The sky didn't just part; it shattered. From the center of the geometric 'Orbital Eye', a beam of pure, white light descended. This was the 'Reality-Erasure Beam'—a weapon designed to delete the atomic structure of anything it touched.
"Ray, evasive maneuvers! Now!" Caelum's warning was a deafening roar in his ear.
But Ray didn't move. He looked up at the descending light, his violet eyes reflecting the cold destruction above. The words of the mysterious figure from the hologram echoed in his mind: 'They only found what I left behind.'
"If I am the seed," Ray whispered, "then it's time to grow."
He reached deep into his mana-core, past the limits he had set for himself. He felt a hidden seal crack. A surge of energy, ancient and terrifying, flooded his veins. His skin began to glow with faint, glowing runes that hummed with the sound of a thousand bells.
He raised 'Aether-Edge' not to block, but to absorb.
When the beam hit, the ocean for miles evaporated into a thick mist. But at the center of the explosion, Ray stood tall. The white light of the erasure beam was being sucked into his sword, turning the blade into a translucent crystal of pure power.
"Impossible!" a voice crackled through the fleet's communication channel. "Subject 402 is absorbing the Erasure energy! That's a violation of thermodynamics!"
"I am the violation," Ray growled.
He swung the sword in a horizontal arc. A wave of violet-white energy cut through the air, traveling faster than the speed of sound. It didn't just hit the 'Orbital Eye'; it rewrote the code of the satellite itself.
High above the atmosphere, the multi-billion dollar weapon began to turn into flowers of scrap metal and stardust.
Ray fell to one knee as the runes on his skin faded. His breath came in ragged gasps. He had survived, but the cost was high. His mana-core felt like it was on fire.
"Caelum... status..."
"The Eye is gone, Ray. But... the City's Central Core has just issued a Level 10 Global Threat Level. They aren't sending ships anymore."
Caelum paused, his voice trembling. "They've activated the 'Apex Project'. They're sending the other Subjects."
Ray looked at his trembling hands. He wasn't the only one they had experimented on. The real war was just beginning.