The command deck of Veiler HQ was now drenched in crimson light. The once calm and structured cadence of rift deployment had collapsed into noise, alarms, and overlapping voices.
Another call flared across the comms.
"This is Overseer Unit 8-F—D-Class Echoforms have breached containment! Multiple! I repeat, multiple D-Class signatures converging on the western cliffside! We're losing formation—requesting immediate suppression backup!"
Before the tech officer could reroute that feed, another shrill ping exploded through the room.
"Overseer Unit 11-A here—! We've got signs of an active broken layer phase emerging within the rift zone! This wasn't part of the scan—this wasn't—!"
Static roared through the line, followed by a deep pulse that silenced the transmission. A moment later, the screen flickered and died.
Silence fell across the room like a final breath.
Aki stood still at the command center, eyes fixed on the dying screen. Her expression didn't flinch, but her grip on the terminal edge tightened.
"Double anomalies," she muttered. "Echoforms outside projected zones and now a spontaneous broken layer surge. This isn't just an incursion. It's a convergence."
Seyfe clenched his fists, jaw rigid. "They're drawing the battlefield around us."
Ferez stepped forward, checking the magnetic seal of his sidearm. "If this keeps escalating, containment won't matter. We'll need to start securing dimensional exits."
Jerome, unusually quiet, finally spoke. "D-Class Echoforms don't swarm. They fight alone. If they're coordinating… something higher is driving them."
Emi frowned, silver hair swaying slightly as she stepped beside Aki. "Sovereign behavior?"
Aki's red eyes didn't leave the map. Her voice dropped.
"Worse. This might be an emergent hierarchy. An evolution."
She tapped the panel beside her. "Reroute all available Overseer Units to the Asia Rift zone. I want a full digital reconstruction of the rift structure, layer depth, and corruption range. And get me a live feed inside that Broken Layer Phase."
The room moved like a single machine as operatives and Veilers scrambled.
Saline glanced over to Seyfe. "You ready?"
He didn't answer immediately.
His eyes were locked on the flickering symbol from the earlier report—the same one that flashed across the echoform's single golden eye in the Grand Canyon.
"Let's finish what we started."
The air on the outskirts of the stabilized entry rift was thick with exhaust, voice commands, and the rhythmic hum of deployment tech.
Rows of transport crafts hovered in descent and ascension like insects over a wound. The faint shimmer of the rift pulsed across the sky—an ominous spiral of fractured clouds and distorted light.
Hundreds of Overseer Veilers moved in formation.
Their boots slammed into the reinforced runways, each unit marked by their squadron insignia—some carrying heavier absorption gear, others equipped with spear rifles, drones, or layered tracking sensors.
"Veiler Unit 4-F, move to extraction point Epsilon! Triage on-site!"
"Unit 6-C, take rift breach flank! You're covering Units 2-B and 9-E!"
A transport door hissed open. The wave of heat and static from the dimensional breach washed over Veiler Captain Oren of Unit 11-D, who barked to his squad.
"Ready your veil suits. We don't go in until the first recon ping bounces back, but once it does—no hesitation. Anything that looks at you wrong, you break it."
Across the clearing, another squad marched to a rumbling truck, drones perched like vultures on their shoulders. One of them—a younger recruit—paused.
In the sky above, the rift began to split open wider, shimmering like torn glass.
A deep, guttural howl echoed from within.
The recruit's breathing hitched.
A hand landed on his shoulder—his handler's.
"Don't look at it like it's a nightmare. Look at it like it's an equation. Every piece wants to kill you. So break the equation."
He nodded, stiffly.
Veiler HQ's aerial patrol crafts thundered overhead, casting brief shadows over the lines of soldiers now taking position along the perimeter. Holographic projections of rift data hovered above command consoles, updating by the second—anomalies spiking, Echoform markers blinking like sickness on a nerve map.
Then—
A voice from the main field relay snapped across comms:
"All ready units—first corridor breach in 30 seconds. Prepare veil lock. Maintain link integrity."
Overseer Veilers across the line dropped into crouch as their gloves and suits pulsed silver. One by one, thin layers of the Veiler coating wrapped around their forms—visors locking, weapons humming to life.
The world began to flicker at the edges.
Then, the veil pulsed open—and the first squads began rushing through the threshold into the rift.
No fanfare.
Just silence, grit, and the smell of ozone.
The distant pulse of sirens throbbed through the hallways. Light from the overhead fluorescents blinked, synced with alert messages sprawling across holo-displays along the walls.
Seyfe stood by the loading armory, adjusting the seal on his lower gauntlet. His expression was unreadable, but the dark hue of his blackened tongue and the faint trace of gold along his pulse veins were still visible—permanent reminders of his recent encounter.
Saline zipped up her jacket beside him, her red-streaked hair tied up, fingers twitching slightly in anticipation.
"Three squadrons gone dark in under ten minutes," she muttered. "This isn't just another rift scuffle."
