Project : Numen [ENG VERSION]

Chapter 7 - Part II: Septciel

No one heard the words — if they were words at all.

Not even Cuatro, despite her enhanced hearing.

But reality itself responded to his call.

A deep tremor rose from the depths of the Earth, traveling through geological layers like an ontological shockwave. Not a seismic event — something more fundamental. A reordering of local physical laws.

The Dissonants screamed — not in pain, for they had no nervous systems in the traditional sense, but in pure negation. Their very structure was being unraveled by a force they could not comprehend.

Their molecular cohesion imploded.

They were not destroyed. Not defeated in battle.

They were erased from existence.

Cuatro, still mid-leap toward her target, was halted midair by an invisible force that suspended gravity around her.

Her body betrayed her in an instant. Her heart slammed into her ribs under the pressure erupting from within. Her brain seemed to expand and contract at once, as if her skull had ceased to exist. Her veins screamed under the rush of adrenaline-laced blood.

She heard.

And it was as if every cell in her modified body obeyed, against her will, an external command. As if her name, her identity, her very nature were being rewritten in real time by an absolute authority.

She collapsed.

Silence.

The air slowly returned to its normal density. The ground regained its physical coherence. The gray light stopped slicing through the world and returned to being merely dull.

Septciel stood alone in what had once been a battlefield. In his small hands, he held the sword Cuatro had forged.

He looked at her.

She lay on the ground, naked, gasping, her mouth open in a silent scream her vocal cords could no longer produce. Blood leaked from her ears — her eardrums had ruptured under the pressure of what she had heard without hearing. Her limbs still shook with echoes of the force that had paralyzed her.

She opened her eyes — still red, but now bloodshot.

— "You... stopped me," she whispered in a broken voice.

He didn't answer. His golden eyes avoided hers.

She reached out a trembling hand.

— "The sword."

He handed it to her wordlessly, but she noticed his fingers trembled too.

She reclaimed her weapon, but her grip was weak. The familiar weight of the blade now felt crushing.

She quickly dressed in tattered clothes found on the skeletal remains of what must have once been a facility worker.

Her movements were slow, every muscle screaming in protest. Her body was not meant to survive that kind of psychophysical trauma. No simulation had ever anticipated a NUMEN enduring such pressure.

And yet... she stood.

She stared at Septciel. He still avoided her gaze. Maybe out of fear. Maybe shame for revealing his power. Maybe terror of what he truly was.

But she placed a hand on his shoulder — a gesture no protocol had ever taught her.

— "Don't speak again... unless it's to save our lives."

He nodded slowly, his golden eyes glowing with a mix of relief and sorrow.

— "I understand why you stay silent," she added, more softly. "That power... it could destroy us as easily as our enemies."

And they resumed their march into the unknown.

The world had grown quieter around them. Not safer — the dangers of post-Mass Earth were vast and unpredictable. But truer. Their masks had fallen. Their secrets were beginning to surface.

Cuatro now knew she was walking beside something far beyond what the creators of Project NUMEN had intended.

Septciel wasn't just an enhanced telepathic prototype.

He was something entirely new.

And in this dying world, that could be their greatest strength...

Or their ultimate downfall.

To be continued...