LIGHT 07: The Cost of Battle

LIGHT 07: The Cost of Battle

Inside the observation management facility, a short warning tone rang out.

A portion of the pale light records flowing across the wall shifted toward red. The administrators standing before the observation panels all looked up at once.

Outer edge area.

New distortion expansion.

Risk level under review.

The display was already beginning to move into correction processing, but the management side issued an evacuation order for the surrounding area. Through the quiet facility, a low bell spread, urging people to leave.

Lumira checked the display only once while still supporting Elia by the shoulder.

Beside her, the three guardian bodies turned in the same direction at the same time.

The distortion point was close to a passageway in the outer edge area.

They had no choice but to hurry.

Lumira and the others left the facility and moved through the broken stone corridor toward the point of occurrence.

Once they stepped outside, the density of the air had changed.

A distant wall looked closer than it should have been. The stone pavement beneath their feet seemed to shift into another position for one instant, then returned the next. With every step, their sense of distance slipped slightly out of place.

Elia still could not walk steadily.

Without Lumira’s support, the axis of her body lagged and tilted. Her breathing was shallow, and there was little strength in her footsteps. Even so, Elia’s gaze remained fixed toward the distortion ahead.

She was looking.

Being drawn again.

Lumira tightened her hand around Elia’s shoulder.

The moment they reached the passage area, space sank.

The outline of the corridor bent, and the boundary between wall and floor blurred. The space that should have been there folded inward, and pale white particles rose all at once.

Several people who had been evacuating were left trapped inside.

Their voices could be heard.

But their positions would not settle.

They seemed to be right in front of them, and at the same time, sinking deeper inside.

Too slow.

If they hesitated, they would not reach them.

The three guardian bodies moved without waiting for a signal.

One stepped into the collapsed region first, while the remaining two approached the boundary from either side. The luminous patterns running over their dark garments strengthened, and white light spread from their chests down across their arms.

Inside the collapsed region, the density of light reactions was rising rapidly.

White particles continued to multiply throughout the space. They lifted from the floor, traced along the walls, and drifted as if falling upward.

Deep within it, something began to take shape.

A form close to human.

But neither its head nor its arms would settle clearly. Light gathered, collapsed, then returned again to a human shape. Inside its outline, white lines kept running.

An abnormal light-reaction body.

The moment it moved, the surrounding space rippled.

One of the guardian bodies shifted into interception.

A thin circle of light spread beneath its stepping foot, and white light extending from its arm moved toward the distortion-reaction body. The instant they made contact, a dull vibration passed through the entire corridor.

Cracks ran across the stone wall.

The fractures in the floor widened.

At the edge of the passage area, the people who had been evacuating stepped back.

The distortion-reaction body did not collapse.

Instead, being touched made it destabilize the surrounding space even further. The depth of the wall shifted, the shadows beneath their feet stretched and shrank, and the figures of the trapped people jumped for a moment into another position.

At this rate, it would spread.

Lumira tried to pull Elia back while supporting her.

“Move away.”

She said it shortly.

But Elia’s gaze did not leave the depths of the collapsed region.

The wavering white particles.

The unstable human shape.

The light of the guardian bodies.

As she watched them, white light appeared deep within Elia’s eyes.

It was a weak reaction.

But it was certainly happening again.

It was starting again.

Lumira pulled Elia’s body closer.

The guardian bodies shifted into battle stance at the same time.

The luminous patterns on all three bodies intensified at once, and several circles of light unfolded along the boundary of the collapsed region. White lines traced the cracks in the floor, rose into the air, and rotated around the distortion-reaction body.

In the next instant, light collided.

The white light of the guardians struck the disturbed light of the distortion-reaction body, and the entire field of view was painted white for a single moment. The spatial vibration grew stronger, and cracks spread across the wall like branches.

Deep inside the collapsed region, the shadows of the trapped passersby trembled.

One guardian body held the boundary in place. Another fixed the position of the trapped people. The last focused its light toward the distortion-reaction body.

They were pushing it back.

But it was not enough.

In the middle of it, Elia’s body trembled faintly.

She had not chanted anything.

She had not raised her hand.

Even so, white particles spilled from her fingertips.

An unconscious additional light reaction.

It could not be stopped.

That light flowed into the circles of light formed by the guardian bodies.

Immediately after, the guardians’ output rose sharply.

The lines of the light circles thickened, and the white particles gathered all at once. The outline of the distortion-reaction body warped as if being crushed, and the white lines inside it began to break.

A few seconds later, the reaction body collapsed without a sound.

It unraveled into white particles and disappeared as if being drawn into the space itself.

The shaking of the collapsed region weakened.

The boundary between wall and floor returned, and the warped outline of the corridor slowly regained its shape. The trapped passersby were guided out by the guardian bodies.

The collapsed space stabilized, if only for a moment.

But immediately after the battle ended, Elia’s body gave way.

Strength left her feet, and her knees folded. Lumira caught her at once. The weight in her arms was faint, yet Elia’s body temperature wavered unstably.

Light.

Too light.

Elia’s breathing fell behind.

One beat.

Then another.

Even when Lumira called to her, the response did not return right away.

Elia was looking toward the place where the collapsed region had been, but her eyes were no longer focused.

“...What happened?”

Her voice was thin.

She had failed to grasp the battle that had just taken place.

It was not only the guardian bodies that had fought.

Elia had been worn away as well.

Lumira understood that fact only through the lightness in her arms.

The guardian bodies turned their gazes toward the space around Elia.

A very faint abnormal light reaction still remained at her fingertips and deep within her eyes. Even after the battle had ended, it had not completely disappeared.

It remained.

It was not over yet.

Around them, the evacuated residents had begun to return.

What they were looking at was not the broken stone wall.

Not Elia’s exhaustion.

Only whether the distortion had converged.

A management notification updated on the display beside the passage.

Battle record.

Distortion converged.

Minor fluctuation converged.

That was all the display showed.

Immediately after.

One white particle that had left Elia’s fingertip remained suspended in the air without disappearing.

The guardian bodies turned their gazes toward that light at the same time.

But not a single person around them noticed it.

— Lumi 🪄💕

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Archive Access

Additional observation records remain partially restricted.

Recovered fragments are available through authorized access only.