First of all, you can get all four miniatures together in one bundle. Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot and Morgana are all included when you hit the buying button above. 👆👆👆

Merlin, 38 mm Premium Resin 3D Printed Miniature, Unpainted

Bring Merlin, the wise commander of Excalibur 4 and future Magister of The Entourage, to your tabletop with this highly detailed 38 mm character miniature, professionally printed in premium quality resin to preserve every element of his majestic design.

Merlin is depicted standing proudly upon an ornate scenic base, with one foot raised over a rocky formation and both fists closed in a commanding pose. His powerful physique, swept silver hair, distinguished beard and solemn expression capture the wisdom, authority and immense experience of a Kwasar who has guided warriors, kings and entire civilisations.

His body is protected by the magnificent Sublime Skin, a living pearlescent white symbiotic suit crossed by intricate golden lines and elegant arcane details. Its refined appearance reflects the perfect union between biological power, divine beauty and the countless Vision Powers Merlin has mastered throughout his extraordinarily long existence.

The miniature is supplied unpainted, allowing you to customise Merlin with your own colour scheme and painting style. The detailed scenic base shown in the images is included.

Please note that painted images are provided for reference only.

Arthur, 38 mm Premium Resin 3D Printed Miniature, Unpainted

Bring Arthur, the indomitable guardian and strategic heart of Excalibur 4, to your tabletop with this highly detailed 38 mm character miniature, professionally printed in premium quality resin to preserve every element of his imposing design.

Arthur is depicted in a powerful heroic stance, standing firmly with both fists closed and his gaze directed towards an approaching threat. His dark flowing hair, full beard, broad shoulders and intensely focused expression capture the strength, discipline and unwavering determination of a warrior who refuses to retreat while others remain under his protection.

His pearlescent white Sublime Skin is decorated with golden trims, reinforced bracers and a radiant star emblem upon his chest. These details represent his commanding presence, his mastery of defensive and physical Vision Powers and his role as the living shield of Excalibur 4.

The miniature is supplied unpainted, allowing you to customise Arthur with your own colour scheme and painting style. The detailed scenic base shown in the images is included.

Please note that painted images are provided for reference only.

Lancelot, 38 mm Premium Resin 3D Printed Miniature, Unpainted

Bring Lancelot, the swift, fearless and fiercely competitive warrior of Excalibur 4, to your tabletop with this highly detailed 38 mm character miniature, professionally printed in premium quality resin to preserve every element of his dynamic design.

Lancelot is depicted in a disciplined combat stance, with one fist raised defensively and the other prepared to strike. His short blond hair, athletic physique and determined expression reflect the speed, confidence and relentless fighting instinct that make him one of the most dangerous close combat specialists within the Excelsior Brigade.

His fitted white Sublime Skin is crossed by elegant golden channels that follow the lines of his body and conduct the extraordinary energy generated by Arkana. The design perfectly captures his mastery of movement, aerial combat, Kung Arts, Celeritas and Velox.

The miniature is supplied unpainted, allowing you to customise Lancelot with your own colour scheme and painting style. The detailed scenic base shown in the images is included.

Please note that painted images are provided for reference only.

Morgana, 38 mm Premium Resin 3D Printed Miniature, Unpainted

Bring Morgana, the perceptive, mysterious and extraordinarily powerful member of Excalibur 4, to your tabletop with this highly detailed 38 mm character miniature, professionally printed in premium quality resin to preserve every element of her elegant design.

Morgana is depicted suspended above a dramatic rocky formation, with her body poised as though she has just descended from the sky or is preparing to rise into battle. Her spectacular flowing silver hair, refined features and composed expression capture the intelligence, confidence and quiet authority of a Kwasar capable of understanding both the visible world and the hidden forces that move behind it.

Her elegant white Sublime Skin follows her silhouette like a flawless second skin and is decorated with intricate golden lines across her torso, arms and legs. The design reflects the harmony between beauty and power, while her controlled pose evokes her mastery of Mystica, Silentium, perception, mental discipline and spiritual energy.

The miniature is supplied unpainted, allowing you to customise Morgana with your own colour scheme and painting style. The detailed rocky scenic base shown in the images is included.

Please note that painted images are provided for reference only.

Once you have discovered the miniatures of Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot and Morgana, continue just below to read their incredible story and discover how the legendary members of Excalibur 4 became the Magisters destined to guide and train The Entourage. 👇👇👇

EXCALIBUR 4

The Magisters of the Entourage

The Last Day of the First Cosmic Year

There are dates that belong to history.

And there are dates so immense that history itself lives and dies inside them.

When Kronos created Genesis, when he shaped the first Sapiens from the sacred clay of Urkulo and placed the breath of conscious life within her, the cosmos had barely begun to understand its own existence.

