Gaia Chronicles: The Integral Saga

The scent of blood didn't come from the battlefield.

It came from the silence between shadows.

Four days had passed since the Octagon's official formation, and while Fort Argenvale had basked in that newfound glory, beyond its high defenses and proud banners… Gaia's enemies had already begun to move.

And not with armies.

But with whispers.

In the vast cityscape of Lyrenthal, a key Gaia outpost perched near the northern rift line, subtle anomalies began surfacing.

Etheric signals blinked without origin.

Shadow clones malfunctioned mid-patrol.

And worst of all—Knight Joseph's reinforced perimeter codes had been cracked from the inside.

It didn't make sense.

Unless…

They were already inside.

"This is no minor breach," Thea Synthesis 0 stated, pacing before the Octagon in the Argenvale war room. Her tone was graver than usual. "Three Gaia Commanders stationed in Lyrenthal have gone missing in the last 48 hours."

The Octagon, freshly awakened to purpose, listened with heavy focus.

Cyg stood near the map console, arms crossed, his gaze razor-sharp.

"There's no ether signature of the Abyss," he said. "This was surgical. Precise. Human."

Elaine frowned. "Which means Orion."

Harriet's fists clenched. "They're mocking us."

"No," Eun-Ha corrected gently. "They're studying us."

Charlotte tapped rapidly on her wrist console. "Whoever did this bypassed three levels of Gaia encryption. That narrows it down to… no one who should even be alive."

Sylvia exhaled through her nose, voice calm but sharp. "Then we find who shouldn't be."

"We leave tonight," Thea said, nodding toward the map. "Your mission: enter Lyrenthal covertly. No banners. No identifiers. You are not Gaia. You are shadows."

"You're sending us alone?" Mia asked, eyes wide.

"Not alone," Thea said. "But without backup. If Orion's truly embedded inside Gaia infrastructure… we cannot risk alerting them."

Cyg's voice was quiet, final.

"This is an infiltration countermeasure. We become the virus. We root them out."

The Octagon boarded the stealth transport Yurei-07, piloted by Raul Synthesis 27, whose grinning face belied the tense energy behind his explosion-prone nature.

"So, covert op, huh?" he chuckled, cracking his knuckles. "Guess this means I don't get to blow anything up."

"Only if we fail," Charlotte muttered.

"Can't wait."

As the craft descended silently into Lyrenthal's smog-veiled skyline, each of the Octagon prepared for what was to come:

Elaine wrapped wind around her for sensory amplification.

Sylvia adjusted her sound frequency grid.

Cyg studied the city map in cold silence.

Hikari, cloaked in her deep-blue hood, vanished into the dark of the cabin's rear.

"Stay within comms range," Eun-Ha said. "Orion doesn't just kill. They replace."

Her warning hung in the air like frost.

They all knew of the Mirror Blades—Orion's elite infiltrators, capable of copying both the form and memory of their victims.

And the last time they appeared…

Half a unit of Gaia Knights turned on each other before realizing they were all dead already.

Touchdown.

The Octagon split into two teams:

Team A: Cyg, Elaine, Harriet, and Charlotte—tasked with entering Lyrenthal's northern surveillance outpost.

Team B: Sylvia, Hikari, Eun-Ha, and Mia—assigned to track down the missing Commanders' last known locations.

The moment their boots hit the wet concrete of Lyrenthal, it became clear:

They weren't just being watched.

They were being lured in.

Ten blocks into their insertion point, Cyg raised a hand.

"We're already too late," he muttered.

A glowing mark appeared on the concrete wall ahead—a spiral of void etching across the stone like a brand.

Harriet stepped forward, her eyes narrowing.

"Is that…?"

"Orion's sigil," Charlotte confirmed. "Specifically, one tied to high-ranking intel units."

Elaine turned toward the echoing alley. Her voice was grim.

"They knew we were coming."

A whisper curled through the night air.

Not from a speaker.

Not from a person.

From everywhere.

"Welcome to the shadows, Knights."

From the rooftops above, unseen eyes watched the Octagon descend into the city's depths.

One of those eyes belonged to Kael Verdan, Codename: Catalyst Sovereign, a member of Orion's Void Council.

He leaned back against the rail, swirling an obsidian coin in his hand.

"Time to see if Gaia's little stars still shine without the sun."

And then he vanished into the mist.