"We should introduce ourselves," he said. "We're Divers. Field unit twelve fro the Verge Outpost."
"Divers?" Asrel asked, folding his arms as he watched them carefully.
"Short for Dead-Zone Divers," another explained. "We operate in Dead Zones. Our job is to monitor the environment, map Miasma shifts, eliminate aggressive threats, and recover salvage. Sometimes intel. Sometimes bodies."
"We are monitoring the area when you showed up, alone, unregistered, no protection. Breathing open air like it was nothing."
Asrel's eyes flicked over their suits now with greater clarity. Compact, modular, built for endurance rather than speed. Each was marked with faint serial codes and patchwork repairs. Miasma purifiers sat latched to their backs, dimly glowing. One carried a scanner braced to his forearm, humming faintly with every pulse.
"How far are we from this Verge Outpost?" Asrel asked.
"Roughly five klicks," the leader replied. "Straight line, through that ridge."
He pointed eastward, where the haze thinned near the horizon. Through the murky shimmer, Asrel could just barely make out jagged terrain framed by faint, refracted light, the edge of the Life Zone.
"That shimmer is a filter barrier," the Diver continued. "Flux-treated lattice. Keeps the Miasma from breaching too far into the habitable region."
"Even you shouldn't linger out here," another added. "Mutations like yours can shield you, sure, but prolonged exposure changes you in ways you don't notice. Until it's too late."
Asrel remained quiet.
His gaze drifted to his surroundings, how the earth was warped, bent, cracked with veins of unnatural glow. This land had been something else once. But whatever had happened had reshaped it beyond recognition.
Then one of the Divers looked at him more directly, their visor catching a glint of fading ambient light.
"You took down all five of us," one of them said at last. The voice that emerged from the helmet was flat, mechanical, like all the others. "Even without your memories… you're strong."
"I fight instinctively," Asrel replied, eyes steady. He didn't need to feign calm. The way his body moved before thought had become second nature told him enough: whoever he was, he was meant to survive.
The speaker gave a short nod and tapped a white triangle on the forehead of his helmet.
"I'm Rook. Team leader. You won't recognize our faces, but you can tell us apart by these." He motioned toward his visor, then gestured to the others.
"I'm Lira," said the next, stepping forward. Her suit was sleeker, more streamlined for movement, marked by a narrow vertical light-blue stripe running down the center of her helmet.
"Brenn," came the next reply. His bulkier frame was easy to identify even without his gear—his helmet bore a matte red square on the left side. "The one you kicked into the dirt."
"Call me Kick," the next said with a short wave. The orange cog symbol on the back of his helmet glinted faintly as he moved. "Tech specialist."
"And I'm Nessa," said the last, with no delay. Her armor was marked by a white cross on the right side of the helmet, with green trim detailing the sleeves and pouches, a medic's gear.
Though they all spoke with the same filtered monotone, each gesture, movement, and marking helped give them presence. Asrel noted them carefully.
"We'll escort you to Verge Outpost," Rook continued, taking a step forward and motioning toward the distant shimmer beyond the haze. "As standard procedure. You'll undergo questioning. Then registration, as one of the Blessed."
"Alright," Asrel said, nodding once.
The lie of memory loss gave him room to breathe. They wouldn't pry too deep if they thought he was broken, just another anomaly scraped from the wastes. It gave him cover.
What unsettled him more was the term itself.
Blessed.
What kind of power did these people now wield under that name? What were they capable of, and how many had lost themselves to the process?
As the group formed up, Rook and Lira leading point, Kick adjusting a scanner, Brenn covering their rear, and Nessa walking near him to monitor vitals, Asrel followed without hesitation.
The journey to the Verge Outpost wouldn't take long. The land around them changed subtly as they moved, less twisted, less warped. The air, once thick and heavy with the shimmer of Miasma, began to clear, though a faint haze still clung to the edges of vision like smoke that refused to settle. The oppressive hum that had weighed on Asrel's senses for hours lightened, and he could breathe more freely, though not entirely without caution.
They talked as they walked, and over time, the mechanical edge of their filtered voices became a strange sort of normal.
They discussed strange monster sightings, newly formed rifts, faulty Diver equipment, and rumors from further regions. It was half field report, half gossip, but to Asrel, it was priceless—each word a shard of a puzzle he hadn't known he was part of.
Eventually, the conversation drifted to Life Zones.
"So," Asrel asked, glancing toward Brenn, "why can't the Miasma enter a Life Zone?"
"Flux Towers," Brenn answered without hesitation. His voice buzzed evenly through the helmet's filter. "They were built during the final years of the Age of Sunder. Supposedly by a Blessed so powerful they rewrote the survival odds for everyone."
"Their invention marked the transition," Nessa added, "from collapse to control. That's when we entered what we now call the Age of Flux."
Kick chimed in as he adjusted his device, "The year now is Flux 435. Back when it began, they managed to build several Wide-Range Flux Towers. These things refine Miasma, breaking it down and repurposing it into stabilized Flux. That Flux forms an invisible barrier, a kind of dome that purifies the land within. Up to 100 kilometers across, if you can believe it."
"They were the only reason life didn't vanish completely," Lira said. "With each Tower, a region became livable again."
"But then the Eidolarchs started coming through," Rook added, his voice more grounded now. " They used the unstable fabric in Dead Zones to slip into our world."
"Extra-dimensional beings," Kick said, "but no one agrees on what they really are. They overwhelmed the early sanctuaries. Some Towers were destroyed, others just... failed. The Flux fields around them collapsed like popped domes."
"And now?" Nessa said. "Only nine of the original sanctuaries still hold. Each one named and numbered, each centered around a functioning Wide-Range Tower."
