Tama Lake..

I sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth and forced myself to stand upright.

The training—whatever scraps of discipline I still possessed—kept me standing.

My vision pulsed at the edges, dark spots blooming and fading like bruises on the inside of my eyes. I steadied myself against the door.

"Where could the warp gate be now,,?"

There was no time to dwell on it.

I moved around.

I pushed off hard, pain flaring instantly in my calves as I leapt upward toward the roof of my home. I landed poorly, boots skidding, tiles cracking beneath my feet with a sharp, brittle sound.

I staggered a little, before I caught my balance.

From there, I looked around for signs of demonic mana.

The quiet neighborhood stretched out beneath the night sky, streetlights casting across empty roads. Houses sat dark and orderly, unaware. Trees swayed gently in the breeze.

I closed my eyes.

Focused inward, not on what I could see, but on what I could feel. 

The pressure in the air pressed against my awareness—heavy, suffocating, like a current of mana flowing against the natural order of things. 

It pulled at me insistently, dragging everything toward a single point.

'There'.

I turned my head slowly, eyes still shut, tracking the distortion by instinct alone. 

Beyond the clustered rooftops, beyond the thin line of residential streets, past the dark outline of trees.

'Tama Lake.. Sayama Natural Park.'

My breath caught as the scale of it registered.

I opened my eyes.

The lake at the center churned unnaturally, its surface roiling as if something massive were stirring beneath it. Dark shapes clawed their way out of the water, one after another, piling over each other in a mindless surge.

Grey figures, warped and hollow.. lesser demons.

Their limbs bent incorrectly, movements jerky and erratic, as if pulled forward by something that didn’t care whether they survived the process. They spilled onto the shore in waves, trampling animals that didn’t even have time to flee. Birds scattered into the night sky in chaotic bursts. Smaller creatures vanished beneath the flood almost instantly.

On top of the lake, a massive grey warp gate opened up, pouring out a flood of lesser demons from inside it.

No response from the guild association had come yet.

There was no flares, no barriers, no huge mana inflow cutting through the night to signal timely containment of this threat. The park sat exposed, the lake vomiting monsters into the world while the city slept on, unaware of how close it is to utter destruction.

My hands curled into fists.

I dropped back down into the house, landing hard enough that pain flared up my legs again.

My focus narrowed to a single task as I moved through the hallway toward the living room. 
I don't have a phone for myself in this period of my life.. It is odd because i do have a smart watch.. but I just hated carrying a smart phone with me all the time. 

That decision had come back to bite me now. I have to find a phone.

My father’s phone lay on the table where he’d left it. I grabbed it, fingers slick with sweat, nearly fumbling it as I unlocked the screen. The interface swam briefly before I forced it into focus.  

On the screen of emergency services... under the request for guild response tab, i found the 'Warp gate alert' button. My thumb hovered for a fraction of a second.

Then I triggered the alert.

The confirmation tone chimed softly, with a note that advised me to stay in a safe zone.

Help was coming.

I knew that.. but i can't stay still.

The system would register a signal. Someone in the Magic Guild Association would respond to it, and the nearest guild would mobilize its mages here. Protocols would activate to secure the area. 

But, that process won't be fast enough. 

I lowered the phone slowly, my breathing uneven as I turned back toward the window. 

The park was still visible from here, a dark mass against darker surroundings. 

Even from this distance, I could feel the pressure growing denser, the current strengthening.

'I have to do something. Waiting for help isn’t an option..'

I straightened as much as my body would allow, forcing my breathing back to normal. Each inhale scraped my chest, the ache settling deeper rather than fading.

As I steadied myself, something brushed against my thoughts.

It was not a voice exactly.

But a whispering murmur, layered and indistinct, like words spoken underwater. The sound slid across my awareness.

“…Hess eiw aau…”

The words didn’t make sense. They weren’t in any language I recognized. And yet, the accent felt deliberate, shaped in some meaning rather than random.

The pendant against my chest felt warmer than before.

The pendant was making this weird sound, like it was reacting to something.

The realization settled slowly, uneasily. The artifact was reacting to the surge of demonic mana nearby. 

The whisper came again, softer this time, overlapping itself, like multiple voices failing to align.

“…eiw… aau…”

I swallowed hard.

Whatever was happening at the lake wasn’t just drawing monsters into the world. It was resonating—broadcasting something that the pendant could perceive. Something old. Something ancient.

And something that might already be aware of my pendant's existence.

I pressed a hand against my chest, grounding myself in the physical sensation. The house beneath me creaked softly, settling back into its familiar stillness. Somewhere inside, my parents were confused and yelling but they were safe from the demons.. unaware of how close disaster had come.

I looked back toward Sayama Natural Park.

The flood of demons had no sign of stoppage.

I didn’t know how long my body would hold together. I didn’t know what price I’d pay for stepping into that pressure again. And I didn’t know what the pendant was asking for—or what it might eventually answer.

But I knew this much:

If I didn’t move now, there wouldn’t be anything left to protect by the time help arrived.