Breachers

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Golden Faith

Day 115

Lynx

Steam curled off Fari's skin as she stepped out of the shower, muscles aching with that familiar low tightness that never really went away. She ran a towel through her damp blonde hair—slow, methodical—then started working it into a braid. Her fingers moved on autopilot, ignoring the occasional shake of the aircraft. The motions helped her think, helped her settle. Or at least pretend she had.

Wrapped in a towel, she wiped her hand across the fogged mirror. Her sharp green eyes stared back. Older than she remembered. Not by years—just weight. The kind that settled in your soul after too many fights, too many near-misses. And she wasn't done yet. Another job was already waiting for her team. Spain, this time.

She dropped the towel and tugged on fresh gear—black pants, a tight underlayer, sleeveless top. A light jacket over it, her guild logo stamped across the back.

She grabbed her phone from the counter and powered it on. The screen lit up, then scanned her face. A blink later, it unlocked and showed her full name across the top: Fari Suarez.

It felt weird, sometimes. Seeing that name.

The world knew her as Lynx. Hell, most of her squad just called her that too. It was cleaner. Sharper. Easier to carry around than Fari Suarez—who still sent money back home and kept a photo of her sister tucked underneath her armor.

She tapped into her messages. A long list—team updates, logistics, a few from government contacts and guild aides. She scrolled through them on autopilot—until she spotted his name. Muffin.

That soft grin crept up before she could stop it. Stupid name. His fault for giving her a ridiculous gift in the middle of a Sphere like it was nothing.

She opened the chat and saw the three recent messages. All hers. The first asking if he made it home alright after he had fought the monster. The second the day after, checking in again. The third, shorter. More recent.

┏ ┓

"You alive?"

- Lynx

┗ ┛

All of them were unread.

Her thumb hovered over the screen for a second. 'You better be,' she thought, jaw tightening. She hated how much the silence got to her.

The more she had interacted with him, the more something about him didn't line up. The way he acted, how he carried himself—and the fact he'd walked into a red Sphere just to hand her a muffin, of all things. 'Brave or stupid. Probably both.'

But even that wasn't what stuck with her. What stuck was how he'd touched her hand back then—and didn't flinch. Or pass out.

Weaker Breachers didn't usually enjoy fighting alongside her. Civilians practically passed out unless she crushed her own power output to a crawl. The raw mana packed into her frame had weight—dangerous, suffocating weight. Most people felt it the second she walked in.

Marcus hadn't. He'd looked at her like she was just... her. Not Lynx. Just Fari.

She stared at her phone like it owed her answers. She thought about calling him, wanting to hear his voice, but at the same time not really knowing what to say beyond asking if he was all right. Her thumb hovered over the screen, hesitating, until someone knocked on the door.

"Lynx?" a rushed voice called from the other side. One of her teammates.

She sighed and slid the phone into her jacket pocket. She was about to ask what the hell was going on when the knocking grew louder and faster. She pulled the door open, irritation plain on her face—then froze when she saw the man's worried expression.

"You need to see this," the man said, already turning.

She followed, steps quiet on the carpet as they moved through the narrow aisle of the private jet. The lounging area up front wasn't so relaxed anymore. Cards lay abandoned mid-game. Meals untouched. Every face was turned toward the big wall-mounted screen that had been playing some dumb action flick half an hour ago. It now showed a dark room, the image flickering from time to time—almost like static, but slower. She frowned, eyes scanning the room, catching the glow of laptops and tablets nearby. Each one showed the same flickering black screen.

"What's going on?" she asked.

No one answered right away. Then the screen shifted as something moved.

A figure passed close to the camera—too close to miss. She caught a glimpse of a figure covered in some kind of oversized ceremonial robe. It had legs and arms, but they were all wrong. Thick, black fur-covered limbs. Clawed hands. Muscles packed in like it had been built, not born.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It was monstrous.

One of her teammates stepped up beside her and held out his laptop. "Just came in—it's happening everywhere. Every channel, every screen."

She blinked. "How?"

"I think it's looping through the old emergency broadcast service—the kind they haven't used since—"

"The Great Impact," she answered for him, eyes narrowing.

Thirteen years ago, after the Spheres had started appearing, nations had scrambled to create emergency channels to better warn its citizens. They were built into everything: TVs, radios, comms. Hard-coded to override. It hadn't been used in years. Until now.

The thing on the screen grabbed the camera with one hand.

The feed spun, jostling out of focus before settling into a tilted angle. Flashes of a room came into view—cold concrete walls, faint leaks of overhead light casting long shadows. More of the monsters were there. Same thick robes. Same unnatural muscle and fur. Others had scaled skin instead. They stood in the corners like guards, unmoving. A handful of humans stood nearby, each wearing a robe with a crude red or blue Orb painted on the chest.

Then the camera stopped, settled on a single robed figure.

He sat alone in a simple wooden chair. His hood hung low, shadows hiding his face entirely. Nothing about him moved—except for his hands.

In them, he held a small child's bracelet. The wooden beads were faded, pale shades of white, pink, and blue worn down by time. He slowly turned it in his fingers, over and over, each bead slipping past his thumb in a steady rhythm. The only sound was the soft click of wood tapping against itself. Quiet, but sharp in the stillness.

His voice emerged like a soft breeze, steady yet charged with a quiet fury, repeating every hijacked broadcast that seized most screens on Earth.