It was the first day of the first month of the First Cosmic Year.

The stars were young.

The worlds were unfinished.

The rivers of Urkulo still searched for their oceans.

The mountains had not yet learned to resist the wind.

There were no Kwasar kingdoms. No Sovereign. No Sovereigness. No lineages. No Brigades. No councils capable of governing the impossible immensity of the Universe of Tzion.

There was only Kronos.

There was Genesis.

And there was the future.

More than twelve thousand million years had passed since that first dawn.

Now, at last, the final day of the final month of the First Cosmic Year had arrived.

The stars were ancient.

Civilisations had risen, crossed the heavens, fought, loved, evolved and disappeared.

The children of Genesis had spread throughout Tzion, becoming the Kwasars, the guardians of a Universe whose vastness could no longer be understood by any single mind.

They had built cities upon the continents of Urkulo.

They had raised sanctuaries inside moons, fortresses between stars and temples upon worlds where no mortal species had ever placed a foot.

They had developed governments, hierarchies and sovereign structures capable of maintaining order across distances so great that light itself seemed slow.

At the summit of that structure stood the Sovereign and the Sovereigness.

Beneath them existed councils, orders, custodians, Magisters, military authorities and sacred lineages whose duties extended throughout the macro sphere of Tzion.

Yet the Kwasars no longer lived beneath the direct gaze of their creator.

Kronos had not walked among them for billions of years.

He had not entered the First Seat.

He had not crossed the halls where Genesis had once trained.

He had not manifested a physical body anywhere in the Universe of Tzion.

Not since the Great Loss.

No Kwasar spoke of the Great Loss without lowering their voice.

No archive contained a complete explanation.

No Sovereign possessed authority to reveal its truth.

Some believed an entire people had vanished.

Others believed that something had been torn from the very structure of creation.

There were those who whispered that the Great Loss had not been the destruction of a world, a civilisation or a species, but the loss of someone whose absence had wounded the Architect himself.

Whatever had happened, it had changed everything.

After the Great Loss, Kronos withdrew from the physical Universe.

He returned to Kokoon, the Antiverse, and resumed the existence that preceded flesh, matter and time.

He became Godark once more.

From that moment onward, he left the government and protection of Tzion in the hands of the beings he had trained for aeons.

The Kwasars.

His children.

His guardians.

His final act of trust.

Godark did not abandon them completely.

He still watched.

He still felt the movements of the Universe.

He still perceived possibilities that no Kwasar could recognise.

But he no longer descended from the Antiverse to speak with them in physical form.

When he needed to communicate, he used Mystica.

Mystica was not merely telepathy.

It was not a voice transmitted through distance.

It was the sacred resonance between physical consciousness and the spiritual territories of the Antiverse.

Through Mystica, a Kwasar could perceive echoes beyond matter, communicate with spiritual entities and listen to voices that possessed no tongue, no lungs and no physical location.

And through Mystica, Godark occasionally spoke.

Not to everyone.

Not often.

Only when the destiny of Tzion required it.

On the last day of the First Cosmic Year, he called to Merlin.

The Mountain of Silence

Merlin stood alone upon one of the highest ridges of Urkulo.

The Mother Planet stretched beneath him, immense and luminous, positioned at the centre of the macro sphere of Tzion like the heart of a celestial organism.

From that altitude, he could see cloud systems moving around entire mountain chains. Rivers reflected the violet light of distant moons. Great Kwasar cities shone across the valleys, their towers rising from the landscape without violating its ancient beauty.

Merlin wore no cloak.

No crown.

No ceremonial armour.

His body was covered by the Sublime Skin.

Pearlescent white living matter embraced him from the neck down, flowing over his powerful form as though light itself had learned anatomy. Golden lines crossed his chest, shoulders, arms and legs in immaculate geometries.

Those lines were not decoration.

They were the visible architecture of Arkana.

The white was the memory of Ivoryta.

The gold was her ascension.

Together, they formed the most sacred symbiotic state known to the Kwasars.

Merlin’s hair and beard were white, although not with the weakness of age. The colour belonged to something older and more solemn. His face carried the strength of a warrior, the patience of a teacher and the fatigue of someone who had watched too many centuries repeat the same mistakes.

He had fought across worlds that no longer existed.

He had guided kings who had become myths.

He had buried friends whose names survived only in sealed archives.

Yet nothing in his appearance suggested defeat.

Merlin stood with the quiet authority of a mountain that had decided to take human form.

He had climbed the ridge because he had felt something waiting there.

A pressure inside his soul.

A distant movement through the bond between matter and the Antiverse.

Mystica.

Merlin closed his eyes.

He slowed his breathing.

The wind continued to move around him, but its sound became distant.

The beating of his heart softened.

The physical world withdrew.

For several moments, there was only darkness.

