THE THREAD OF RESISTANCE.

The world after the Emerald Cataclysm was a canvas painted with the colors of despair.

Asimil walked beside Luce, but he felt like a ghost wandering through the funeral of his own world. The purple, cracked sky was a constant reminder of his failure. Luce's news of the fall of the small clans was a slab over his heart. She believed she had lost everything.

— Hey, cheer up! — said Luce, giving him a friendly elbow that almost knocked him off balance. — With that face, you're going to scare the monsters before we can hit them. —

Asimil didn't answer. How could he smile? Every ruin they passed could have been the home of a friend, every Void Empire patrol they dodged, the killers of their comrades.

Their journey took them to a canyon where a refugee camp had been established. It was not a place of hope. It was a repository of broken souls. Combatants and non-combatants mingled in silent misery. He saw a warrior in splintered armor staring at a split sword, a family huddled around a campfire that gave no warmth, children with empty eyes, having seen more war than any adult should allow.

Asimil watched the scene, and something inside him began to change. His pain, which felt so personal and unique, was just a drop in an ocean of suffering. He thought he had lost everything, but they... they had lost everything too. And they were moving on. He clenched his fists.

He approached a little girl who was crying silently in a corner. He knelt down beside her. — Are you all right? — he asked softly.

The girl just shook her head, clutching a dirty rag doll.

Asimil pulled from his inventory a small luminous berry he had picked, one of the few resources he had left. It glowed with a warm light.

— Here — he said. — So you won't be afraid in the dark. — The girl looked at him, and a small spark of light returned to her eyes. Luce watched the scene from a distance, and her usual beaming smile softened into one of genuine admiration.

— Let's get out of here. — said Asimil, his voice no longer that of a ghost, but that of a soldier. — There is work to do. —

His purpose had changed. He was no longer fighting for personal regret. He was fighting for them. For all those who had lost their home. He officially joined the Resistance, with Luce as his partner.

Their next destination was a Resistance outpost, hidden deep in a petrified forest. It was a grim but organized place, filled with weary but determined veterans. It was there that Asimil found the record board, a desperate attempt to keep track of the living and the dead.

With his heart in his fist, he began to search. He checked the lists of missing clans. There it was: Clan Harmonia. And next to it, the status: Annihilated.

A dull ache ran through him. Despite everything, a part of him had held out hope. He kept searching, needing closure, painful as it was. He opened a damaged battle log, titled "Last Defense of the Bastion of Harmonia."

His eyes ran down the list of Fallen in Combat. The parchment was stained and torn, but he could make out the letters.

Borin, Warrior.

Lirael, Archer.

Valerius, Manager.

Sacr...

The rest of his mentor's name was blotted out by a burn spot. Asimil closed his eyes, accepting the painful truth. Sacres was gone.

With a sense of utter desolation, his eyes dropped by inertia to the next section of the report, "Confirmed Survivors (Transferred to Delta Medical Enclave)." It was a short list. Most of the names he didn't recognize. He scanned the list without any hope, expecting only to find more pain.

And then, his heart stopped.

There, written in shaky but unmistakable handwriting, was the name.

Iken Ken.

The world stopped spinning. The ringing in his ears disappeared. There were only those two words. Ikel. He was alive. The desolation that had consumed him was shattered by an explosion of hope so violent that it almost knocked him to the ground. He was not alone. Not yet.

He turned abruptly, the parchment trembling in his hand, and ran to Luce.

— Luce! — he shouted, his voice full of an urgency and a life she had not heard from him before. — Where was this battle? Where... where is the Delta Medical Enclave? —