"Many of you have by now heard of or seen firsthand the recent spike in Spheres over the last four days, their inhabitants spilling into your streets," he said slowly, each syllable sculpted with care, deliberate as a poet's pen. "Monsters, you've heard them called, again and again—labels thrown at what they don't understand."

He leaned forward, the camera catching the sharp glint of his eyes beneath the hood's shadow.

"All this destruction… I claim it all. The Spheres, the creatures, the death tolls—every loss, every cry, every shard of chaos—I wove this storm. Not for wanton ruin, but to pierce the veil of lies you've been fed, to make you open your eyes, to make you see as I have seen."

He paused, the bracelet's rhythm steady, anchoring his voice as it trembled with restrained passion.

"For this, they will brand me a terrorist, a boogeyman that lurks in the shadows. A… monster. They will crave a name to chain their dread upon, to press against your fears and frailties."

His hands stilled, the beads falling silent, and with a slow, deliberate grace, he drew back his hood. Curly dark blonde hair tumbled over the crown of his head, the sides shaved, framing a face etched with weariness yet burning with resolve.

"I'll spare them the trouble. My name is Niels De Meyer. A Belgian citizen. A husband and a father…" His voice softened to a fragile whisper, the bracelet frozen in his hands as if time itself held its breath. "…once."

The words hung, raw and jagged, before his voice surged again, a blade of conviction honed by grief.

"Your leaders—those venal architects of decay—have polluted your skies, poisoned your rivers, and buried your children's future for their gilded thrones. They've betrayed you, along with these false idols… these Breachers… who profane the Spheres' gifts for their own vainglory."

He leaned closer, his steel-grey eyes alight with a fractured zeal, his words both a verdict and a vow.

"But to you—the forsaken, the grieving, the ones crushed beneath the greed of those in power—I see you. The Spheres you are led to fear are your salvation. They cleanse the air you breathe, purify the waters you drink, mend the scars humanity carved into this world. Join us. The lost shall be found, the broken made whole, the abandoned embraced. All are welcome."

He raised the bracelet, its worn beads catching the dim light—a relic of his shattered past, and a reminder of a promise.

"This is my oath—to those I've lost, to those you've lost. We will raze their corrupt empires, their hollow idols, their festering lies. We will forge a world reborn. Rise with us, or stand aside."

Niels paused, his steel-grey eyes locked on the camera, as if he knew he held the world's breath in his grip.

"They'll try to stop us," he said, his voice soft, almost a whisper. "Our movement… Me… Clinging to their rotten, cancerous ways."

A smile spread across his face, slow and deliberate, like he was savoring the thought of their resistance.

"Let them send their sycophants—or the enthralled—to stop me," he said, pausing as the silence thickened.

"They can try." Another smirk curled his lips, sharp and defiant. "And their false idols—those Breachers—will be too busy with what comes next."

Niels extended his hand, the children's bracelet dangling from his fingers. He moved one bead with a slow, heavy flick of his thumb, his voice cutting through the stillness.

"Tokyo."

Another bead shifted, the motion deliberate, like a judge's gavel falling.

"New York."

Each word carried a weight that seemed to choke the air, as if he was carving a curse into the world.

"Beijing."

Another bead.

"Moscow."

"Bangkok."

The rhythm was merciless, each city name a condemnation.

"Berlin."

"Mecca."

Another bead, another city marked.

"Rome."

"Sydney."

The final bead settled, its weight like a stone dropped into a still pond.

Niels's fingers closed gently around the bracelet, his grip tender, almost reverent. He reached up and pulled his hood back over his head, the curly dark blonde hair disappearing into shadow, leaving only the glint of his eyes visible. His voice dropped, a deep, resonant whisper that seemed to shake the very air.

"Let there be light."

The feed cut off abruptly, the screen plunging into static, a harsh hiss crackling in the silence. Then, the display flickered, shifting to a mosaic of footage—satellite views of Earth's blue curve, grainy live feeds from the International Space Station, and distant shots from orbital cams. The planet hung there, serene at first, city lights twinkling against the dark. Nothing moved. Nothing changed.

Then, nine massive golden flashes erupted across the globe, each one a blinding pulse that seared the screens. They bloomed rapidly, swallowing entire cities and beyond. New York vanished in a golden maw. Tokyo was engulfed. Beijing erased. Moscow consumed. Bangkok, Berlin, Mecca, Rome, and Sydney—each devoured by a radiant void so vast it scarred the Earth's surface, visible even from space. The feeds trembled, struggling to capture the sheer scale as the golden light pulsed relentlessly, reshaping the world below.

Lynx snapped her head toward the jet's window, eyes narrowing. In the distance, where Berlin's skyline should have been, a colossal gold Sphere swelled, its edges shimmering like molten sunlight. It kept growing, dwarfing every Sphere she'd ever seen—a monstrous growth that seemed to devour the horizon itself. It stretched impossibly wide, consuming the city and beyond, until it finally halted, a glowing titan frozen in place.

"It's gold?" she muttered, her eyes widening with something she hadn't truly felt in thirteen years—terror.

A shockwave exploded outward, a visible ripple that shredded clouds in its path, tearing through the sky like a wrathful god's last breath.

The jet shuddered violently as the shockwave hit, a deafening roar swallowing the cabin. Electronics sparked and died, screens blacking out, windows smashing apart. Violent winds screamed around the aircraft, yanking it into a downward spiral. The world outside the windows blurred into chaos, the jet plummeting, leaving only the howl of the wind and the pull of gravity's merciless grip.