
The girls grew up in Lamuna Valley, a hidden hollow of light beneath the sprawling capital of Eden.
Lamuna wasn't a city of power or tech. It was just home—where smiles came easy, even without signal towers or particle scanners. Here, everything was done by hand, from chopping firewood to boiling water for hot cocoa.
Their redheaded cottage sat at the forest's edge, where trees whispered when the wind swept through and bushes burst with plump berries their mother turned into pies. Even the damp earth carried a fragrance no one in Eden cared for—but Roxy loved it.
The house was wood, not polymer steel. Smoke stains marked the old hearth; windows opened onto wild grasslands and the deep forest beyond. To Roxy, it was another world.
This wasn't Cosmic City. No chosen elite. Here, no one knew whether you had a gift until seventeen—when nature decided, not DNA implants.
But Roxy didn't care about powers. She had a father whose stories seemed drawn from real battles, not bedtime tales, a mother whose voice outshone high-end speakers, and Ellie—the fluffy-haired little sister who swore her dolls were alive.
"Roxy, tell me another story!" Ellie tugged her sleeve hard enough to make the thread wince.
"Sorry, Ellie. I've got homework." Roxy tried for adult authority.
Cue the puppy attack. Sparkly glass-marble gaze. Missing-tooth smile.
Roxy sighed—game over before it even began. She smoothed Ellie's messy braid and placed her palm on her sister's head, sealing the deal with royal authority.
"…Just one story."
Ellie shot upright, spring-loaded, snatching her treasure chest of dolls: one with wings, one with long ears, one with horns, one with a tail.
The living room became their stage. Five minutes in, they'd gone from frozen valley to dragon's lair. No special effects, yet magic everywhere.
Their father laughed, ruffling Ellie's hair. "Dad! Stop it—don't touch my hair! You're not cute! Roxy's way cuter!"
"Oh wow… did I just get dumped?" he groaned, total washed-up-comedian energy.
"Totally! Roxy's smart, brave, kind—and I don't want a mustache like yours!"
Erwin barked out a laugh, shifting the old map slung at his side. Fresh cuts lined his arm. His blue eyes shone as if starlight as he watched his daughters.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. You're a cookie—crispy outside, soft inside—enough to conquer the world, just like your sister."
Ellie squealed and bolted, high-pitched enough to make the neighbor's dog howl five kilometers away.
Their mother, Kasumi, moved with a grace that was not from yoga. Sigh that read thoughts before mouths could speak. Hands that cleaned kitchen knives, every stroke a warrior's ritual rather than a cook's routine.
"Yes," she said softly from the counter, a smile edged with something only mothers knew. "Whatever this world becomes—you'll always be our little guardian."
The words sparked a fire in Roxy's chest. She nodded. The only strength she needed wasn't divine power—it was this love, this warmth, keeping the cold world at bay.
Kasumi's gaze lingered. Past the kitchen. Past the treeline. Watching something creeping closer. Something she prayed would never arrive.
Her past had driven them here, into hiding at the forest's edge. She only hoped fate could be fooled—at least for a while.
"Homework can wait. Let's go outside!" Roxy declared, tugging Ellie's hand.
"Yay! Let's go, let's go!"
The door swung open. Sunlight kissed their faces. Roxy knew only this: nothing could tear Ellie's small hand from hers.
What she didn't know—
was that these days would soon become only memories.
And everything was about to change… forever.
No warning.
No sirens.
Not even a stupid little alarm to say the world was ending.
There was only it—appearing out of nowhere… and starting to kill.
A creature—if you could even call it that. Part sci-fi squid, part nightmare blueprint of a mad inventor. Eight tails lashed and twisted, their ends spiraling into drills. A single, unblinking eye fixed in its chest. Worst of all—it floated, defying every law of physics.
They called them… Rippers.
No one knew where they came from. Everyone knew what they came for. Destruction.
Roxy's family was no exception. Just another target on the list, never told why.
Each morning began with the doubt they'd see another sunrise.
Each night ended with prayers no god would answer.
And today—luck had abandoned them completely.
The four of them were on the road to Eden—the legendary floating citadel, said to be the safest place in the world. But fate had other plans.
Roxy tripped over a stupid rock, tumbling—rolling out of formation.
And then she saw it.
…But it saw her first.
Metal against stone: krrrkkk.
No sound in the universe had ever scraped her bones like that.
"Roxy!" Her mother's cry split the air as Kasumi dove, scooping her daughter—treasure clutched close—sprinting with death at their heels.
"Mom—Dad and Ellie, where are they!?"
Kasumi knew. But she couldn't stop. Her heart iced over, legs pounding against emptiness, chased by nightmare sounds behind her—
krrk… krrk…
The path ended.
A cliff.
Kasumi set Roxy down, shoving her back. No plan. No escape. No miracle coming.
The girl clutched her mother's leg, trembling hands leaking the last of her courage. The spinning metal tore through the air, close enough she could smell the reek of mechanical death.
Roxy squeezed her lids shut. Tiny hand reached out, hopeless.
And she waited for it all to—end—be torn apart.