Then the darkness opened.

Merlin felt himself standing between two realities.

His body remained upon Urkulo, beneath the stars of Tzion, but his consciousness touched the threshold of Kokoon.

There were no landscapes there.

No ground.

No sky.

Only infinite spiritual depth, crossed by currents of violet, black and golden energy.

Merlin felt presences moving beyond his perception.

Pioneer Spirits.

Ancient intelligences.

Echoes of beings who had never accepted matter.

Then every presence disappeared.

A silence descended so completely that Merlin felt the entire Antiverse listening.

A light appeared before him.

It did not possess a body.

It did not resemble Kronos.

It did not imitate a man.

It was a vast concentration of consciousness, darkness and celestial fire. A presence so immense that Merlin’s soul instinctively attempted to kneel.

The voice reached him without sound.

Merlin.

The name entered his mind, his blood, his memories and the deepest structure of Arkana.

Merlin lowered his head.

“My Architect.”

Do not kneel. Listen.

Merlin raised his gaze.

He could not see Godark, but he felt him everywhere.

In the silence.

In the darkness.

In the laws that kept the worlds from falling into one another.

In the hidden wound left by the Great Loss.

Merlin waited.

The spiritual light expanded.

Six distant flames appeared within it.

At first they seemed separate.

Then Merlin perceived something extraordinary.

Each flame possessed its own colour, rhythm and intensity, but all six were connected by an invisible harmony. Their energies moved around one another as if responding to a music the rest of the cosmos could not hear.

A chord made of souls.

“What am I seeing?” Merlin asked.

Six young beings upon the planet known as Earth.

Merlin’s expression changed.

“Earth?”

They belong to the Oasis branch of the EvoSapiens.

The six flames intensified.

Merlin felt their energy from across the macro sphere.

Not their complete power.

Their possibility.

“The Oasis have been seeded across many worlds.”

Yes.

“Why these six?”

For the first time, Godark remained silent.

The silence was not hesitation.

It was uncertainty.

That disturbed Merlin more than any answer could have done.

“My Architect?”

I do not know what they will become.

Merlin stared into the light.

Godark had seen the birth of stars before they ignited.

He had created the laws that governed life.

He had perceived possible futures that extended beyond the destruction of worlds.

Yet now he was admitting that something remained beyond his vision.

The six flames came together again.

Their individual energies are remarkable. Their collective resonance is unlike anything I have perceived among the Oasis. When they stand together, the possibility surrounding them changes. Paths appear where none existed before.

“Are they Kwasars?”

No.

“Will they become Kwasars?”

Perhaps.

“Something greater?”

The Antiverse trembled.

Perhaps something different.

Merlin remained completely still.

Godark continued.

The Universe of Tzion approaches an abyss. The Raptor plague grows beyond every calculation. Worlds are falling faster than the Kwasar orders can protect them. The balance of the macro sphere is weakening. If Tzion collapses, the damage will not remain within its borders. The Cosmos itself may follow.

Merlin felt an old pain awaken inside him.

The Raptors.

Even the name carried memories of screams.

“Does the Sovereign know?”

The Sovereign knows what can be known. The Sovereigness prepares the great lineages. The Brigades continue to fight. But the war is changing.

Godark’s presence moved closer.

The methods that preserved Tzion until now may not be sufficient to preserve it tomorrow.

Merlin looked at the six flames.

“And these children are the answer?”

They are a possibility.

“Nothing more?”

Possibility is the beginning of every salvation.

The six flames opened into images.

A dark haired young man surrounded by complex structures of blue light.

A blond warrior moving through the air with instinctive precision.

A young black man standing firm while violent energy gathered around his fists.

A woman with long dark hair holding a blade as if she had carried it in another life.

A red haired girl burning with fierce intensity.

A smaller woman with black hair arranged in two buns, watching everything with eyes far more perceptive than anyone around her understood.

Merlin felt their names enter his consciousness.

Tom. Max. Cass. Vega. Cala. Kira.

The images changed.

He saw them laughing.

Arguing.

Training.

Playing music.

Protecting one another.

Standing together in a room that felt more like a home than any place created for them by the humans.

The final image showed them facing a darkness too immense for their young bodies.

They did not retreat.

Merlin breathed slowly.

“They are children.”

So was Genesis.

The response struck him deeply.

Godark’s voice became more solemn.

You will go to Earth.

Merlin already knew what would follow.

“You want me to observe them.”

Observe them. Protect them. Guide them.

“And train them.”

The six flames burned brighter.

Train them.

Merlin considered the command.

“Alone?”

Four lights appeared within the darkness.

White.

Gold.

Ancient.

Merlin recognised them immediately.

Take Excalibur 4.

The name moved through him like the return of an oath.

Tell Arthur, