The world ceased to exist.

A muted silence engulfed Zephyrion’s ears. His heart pounded, echoing in his head. His arms shook. Teeth gritted. Yet he never stopped applying pressure, never stopped trying to bring her back.

She couldn’t be gone. She had to wake up. It just... it just wasn’t possible.

30 seconds.

He checked for a pulse. Nothing. A breath. Nothing. He pumped a mouthful of air through her lips and continued his compressions.

40 seconds. No pulse. No breath.

He continued.

Sweat drenched his clothes, dripping onto her pale, lifeless face. He could run miles without breaking a sweat, yet he was sweating now. His body felt hot, his chest heavy.

How long had he been doing this? A minute? Two? Yet she was still asleep. Why wasn’t she waking up?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckkk... 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Elixirs!

Zephyrion whirled around, then froze. He’d already given everything to Kilo to sell. There was nothing here. He turned back to Lumi. He could still get her somewhere.

Ingrid.

Yes, Ingrid would help him. She’d been acting weird for weeks now, but she would help him, right? Zephyrion moved to pick Lumi up. Then his hand brushed her skin, and he froze.

She was so cold. Why was she so cold? Everything came crashing down at once. No breath. No beating heart. Cold as ice. Elixirs were miraculous, but not even they could bring back the dead.

A numbness settled over him. He sat down beside her, silently staring. No sound reached him. No emotion. He just stared. Numb.

She was... gone? Just like her. Like his moth—.

Lumi jerked.

Zephyrion’s eyes widened. He lunged forward, feeling for a pulse. It was there. Faint, but there!

"Lumi!"

Unlike himself, Zephyrion shouted. No response. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. More jerks racked her body, and he quickly let go, watching as she began convulsing violently on the floor.

’What should I do?’

Zephyrion was entirely clueless. He’d never seen this happen before. Was it some illness he didn’t know about? What was happening?

Regardless, the tightness in his chest loosened. She was alive and breathing. No matter what happened now, it was manageable.

Zephyrion decided it was better to get her to a clinic than stand there watching. He reached for her, only to freeze at the sudden light.

Like glowing veins, it traced across her chest, up her neck, and along the lower half of her face. Lumi jerked even more violently, her body arching before suddenly going still. Then she slowly rose from the ground, the light growing brighter.

A moment later, it faded. She dropped. Zephyrion caught her before she could hit the floor, staring at her in bewilderment.

What is going on?

...

Lumi woke up seconds later, loosening the rest of the tightness in Zephyrion’s chest.

Rubbing her eyes as though trying to clear the grogginess, she indulged herself in a long yawn. Zephyrion allowed her to, holding himself back from rushing her. He wasn’t certain what was happening. Better to play it safe.

Done, Lumi blinked at Zephyrion standing sentinel before her, eyes wide, clothes drenched in sweat. She tilted her head and signed, asking why he was staring at her like that.

"...Are you okay?"

Lumi’s frown deepened. She squinted at him for a moment, then signed, asking if he wasn’t feeling well.

If he wasn’t feeling well... Zephyrion exhaled slowly through his nose, calming himself. Was she truly oblivious to what had just happened?

He spent the next few moments explaining everything.

By the end, Lumi was blinking rapidly, panic written all over her face. She hurriedly pushed herself to her feet, only to sway and clutch her head. Zephyrion instinctively stepped forward to catch her, but stopped as Lumi steadied herself.

’Calm down,’ he chided himself.

Lumi began pacing across the room, brows deeply furrowed. She repeatedly asked whether he was telling the truth or playing some sort of prank on her.

Zephyrion responded by asking when he had ever played a prank. The answer only seemed to make Lumi more worried.

Soon, however, she began narrating her experience. She had been in a strange dream. Hovering in total darkness and utter silence. It had been alright at first. Then she felt a warmth in her throat. It gradually grew until it became so unbearable that she could no longer breathe.

It was suffocating, like she had been submerged deep underwater. Then she woke up and saw him staring at her.

It was a strange dream. And an even stranger real-life event.

