Chapter 3- Fragments of Light Part 2

Near Cavendish Mall — 5 minutes before the explosion.

The air shimmered with spiritual pressure.

Flashing lights. Tremors in the ground. Shattered glass from abandoned cars crunched under Christian’s boots as he came to a hard stop. His eyes locked onto the monstrosity in front of them — the Phantom — a grotesque creature of swirling shadows, half-formed limbs, and a face that flickered like static on an old television.

It was laughing. A low, grinding hum vibrating through the street.

“Time’s almost up,” Maya called through the communicator in her ear. “Sixty seconds. Then I’m tapped out.”

Christian exhaled sharply. “Then we make this count.”

Matthew, standing a few meters behind them, cracked his knuckles. His spiritual essence shimmered across his skin like liquid mercury. “I’ll bind it long enough for Maya to tag it.”

The Phantom suddenly raised one of its claws — and from its mist-like body, dozens of mini Phantoms surged out like a swarm of bees, shrieking and glowing.

“Scatter!” Christian roared.

The explosion lit up the sky.

Combat Phase: Strategic Deployment

"FLASH!"

Maya flashed instantly, her body fragmenting into streaks of light as she zipped between the mini-phantoms mid-air — one, two, five, twelve—until a full hundred flashes blinked across the city block in less than a second. 

Each time she teleported, she redirected a mini-phantom mid-flight, redirecting their trajectories upward toward the empty skyline.

From afar, it looked like a dazzling storm of streaking meteors being rerouted into the heavens. Every jump burned her bones. She could feel it. She just never let it show.

“Area clear!” Maya shouted. Her voice, high with adrenaline, rang through the communicator.

Christian didn’t wait. His spiritual essence pulsed like an engine- shattering the ground beneath his feet as he burst forward at supersonic speed. The moment he was within ten meters of the Phantom, it launched a beam of condensed spiritual energy — almost identical to the ones Ava had described from Malaysia.

But Danger had already kicked in.

Christian tilted his torso, and let the beam graze past. His body moved before the thought even formed in his mind.

“Still too slow,” he smirked.

In an instant, he slammed his fist into the Phantom’s chest, sending shockwaves through its core.

The creature wailed — but instead of falling back, it split apart into a fog of mist. Then came the sound of metal warping, as stop signs, trash bins, and even nearby cars, twisted by the Phantom’s psychic abilities, and flung it toward Christian.

But Christian was already dodging — letting Danger take over, weaving through a web of destruction, never once breaking focus.

“Matthew—now!”

Combat Phase: Material Command

Matthew didn’t reply with words. He raised both hands, and the air crystallized.

From the asphalt beneath his feet, matter restructured itself into an elegant silver spear — and then two, then three, floating beside him in orbit. A breath, and they shot forward like lightning bolts, pinning the Phantom’s tendrils to the concrete before it could vanish again.

Then he blinked, and the spears deconstructed mid-air, instantly reforming into a web-like prison of vibrating, interlocking blades.

“Got it!” Matthew called. “Now!”

Final Phase: Phantom Relocation

Maya’s body flared with spiraling rings of light. Her spiritual signature reached maximum output, and with a flash of iridescent brilliance, she vanished — then reappeared above the Phantom, palm outstretched.

The Phantom roared in defiance as it broke one of Matthew’s bindings — but it was too late.

She gritted her teeth.

“Teleport: Robben Island.”

And in a flash of impossible light, they vanished.

Only silence remained, the burning aftermath of spiritual warfare still sizzling in the air.

Aftermath

Christian sat on the ruined steps of a nearby building on Robben Island , panting, his shirt torn from the explosion earlier. “That was a mid-level?”

Matthew dusted off ash from his arms. “It mimicked the Order’s energy weapons. That’s… not a coincidence.”

Maya needed rest, drained and staggering slightly. Her lips were pale.

“You okay?” Christian asked, catching her shoulder.

“Used too many jumps,” she managed, collapsing to sit beside him. “I’ll be fine. Just need ten minutes. The Phantom’s contained on the island. For now.”

Matthew’s brows furrowed. “This isn’t a standalone incident. If these things are learning from the Order… we’re running out of time.”

Christian nodded slowly. His eyes drifted toward the plume of smoke in the distance — the explosion at the mall.

"Too close this time," he muttered.

Then: “Let’s report back to Miloslav. He needs to know about this.”

Robben Island – 17:41

The sky above Robben Island flickered like a dying lightbulb. Clouds warped unnaturally as wind spiralled into a tight vortex. The Phantom, now glowing with a deep crimson hue, began to swell grotesquely—spiritual essence pouring out of its jagged, ghost-like frame like blood from a fresh wound.

“We have a problem,” Maya’s voice cracked, eyes wide as she stepped back from the creature.

The ground beneath them quaked. Waves from the surrounding ocean began to surge unnaturally, hammering the shore. Birds fled. The island itself groaned like it wanted to sink.

“Its essence is surging too fast,” Matthew said, his brows twitching in frustration. “If it detonates—”

“Thirty kilometres wiped off the map,” Maya finished. “Including half of Cape Town.”

She instinctively prepped her teleportation rune, but hesitated. “If I jump too close, I’ll blow up with it.”

“And I can’t disassemble what’s unstable at the atomic level. Not like this,” Matthew added, stepping between her and the phantom, his breath sharp and focused.

The Phantom let out a distorted shriek and launched a barrage of mini-phantoms in every direction. Christian shattered two with a swipe, but the rest vaporized into raw spiritual essence mid-air—triggering another surge.