But then—
CLANG!
Something flashed up between them. Thin. Clear. A wall of glass.
No—
Not glass.
Magic.
Roxy's hand hung mid-air. She hadn't even thought it would work—
But it did.
The mirrored barrier of pure dimension wrapped around mother and daughter, catching sunlight in its fractured veins as though dust from a million dead stars. Stronger than steel.
The Ripper slammed it again and again, drill-tails screaming. Sparks burst with every strike, as if demons themselves were cursing.
"You… you used a power!?" Kasumi gasped—truly shaken for the first time. Not just because her under-ten daughter had unleashed something impossible.
But because Roxy had no device.
No weapon.
No tech.
Only… the heart of a child.
A heart that pulled power straight out of the universe—without asking permission.
It shouldn't have been possible.
And yet—
It happened.
To her daughter.
Which meant there was no escaping this fate anymore.
The metallic scrape—krrk… krrk…—didn't fade.
The mechanical beast refused to quit. Judging by the grinding shriek, it was getting angry.
Kasumi and Roxy were trapped.
Cliff behind them.
Death in front.
And then—
BOOM!
A shockwave cracked through the forest, lightning without a storm. The Ripper was hurled into a tree, metal against stone reverberating, cosmic applause turned up to eleven.
Through the dust stood someone—unshaken, unblinking.
She wore a uniform that looked half ancient knight, half space trooper. A crimson cloak snapped in the wind. Silver armor caught the sun, scarred from a hundred battles.
Kasumi froze. The girl might as well have been a ghost from a past she'd buried deep.
"Monster—be gone!" Her voice rang with the weight of repetition. She'd shouted those words hundreds of times. Each time, a machine corpse followed.
The teenage warrior kicked the Ripper's carcass away, total junk-metal energy, then walked forward through shafts of fractured sunlight. Dust haloed behind her, wings of shadow fanning wide.
For that moment—
She looked nothing short of an angel.
Not the gentle kind.
But a seraph built to tear demons apart barehanded.
"I am Emilia, Captain of Sigma Three." She extended a hand, focus fixed, unwavering.
Kasumi's delivery wavered: "Thank you… for saving us."
"No need to worry. I'll get you to Eden. It's safe there."
Roxy just stared, speechless. Her mind still looped on the image of the Ripper flung aside by a single strike… and the woman before her, as if she'd stepped off the cover of one of those secret comic books Roxy read under the blankets at night.
Emilia crouched down, leveling her gaze with the child. "How did you do that back there?"
"…I'm not sure," Roxy whispered.
Emilia's smile was thin, resolute. "Special ones like you will be welcomed in Eden. The war isn't over. And you—you'll be vital to what's coming. Come with me… do we have an accord?"
She didn't say it for comfort. She said it for real—raw, the way only someone scarred by this world could say it.
And in Roxy's head, only one vow echoed—
I'll be like her. I'll become Sigma's leader.
Not for glory.
Not for strength.
But because next time death came knocking—
she wanted to be the one standing between it and the people she loved.
Years passed.
Since that day—the day Roxy first met the nightmare called Ripper… and caught a glimpse of something greater than fear itself—the world had changed.
Rippers were no longer bedtime threats whispered to scare children.
Not shadows in the forest.
Not bumps under the bed.
They became the hourly headline. Every channel. Every feed. Every border.
Their numbers swelled without warning, breaching the world the way a virus overruns an open system.
The world split in two.
One side called for negotiation.
The other—kill on sight.
"Idiots! They've never seen one up close!" An old man from the lower city spat at the broadcast. "Those dreamers on Eden don't know the horror of seeing your friend's skull ripped open right in front of you!"
Scientists scrambled for answers. Some proposed building our own Ripper to fight back.
The ethics board slammed the table. "You want to fight monsters—by becoming monsters?"
While they argued in air-conditioned halls…
the ground burned.
Cities beneath Eden's shadow crumbled into refugee zones.
Breath turned into questions—
Who should be held accountable?
Vision tilted skyward, suspicious of Eden's leaders.
Rumors raced faster than fire:
What if the Rippers didn't come from another world at all?
Don't ask that question—unless you're ready to disappear in the night.
Even soldiers fractured. Some clung to the belief they were protecting humanity. Others just clung to sanity.
They'd seen too much—metal tearing flesh replaying in every dream. Many began to wonder if the sacrifice meant anything at all.
And in the widening dark… there were whispers.
That the scariest thing wasn't the Rippers themselves.
It was whoever built them.
—
By the time Roxy grew into a woman, the world hadn't softened. Not one bit.
But she was no child waiting for mercy anymore.
She'd learned to read politics—total battlefield energy.
She'd learned to march past corpses without stumbling.
Her boots carried the dust of training grounds—and every sneer she'd crushed underfoot.
Every trial that broke weaker souls, she endured.
Every delay long enough to erase the dreams of others, she survived—her sight never wavering.
Until the day she stood before Sigma's gates.
And opened them herself.
Now she was Captain of Sigma Four.
Her first mission?
To bring back the thing they called—
Quanigma.