The Endurance
< >
Calas Typhon forced himself to stay alert, carefully avoiding prying eyes as he made his way toward the Untouchables’ sector.
Chaotic voices flooded his mind, layered and boiling into a aningless hum.
His eyelids grew heavy, his limbs sluggish.
Accept yourself, his heart whispered.
Accept your true nature, the hybrid of alien and human.
Accept Him. He will grant you rcy and genuine care.
He can embrace you, your legion, and the friends you hold dear.
“Who... is He?” Calas struggled to form the question through his clouded consciousness.
You will et His followers.
Sleep now. When you awaken, you will et them.
At the last intersection before reaching the Untouchables’ sector, Calas could no longer hold himself up. He collapsed—
And a pair of hands caught him.
“What’s going on here?”
Grave Wardens Gel, responsible for managing the Untouchables, murmured. He had been monitoring this Barbarus recruit’s behavior for days.
Calas had been coming here frequently, finding secluded corners as if deliberately exposing himself to the unpleasant aura of the Untouchables. Yet he hadn’t displayed any malicious intent.
While most people loathed the Untouchables—soulless beings who evoked widespread disdain—Gel couldn’t help but feel intrigued. It had been a long ti since a new face appeared in this forsaken sector.
Imdiately, Gel reported the matter to his superior, Garro.
In the Librarium’s dedicated infirmary, a silver-haired Fernando stood with arms crossed, lurking in the shadows beside the dical table where Calas Typhon lay undergoing examination.
Laton, a young apothecary assigned to the Librarium, ran scans over Calas. With his chestnut curls and soft blue-green eyes, the Terra-born apothecary emanated an air of quiet precision.
Outside in the corridor, hurried, muffled footsteps approached.
Fernando blinked, signaling to Laton to continue his work without interruption. Then he stepped out and ca face-to-face with Garro, who had just returned from his latest mission.
Garro exchanged a brief glance with Fernando.
“The apothecary's current diagnosis is exhaustion,” Fernando said flatly.
“Partly due to his repeated exposure to the Untouchables,” he added.
“And that’s it?” Garro’s calm voice cut through the tension.
“That’s it.”
Fernando closed his eyes, recalling his psychic scan of Calas. Aside from a faintly weakened and chaotic soul fla, there was nothing notably wrong.
Garro remained silent.
With a major battle looming, the Death Guard could not afford complications.
“What about the Legion Master?” Fernando asked.
“He’s occupied. We haven’t inford him yet.”
The two exchanged a knowing look.
In Hades’ orders, there was no “do not kill” clause. If necessary...
But as they discussed, Calas Typhon stirred inside the infirmary.
He opened his eyes, squinting against the blinding white light overhead.
“What... is this?”
His mories stopped at the dim corridor where he had collapsed en route to the Untouchables’ sector.
“Shh, quiet,” Laton said, gazing down at Calas with a small smile.
“Do exactly as I say, and you’ll survive.”
The apothecary’s friendly smile widened as he reached for a syringe filled with a viscous green liquid.
“Wait—!”
Calas’ pupils constricted, but he was completely immobilized by the powerful sedative and anesthetic coursing through his veins.
The needle pierced his skin.
“Praise Him,” Laton murmured softly.
Calas lost consciousness.
Laton muttered under his breath, then turned back to operate the dical instrunts with unhurried precision.
The vial of viscous substance he had collected from the Librarium’s archives now hung from a chain around his neck.
This should have been done long ago. Jose didn’t have to die for this.
Laton, trusted by Fernando as the Librarium’s apothecary, had been the only other person to see Jose’s condition. He had tried to heal his rotting comrade—but failed.
He was unwilling to accept it. Even during the decontamination process at the Librarium, he once again posed as a pharmacist to collect viruses and bacteria.
Then he uncovered the truth.
Now, Laton despised the version of himself who had tried to treat Jose.
It was a blessing—why would it need treatnt?
Yet, how deeply he mourned Jose's passing.
Laton stared at Calas, unconscious once again on the dical table, and smiled.
He wouldn’t let another person be lost.
Laton blinked and looked up, as if peering through the walls, focusing on the area aboard the Endurance where the Untouchables resided.
If they weren’t welco here, then they would simply go elsewhere.
As long as the one who killed Jose never returned, it would be fine.
He wouldn’t co back.
Suppressing his pleased smile, Laton straightened his face, reporting seriously to Garro and Fernando, who had just entered.
Ah, how he loathed the oppressive atmosphere of the Death Guard.
< >
Planet Sigma-373.
“We want freedom!”
A surging crowd pushed and clamored outside the city walls.
“We want truth!”
The mob began to pound on the gates, hurling rotten fruit and at at the guards atop the walls.
“Bring out the Black Sacrant Church! Give the people an explanation!”
“Explanation! Explanation! Explanation!”
The crowd erupted, noisy and jostling.
“Calm down! Everyone, calm down!”
A massive robot-like machine roared out of the dense forest beyond the city, glowing green liquid coursing through its chanisms. It connected directly to the back of a young girl.
Standing atop the giant machine’s raised hand, Raibo shouted in a commanding voice.
At the sight of their backbone arriving, the agitated crowd imdiately quieted down.
Raibo lowered her gaze, observing the crowd at a distance from her.
It was always like this. She was used to it.
But she wished that one day, she could walk among the people.
She took a deep breath and spoke again.
“We, the Vine Academy, only demand an explanation from the Black Sacrant Church!”
The slender, fair-skinned woman stood atop the towering machine and began her speech.
“We do not desire violence; we only ask for accountability!”
Raibo clenched one hand into a fist and placed it over her heart, while the other hand extended outward.
“The people have endured countless years of lies. We have witnessed the deaths of many under the influence of the Divine Domain—our family, our friends.”
“We watched them weaken day by day. We watched them wither away.”
“And our feeble pulses tell us that one day, we will follow in their footsteps!”
“Bishop Mazel, tell us—why must we endure this?!”
“All for your absurd, ridiculous religion?!”
With the final syllable, the girl scread with all her might.
“Absurd! Ridiculous! Absurd! Ridiculous!”
The crowd instantly erupted in a massive wave of noise.
On the city walls, a young face erged. Raibo recognized him as a follower under Bishop Mazel.
“You’re the one misleading the people!”
The young man shouted.
“You, the prophesied divine child blessed by the Divine Domain,”
“Yet you study heretical ideas! A divine child in na, but acting like a re witch!”
“She’s deceiving you all!”
He bellowed.
“She’s just a brat unwilling to follow the church’s rules, out here screaming and making a fuss!”
The man laughed.
“Wasn’t the reason you followed her in the first place because she could move freely within the Divine Domain?!”
“And now you’re here cursing the Divine?!”
“Ask yourselves—besides her strange, self-justifying rhetoric, what evidence do you even have?!”
For a mont, the crowd quieted down.
However, another man in the crowd spoke up.
“If it weren’t for your endless oppression within that so-called domain, how could soone like her, your so-called divine child, even exist?!”
“Lady Raibo is also a victim of your ignorant religion!”
As the man’s impassioned words rang out, a rotten fruit hit the man on the wall squarely on the head.
The crowd imdiately exploded again.
“Give us an explanation!!!”
“Open the gates! Open the gates! Open the gates!”
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