"Your throat..." Zephyrion muttered, recalling the light that had come from it. "It has to be from there. Let me see."

Lumi nodded and opened her mouth, letting Zephyrion peer inside.

He used a small flame to get a better look, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a sleek metallic-coated throat.

A faint pang struck his chest as he realized the horrors Lumi must have gone through as a child to lose her voice. The emotion quickly gave way to anger. Then he breathed and cleared his mind.

’Focus.’

He tried using Resonance to connect with the metal, but it was to no avail. It was like a metal ascendant trying to control a rock. Completely unresponsive.

Zephyrion stared at Lumi’s throat for a moment.

"Can I cut through it and check?"

Lumi’s eyes widened.

She immediately scooted backward, shaking her head so hard her hair whipped around before pointing at him accusingly, asking why he wanted to kill her.

"I just want to get to the bottom of it."

Lumi continued shaking her head and waved him off. The thought of having her throat cut open clearly terrified her.

She signed some more, insisting that this had probably been a one-time occurrence and that it was nothing serious.

Then she sat down cross-legged, closed her eyes, and very obviously pretended to meditate. Zephyrion could tell she was hoping he would drop the matter.

A moment later, he returned to the bed, drawing a visible sigh of relief from Lumi.

Silence descended.

It was just past midnight. Zephyrion tried to train. Tried to continue studying the Titan Armor. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw the same thing. Lumi’s pale lifeless body on the ground.

Then he cursed himself for having such a detailed memory.

It was only when the morning sunlight filtered through the window that he realized...

He had never taken his eyes off Lumi.

...

The days passed swiftly, with Zephyrion’s mind divided between three things.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the incident with Lumi. He found himself increasingly reluctant to close his eyes while in the room. What if it happened again while he was unaware? His eyes remained open and alert at all times, watching, even as he trained.

He also paid attention to Tobias’ training. The ward was progressing nicely. From the earlier fifteen seconds, he had managed to add another five over the following days.

There was still a long way to go before they shifted to sight, but it was progress. At least he hadn’t given up. The last thing occupying Zephyrion’s thoughts was none other than the Titan Armor.

Even with one eye constantly on Lumi, he continued studying it, and what he discovered was nothing short of remarkable.

As it turned out, the Titan Armor he had copied from Kaelion was little more than the tip of the iceberg, if he could even call it that.

The original Titan Armor was an armor of evolution.

A living armor that bonded with its user and granted unimaginable power. Kaelion’s armor had merely been external. Yet Zephyrion discovered that this was simply the stage Kaelion had reached.

The true armor began with a seed in the chest, which would then grow into a full suit that encased the body. But the true power of the Titan Armor came after that.

The armor fused with the skeleton, muscles, nerves, and even blood, ensuring it became one with its user. Movement became instinctive, seamless, and precise. The enhancement it granted was astonishing.

But that wasn’t all.

What made the armor truly fearsome was its ability to integrate new properties.

Weight. Lightness. Hardness. Elasticity. Shock absorption. Shock return. Friction. Smoothness. Flexibility. Rigidity.

All of these and more could be woven into the armor and called upon instinctively during battle. Even more impressive were the higher properties.

Vibration. Magnetism. Density. Compression. Heat transfer. Momentum storage. The list seemed endless.

But he soon discovered what truly set the original Titan Armor apart from every variation he had seen. Every variation possessed what Zephyrion termed Memory Metal.

The entire suit was made from it. Essentially, it made the integration of properties far easier. Once a property had been added, all the user had to do was summon the armor, and it would already be ingrained within the metal.

Still, the original Titan Armor took this a step further. It possessed the ability to create and retain entirely new specialties.

A specialty was the fusion of multiple properties into a single, more powerful one. And to Zephyrion’s delight, once a specialty was formed, the armor would never forget it.

He couldn’t help but imagine the countless specialties each Head of House had created across generations. How many combinations had been discovered? How many had been lost?

Unfortunately, Kastor hadn’t passed any down alongside the art.

His message had been crystal clear.

They were to forge their own.