Chapter 22: The Covenant Prelude

Yihizo Ye Langa, Limpopo

The Yihizo Ye Langa base was alive with motion — soldiers shouting orders, weapons being checked, & trucks grinding across the dry soil. 

The air smelled of dust and iron, yet beyond the noise there was a silence that weighed heavier than war.

Miloslav stood apart from it all, at the edge of the outpost where the savannah stretched in broken fragments.

 The land itself seemed to groan under the strain — the sky above wasn’t sky anymore, but a torn cloth unraveling into strips, revealing a void no eye could fully comprehend.

 Sometimes the void spat things out — creatures malformed, too vile to belong to either earth or spirit. Hunters dealt with them quickly, but the omen lingered.

Luna came to stand beside him, her steps quiet, her posture rigid. Her eyes had changed; colder now, like shards of ice. The softness she once carried was gone, carved away by necessity.

“You’ve grown stronger,” Miloslav said, his voice low, almost thoughtful. “I’ll need that strength tomorrow.”

She gave only a curt nod. For a long moment, neither spoke, letting the wind move through the broken grass between them.

Finally, she broke the silence.

“Thank you… for finding them. My father and Kevin.”

 Her voice softened, just barely.

“Knowing they’re safe in Geneva — being able to send & receive letters from them —that's what kept me going.”

Miloslav turned his gaze from the void above to her.

 “Hope is a rare currency in times like these. Hold onto it.”

Luna’s throat tightened.

 “If I lose this, there won’t be another chance.”

Another silence stretched before she asked the question she’d been holding back.

“If the Order breaks the seal… what happens?”

Miloslav’s jaw tightened.

“Everything you know will reset. The physical realm will unravel, and a new covenant will be made. A new world. A new history.”

Her brow furrowed. “And why is that… a bad thing?”

His eyes flicked back to the sky, to the black stripes bleeding wider.

“Because the seal isn’t just a reset button. It’s a prison.” His voice hardened.

 “Something has been kept in check for a thousand years — something even the Zodiacs couldn’t stop. If it’s freed…”

He shook his head slowly.

 “Then there will be no new world. Only the end.”

Luna’s hands clenched at her sides. For the first time in weeks, the coldness in her eyes cracked, and fear slipped through.

 

War Council

The call came for them to return to the war tent.

 Miloslav and Luna left the fractured horizon behind and stepped into the heart of AZO’s command post, where maps stretched across wooden tables and lanterns burned low against the gloom.

Inside, Christian and Given were already issuing orders to the Ten. The captains stood in their positions — Maya steady with her calm resolve, Keith tapping his fingers against his arm, Helena sharpening a blade without looking up, Matthew and Evan discussing strategies to their subordinates.

Ava leaned against the far wall with her arms folded, Maya at her side. Her glare followed Luna as she entered, cold and intense. Luna ignored it, taking her place beside Miloslav.

Christian’s voice cut through the tension. “Each of you will command a squadron of ten elites. You will be the line of defence against the Order’s advance. We hold them here, or the seal breaks.”

Given added, his tone grim, “And we can correctly assume Aries will be in this fight.”

At the mention of the name, Ava’s bored expression sharpened into focus. Her eyes narrowed, calculating.

“That’s why Luna is critical to this operation,” Given continued. “It will be Zodiac against Zodiac.”

A murmur rippled through the room, but it was silenced by a voice from outside.

 “The Order doesn’t have one Zodiac. They have three.”

Heads turned as the flaps of the tent shifted. Mr. X entered, his coat trailing behind him, accompanied by Megumi, Jason, and a boy no older than fifteen. His eyes carried a strange fire that made the elites uneasy.

“Three?” Christian looked confused.

“Aries, Virgo, and Leo,” Mr. X said flatly.

 “Our mole in the Order confirmed it.”

The weight of those names sank into the room like stone.

“This changes everything,” Luna muttered.

Mr. X beckoned the boy forward. “This is Kent. We found him two weeks ago in Cape Town. He is Sagittarius.”

Shock swept through the tent. Even Ava’s cold mask faltered, if only for a second.

“And that’s not all,” Mr. X went on. “We’ve also confirmed the existence of the Thirteenth Zodiac… and the Sol Zodiac. But after Cape Town, we lost their trail. It’s possible the Order reached them first.”

