From a vast sea of clouds rose a jagged mountain peak. The mountain was shaped strangely—not like regular mountains at all.
It was round and jagged, with a sea of crimson cloud swirling at its center. At the far end of this roundness sat the mountain's peak, where the great alloy walls of the Academy stood.
Opposite the Academy, before one crossed the crimson sea of cloud, a group of people waited. Above them, seven different airships floated like silent sentinels.
At their front stood a man with a scar slashed across one closed eye. He stared down at the crimson depths, his military coat snapping and beating violently as the wind picked up pace.
Behind him, several others stood at attention, dressed just like him. Their black military coats whipped against the growing wind.
A heavy silence wrapped around them like a shroud, thick with tension. Their gazes were trained and razor-sharp.
One of them—black spiky hair fighting against his military cap—broke the quiet.
"Lieutenant, what are we waiting for?"
The man in front—Lieutenant Dante—clicked his tongue in irritation.
"Azzut, do you know what lies in these depths?"
Azzut glanced at the crimson clouds as they rolled gently into each other, like blood mixing with blood.
"No. And it feels terrifying just to look at."
Lieutenant Dante's smile was grim.
"Beneath these clouds lies the prison that holds what remains of a fallen, forbidden creature. A being that should never have drawn breath."
Azzut frowned, starting to look at the clouds again but thinking better of it. He turned to Dante instead.
"He must have been truly unacceptable. Even his remains feel... foreboding."
Lieutenant Dante's smile softened slightly.
"Of course he was. Being half Origin, half Tyrant—to the Origins, he was tainted by Tyrant essence, so they cast him out. To the Tyrants, he carried Origin blood, so they rejected him too. This made him a very lonely traveler."
Silence stretched between them. Then another voice cut through—raspy, hasty, far less melodious than Azzut's.
"That must have been sad for him. But how does this story help us unleash the Leviathan in these depths against the Academy?"
Dante shifted his gaze sideways but didn't look back before returning his attention to the crimson sea.
Then he said:
"Aszdan, you are impatient and rude. If you didn't make up for that rotten character with proper use of your strength..."
Aszdan's rough face twisted. He ground his teeth and lowered his head slightly.
"I apologize."
Dante's response was ice-cold.
"Your apology means nothing to me."
He kept staring into the sea of crimson cloud. For a long while, he just stared. Then he touched his scarred eye and slowly opened it, mumbling.
"Not everyone is born with eyes that can see through reality's fabric. To dare tear it away as a child was pure foolishness. Children of Tra-El—if only they knew what was coming, they would get their act together."
Then Dante stared down into the sea.
The moment he did, his eye peeled through the clouds' reality like tearing paper. Dante could now see something far more grotesque layered deep within the sea. It was like a flowing red tide made of thousands of eyes.
The mass kept moving and swirling, crashing against the invisible barrier that held it back from the clouds—but finding no way through.
Dante exhaled slowly.
"Truly amazing how stubborn that boy could be. A small boy who became a force that couldn't be defeated."
He pressed his palms together and began muttering in a language very different from the common tongue of Tra-El. The words twisted around his mouth like serpents, but he spoke them without trouble.
A blue circle covered in runic patterns appeared above the sea of clouds. It rose higher and higher until it suddenly cracked and shattered into nothing.
Dante faltered slightly, blood trailing down from his scarred eye. His brows knitted in anger as he pressed his palms together again and began muttering once more.
This time, two circles appeared instantly, rising toward the sky. Three more followed, slowly climbing after them.
The sea of clouds suddenly grew wild. What had been gentle swirling became a raging storm, thrashing violently and trying to tear itself apart.
Dante trembled as more blood ran from his nose. But his hands stayed locked in position. Even though pressure crashed against him like waves, he did not stop.
Finally, the sea of clouds began to rise. It climbed slowly toward the mountain's edge and started spilling over, rolling down the sides like a crimson waterfall.
The soldiers near him almost staggered back, but Dante's voice cut through their fear.
"The clouds are not what you should worry about."
Their gazes snapped to the mountain's depths. Something was being revealed as the clouds poured away, mixing with the white mist that the mountain itself breathed out.
What they saw made them all stumble backward, bodies shaking and eyes wide with terror.
"W-what in hell are those eyes, Lieutenant?!"
Any strong Drifter could sense how wrong and unnatural those eyes were. The way they drifted and stared back felt like staring into an abyss—one that stared right back. Not that any of them would know that old saying.
The flowing tide of eyes slowly began to rise. The clouds—white just moments before—were now painted red, as if they had been stabbed and left to bleed out.
Strangely, some of the clouds were slowly climbing up the Academy's walls, moving with grim purpose.
Some of the majors behind Dante stared with barely hidden terror. One of them asked:
"Lieutenant... what will that cloud do if it reaches the Academy's top?"
He paused, looking at the rest of the clouds that had instantly turned red.
"No, what are all these clouds for? Aren't they supposed to be some kind of prison? Why do they feel so threatening?"
Lieutenant Dante—or should we drop the act and call him Koll—looked around with cold indifference.
"Those? Well, the prisoner conquered the prison long ago. It was just waiting for its lock to break. Now, the prison itself moves by the prisoner's will."
Koll's gaze swept the scene.
"Not just the clouds. The Chaos Prince's remains conquered this entire island long ago—the very ground the Academy sits on. So the Academy's fall was always inevitable."