“Don’t touch it. Don’t hit it. And don’t even think about disrupting the particles,” Maya muttered, sweat beading on her temple.

Then, Christian exhaled.

“Guess I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”

Maya and Matthew immediately scattered away after Christian said those words.

His eyes closed. A soft blue glow outlined his body as he took a stance—legs spread, one fist clenched near his waist.

“Length, Width, and Height—” he began.

The spiritual air warped.

Spiritual Volume: “Maximum Instinct.”

A dome of refracted light erupted around him and the Phantom, swallowing them both into a separate plane—a spiritual volume.

To the outside world, they were gone.

Inside the volume, Christian moved like lightning. The Phantom, a creature that could bend the laws of physics and duplicate itself, froze—its movements nullified. In Christian’s volume, its tricks meant nothing.

One step. One punch. A single, earth-shattering blow to the centre of its form.

The Phantom’s body didn’t explode—it disintegrated, broken into countless strands of spiritual essence that shimmered and vanished like stardust.

The volume cracked, fractured like glass, and then shattered.

Christian reappeared, silent and composed, walking out of the fading light. His knuckles were bloodied. His eyes, calm.

Maya blinked, stunned. “You didn’t even flinch.”

“That was insane,” Matthew said, voice flat with admiration. “You soloed a mid-high level Phantom.”

Christian shook the pain from his hand. “I had to. If that thing detonated, it would’ve taken out Cape Town.”

Maya ran over, eyes sparkling with curiosity. “What’s it like inside a spiritual volume? Everyone’s always talking about it.”

Christian raised an eyebrow. “Claustrophobic. You feel everything. Time, mass, your opponent’s breath. Can’t afford to doubt even once.”

“Man,” Maya sighed dramatically, flopping onto a rock. “I wish I had a volume. Flash just gives me a killer headache if I overuse it.”

Matthew chuckled. “And I end up creating glorified toothpicks if I lose focus.”

Maya nudged Christian with her elbow. “You know, if they ranked by ability alone… you'd be Number One.”

Christian shrugged, brushing dirt from his shirt. “They rank based on threat level, not just power.”

There was a pause. The tension lingered for just a second too long.

Matthew and Maya exchanged glances. Everyone knew what that meant.

Ava.

The only AZO agent besides Christian considered a SS-Level Threat—but for entirely different reasons.

Christian’s voice dropped slightly. “Power you can train. Being a threat… you either are or you’re not.”

Maya gave a lopsided grin, trying to break the silence. “Still. You’re the only one in the AZO with a spiritual volume. That’s gotta count for something.”

Christian didn’t respond. He stared at the water, watching the last of the Phantom’s essence dissolve into the horizon.

Cavendish Mall The emergency lights still painted the sky red and blue, flickering like a warning to the world that something had changed. People gathered near the blocked-off entrance of the mall, murmuring in confusion, fear, and curiosity. Broken glass glittered underfoot. The air smelled of smoke and burnt concrete. Sirens howled in the distance.

Luna stood beside her father, both wrapped in foil blankets offered by the first responders. Her hair was slightly dusty, and her eyes darted around, still adjusting to the chaos. Her father placed a steady hand on her shoulder.

"You okay, Lu?" he asked, his voice calm despite everything.

She nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Yeah… just shaken. That was close.”

A few meters away, Richard and Jordan emerged from the crowd. Richard had a scrape on his cheek and his phone clutched in one hand. Jordan’s arms were crossed, her posture defensive, but her eyes softened when she spotted Luna.

“Hey—Luna, right?” Jordan said, stepping forward.

Luna blinked in surprise before recognition dawned. “You’re in my math class,” she said slowly.

“Yeah,” Jordan gave a short nod, glancing at Richard. “We were inside the cinema when everything started shaking. Took cover near the fire exit.”

“I saw you two earlier,” Luna said before she could stop herself, and then cleared her throat. “You okay?”

Richard lifted his phone. “Fine, but the internet’s already going insane.” He held out the screen. Social media apps were flooded: shaky videos of the explosion, screenshots of debris, and comment threads full of panic.

One post had over fifty thousand shares already:

"Solar Eclipse + Strange Explosion = Biblical Endtimes? Revelation Confirmed?? 👀 #7Trumpets #Apocalypse"

Another read:

"Wake up, sheeple. This was no accident. Secret experiments gone wrong. Look into Malaysia & Robben Island. #ConspiracyConfirmed"

Luna frowned. “People always make it about them.”

“Or about the end of the world,” Jordan muttered, peering over Richard’s shoulder.

Mr. Noire gave a low chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can’t say I blame them entirely. Whatever that was, it wasn’t normal.”

A sharp gust of wind passed them, lifting dust and static through the crowd. For a brief moment, Luna glanced toward the horizon—toward the sea—and felt something. A flicker. Like the stillness before a second explosion. But nothing followed. Just silence.

“We should head back,” her dad said quietly, turning to her. “Before the roads get blocked off.”

“Wait,” Jordan asked. “You guys felt it too, right? That... weird pressure in the air?”

Richard added, “Like gravity shifted for a second or something?”

Luna hesitated. “Yeah. I felt it.”

For a moment, they all stood there- three teenagers and a father—at the edge of something larger than themselves. Something cosmic. The mall behind them smouldered. The city, for now, was still intact. But none of them could shake the feeling that tonight was a warning.

And none of them—not even Luna—knew just how close they were to becoming part of the storm.