Miloslav flicked open a cigarette, lit it with a slow draw. Smoke curled upward. “If that’s true, then the scale of this war just shifted.”

Ava’s gaze turned to Kent, sharp as a blade. 

“My abilities should be able keep one Zodiac busy.”

Then her eyes slid toward Luna, venom laced in her tone. 

“She can handle another.”

Her focus snapped back to Kent. 

“But what about you?”

The boy’s gaze swept the room, not arrogant, but calm—measured, like someone who already knew the outcome of a fight before it began. His fingers tapped against his side, restless, as though marking a rhythm only he could hear.

The boy said nothing at first. Then his body blurred — an afterimage — and in an instant his voice came from behind Ava. 

“Look behind you.”

Whispers rose; soldiers stiffened. It wasn’t just speed. It was as if space itself bent to where he willed himself to be.

Mr. X’s lips curved. 

“Kent is a capable spiritual user. More than enough to keep a Zodiac occupied.”

Given nodded. 

“Then it’s settled. Luna, Ava, and Kent — your mission is to hold the Zodiacs of the Order at bay. If they fail to do so, we all fall.”

As if on cue, Mr. X leaned toward Megumi and whispered. She nodded. 

“Find Richard and Jordan,” he said quietly. 

“Their positions are critical.” 

Megumi and Jason slipped out of the tent, leaving the heavy silence to settle once more.

 

Sahara Base, Mauritania

 

The Sahara winds howled outside the stone corridors of the Order’s desert base.

Inside, behind heavy curtains and incense smoke, Aries sat slouched on a carved chair, his torso wrapped in blood-stained bandages. A healer’s hands lingered over his ribs, then withdrew with a bow, leaving him alone.

The door creaked. 

Noelle entered, her steps unhurried, the faint clink of glass in her hand. She carried a bottle of cognac, dusted as though it had been pulled from an age long past, and two glasses.

“Arthur insisted this would help the recovery,” she said, her tone silk over steel. 

She poured, the amber liquid catching the lamplight.

Aries took the glass she handed him. “One thousand years,” he muttered, his voice gravel. 

“From the Crusades, to the 30 years wars, to both World Wars… all of it leading to this.”

Noelle swirled her glass lazily. 

“We have always been there, haven’t we? The hidden hands guiding kings, toppling empires, rewriting the fate of mankind — all so this moment could arrive.”

She raised the glass, but did not drink. Her left eye shimmered violet, then deepened into a stark purple.

The room around them bent — her gaze opening a window into another plane.

There, suspended in a dim, formless void, floated Jordan and Richard. Their bodies hung in silence, trapped between realities, their lives bound by her will.

She smiled faintly, almost wistful.

 “It is a shame- from the lies & manipulation- to the blood we’ve spilled in the shadows. But it was all for this.”

Aries exhaled, slow, deliberate. He lifted his glass and took a long sip, his gaze burning into the vision she conjured. Then, with a crooked grin, he raised the glass higher. 

“To a new beginning.”

Noelle’s lips curled into a mischievous smirk, her glass meeting his with a sharp chime. 

“To a new beginning.”

The echo of their toast lingered like an omen, drowning out even the desert storm outside.

In Noelle’s purple gaze, the suspended bodies of Jordan and Richard drifted silently in the endless void she had woven. Their breaths shallow, their consciousness dim.

For Richard, the silence unravelled, thread by thread, until only the void remained.

He found himself standing in a place without ground, without sky — only an ocean of light and mist that stretched forever.

Countless spirits shimmered like droplets of starlight, swirling in an eternal dance.

 They revolved around a blazing core — Sol.

Her radiance crowned the realm, her presence binding them all together.

But not all were drawn to her warmth.

From the far edges of that eternal dance, Richard’s eyes caught a lone spirit. Watching. Its silence heavier than the chorus of countless others.

And then, as though rejecting the nameless swarm, it changed. Flesh and bone rippled across its essence. A body formed. A face.

Richard’s own face.

He staggered back, his breath caught, as the doppelgänger stared at him with eyes older than time.

The spirit’s lips curved into a thin, cold smile.

“I’m coming for you…”

The words sank into Richard’s chest like chains, dragging him into a deeper darkness.