Jerome, already locked in his veil gear, gave a solemn nod. "Sichuan's pulling us in. Command doesn't want this one spreading like the Grand Canyon incident."
Ferez leaned against a nearby locker, arms crossed, the tension in his shoulders betraying his usual calm. "You sure you're good to go?" he asked Seyfe.
Seyfe exhaled sharply through his nose, clicking the last magnetic seal on his wrist. "Yeah. I'm done playing catch-up."
From behind them, Emi's soft voice cut through, "Protocol indicates at least a class C Echoform presence… but the call from HQ flagged them as potential B rising to A."
Her silver hair glimmered under the tactical lights, shorter than most of the others, but her stature carried the quiet edge of field experience.
Saline turned to her, "You just got back from the north rift. You sure you're not being reassigned?"
"I requested this sortie," Emi replied. "I know what I'm walking into."
Just then, the chamber door opened with a hydraulic hiss.
Aki entered, crimson eyes sharp as steel. Her presence immediately straightened every Veiler's stance.
"You five are moving with a two-minute window. You'll drop at the outskirts of the Sichuan zone where the last Overseer ping came through."
She approached Seyfe briefly, her gaze lingering on him longer than the others. "You know the stakes this time. Don't freelance. Stay on comms."
Seyfe gave a subtle nod.
Ferez chuckled low, "Well, guess we're all back together again. Just like the old batch days."
"Except now," Jerome muttered, "if we screw up, it's not just a drill. It's the end of someone's world."
The launch bay began its countdown. One by one, they stepped onto the transport platform, their veil signatures syncing into formation.
Above them, the massive display pulsed with their assigned tag: SQUAD C-7 | DEPLOYMENT CLASS SIGMA | DESTINATION: SICHUAN RIFT SECTOR 3
As the platform began to rise, Aki's voice echoed behind them one last time:
"Don't die stupidly."
And then they were gone—rushing toward the next rupture in the world.
The chamber buzzed with sharp urgency. Massive translucent displays hovered in the air, pulsing with red marks across a digital world map. Rift flares blinked violently across regions of Asia, Africa, and South America.
In the center of it all stood Aki Varess, crimson-eyed and composed despite the chaos. Her long coat fluttered slightly from the shifting ventilation, and in her hand was the priority scroll pad directly linked to emergency dispatch logs.
Around her, seated in ascending tiers, were the Veiler Squadron Handlers—leaders of the seven core units.
Jannet Dwight, from the Spearhead Squadron, was already scanning live combat data.Ura Gintoki, of Fallacy Squadron, twirled a holo-pen with narrowed eyes.Hansel Fel from Asher Squadron leaned forward, fingers steepled.Jerome Hykali, Owl Squadron's stoic tactician, observed silently from the shadows.Kira Jahina of Kemika was already sending chemical analysis requests to her lab.Hyacinth Uganda, of Foxtail, flicked rapidly through emergency evac logs.
And now, they all turned as Aki's voice cut through.
"As of 04:22, we have lost full contact with three active Veiler units in the Southeast Asia rift line. Initial identification points to Sichuan, but secondary pulses have triggered echoform readings in India and the Indonesian archipelago."
She paused as a feed began playing mid-air: overlapping comm logs, garbled screams, and red static blotting out each screen.
"What began as isolated Domain-Class C rifts are now confirmed transitioning toward Grade A and possible Sovereign-tier echoform manifestations. Overseer field analysts have categorized the phenomenon as a potential multi-vector breach."
Hansel spoke up, voice heavy, "You're saying this isn't a chain reaction?"
Aki's red eyes narrowed.
"No. It's not a chain reaction. It's a coordinated escalation."
Murmurs erupted across the auditorium. Aki tapped her scrollpad, silencing the noise.
"At this point, we cannot rule out deliberate triggering. The timeline between each tear is too precise. The Veilers dispatched to Sichuan will serve as both containment and recon force. Any viable data extraction must be returned for immediate study."
Ura leaned forward. "And if they're overwhelmed?"
"They won't be," Aki said coldly, then added, "because we'll be watching every step."
She turned toward the display showing five veil signatures in synchronized descent.
"C-7 unit is already en route—Seyfe, Saline, Jerome Dwight, Emi, and Ferez. If their extraction fails, the entire structure of the Asia Rift Line may collapse."
Kira raised an eyebrow. "You're putting your wild card back into the field that soon?"
Aki didn't look back.
"Seyfe returned alive from a Sovereign-class echoform that adapted mid-combat. His mutation is still under analysis, but his will to live is no longer in question."
Silence followed.
Aki's voice returned once more—measured, precise, and cold as iron:
"Effective immediately, all squadron handlers are to elevate their cadet readiness protocols to Tier Four. We deploy Veilers with incomplete cores if necessary. If these breaches connect, we lose the layer altogether."
She turned, eyes sweeping across the room.
"And if there's someone or something behind this... we will find them."
The room fell silent, tension folding over itself like storm clouds. Orders were received, and the handlers began to relay commands to their units.
The war below was just beginning.