"Region One: 3rd, 4th, and 5th.
Region Two: 9th, 11th, 12th.
Region Three: 17th, 19th, 21st."
"We're heading toward the 4th Sanctuary," Rook said, glancing back. "It's the strongest node in Region One. Verge Outpost sits along its outer edge."
"As for new Towers?" Nessa shook her head. "The knowledge is fragmented. The materials are rare. Even if we tried, we couldn't build another of that scale. All we can do now are Micro-Towers, enough to cover up to a few kilometer. That's what we rely on to keep Outposts like Verge running."
"Outposts are buffer zones," Lira said. "We build them close to the flux border, just far enough to scout, close enough to survive."
"And sometimes," Brenn added quietly, "they're what breaks first."
The group fell into silence.
As they crested a ridge, the silhouette of Verge Outpost finally emerged in the thinning haze. Nestled against a jagged cliff, it pulsed faintly with the soft blue shimmer of a functioning Micro-Tower. The flux field hummed like a heartbeat.
The outpost was average in size, more like a town than a base. Modular buildings ringed a central hub, where a micro-reactor pumped steam through exposed ducts. Antennae blinked. Guard turrets tracked motion. Divers moved along narrow walkways, tending to equipment and scanning the skies.
"This is Verge," Rook said, voice low with a soldier's familiarity.
"Let's head into the gate," Rook said, nodding toward the entrance ahead.
Rook stepped ahead without hesitation, approaching a stationed guard at the checkpoint. The exchange was brief, quiet words, gestures, and a digital transmission passed through a wrist console. The guard gave a silent nod and keyed something into the terminal beside him.
Rook returned a minute later.
"You're clear for quarantine intake," he told Asrel. "Standard for all unregistered anomalies. Registration will happen inside."
He paused briefly, then added, "We'll wait on the other side once you're through."
Asrel gave a single nod and proceeded toward the entryway. The door slid open with a hiss, revealing a sterile corridor dimly lit with cool-white strips along the floor edges. As he stepped forward, he passed through a full-body flux scanner. A beam of pale green light passed over his form from head to toe.
The machine emitted a soft chime.
Green. Clear. No trace of Miasma.
"This scanner can't detect the Chaos energy in me…" Asrel noted silently. "It reacts only to Miasma signatures. They have no idea what's inside me."
The hall opened into a large, windowless chamber, unfurnished except for a chair, a table, and a wall-mounted terminal glowing faintly with system data. Moments later, the door on the far end opened with a pneumatic sigh.
A woman entered. Unlike Rook's field unit, she wore no armor or sealed gear, only a crisp black and silver uniform, complete with lieutenant's insignia on her collar and a tablet in her gloved hands.
"I'm your examiner," she said, stepping forward. "Lieutenant Sera."
Her voice was calm but assertive, used to command, used to procedure.
"I'll begin with a few questions for profiling."
Asrel said nothing and took the seat. The questioning began, standard information: name, age, origin, affiliations, prior mutations, exposure incidents. He deflected or claimed memory loss for most. Sera didn't press hard. Her fingers moved across the screen with fluid motions, noting his responses without visible judgment.
After a time, she finished.
"So," she said, looking up, "you want to be listed as Asrel. Based on your vitals and scans, we're marking your biological age as eighteen. No prior records. No Core signature in our system."
She tapped once more and continued.
"Your address will default to Verge Outpost. Temporary residential clearance granted."
Her tone shifted slightly as she swiped to a new interface.
"Now, the interesting part."
She set the tablet down.
"I've received a field report. You incapacitated Field Unit Twelve, led by Rook. Unarmed. Unassisted. No gear. The report suggests you're Blessed… though what kind, we don't yet understand."
She stood and took several steps back. A ripple passed over her hand as she activated a personal Flux shield, a hexagonal barrier shimmered briefly to life around her.
"Let's test that claim," she said. "Show me what you can do."
Asrel remained seated for a moment, watching her calmly. Then, without speaking, he lifted his hand. Three orbs of crimson Chaos energy formed in a slow orbit above his palm.
He had already dampened their power, reducing their destructive force drastically. This was only for display.
With a flick of his fingers, the bolts launched in sequence, crackling through the air, striking the barrier in rapid succession. Small explosions rang out as they collided with the Flux field, scattering sparks across the room. The shield held firm, humming with strain but unbroken.
The room settled.
Sera deactivated the barrier. Her expression didn't shift.
"We're done here."
Asrel couldn't read whether she was impressed, concerned, or indifferent. The result of the scan, whatever hidden data her system had recorded, was not shared.
She gestured to the door. "You'll be issued identification. Proceed to the next room."
Asrel exited and was guided by a security drone down another corridor until he reached a narrow office where a receptionist waited behind a reinforced glass screen. The woman behind it slid a metallic ID card under the divider.
She spoke through a clear speaker embedded in the desk.
"Here is your card," she said. "You are now registered as a Level 0 Provisional Citizen."
The card displayed his image, name, ID code, and current status. The lettering glowed faintly, readable only under certain flux frequencies.
"You'll begin a six-month provisional period," she continued. "As long as you don't commit any violations during that time, you'll automatically be upgraded to Level 1 – Resident status."
She handed him a folded pamphlet.
"There are a few restrictions at your current level. You are not allowed within any Sanctuary Core sectors. You may only live in Outposts such as Verge. However, there are open labor sectors and essential jobs that do not require higher citizenship. You can apply for one as early as tomorrow."
She looked at him briefly.
"You may leave now."
Asrel stepped back, the door sliding open behind him.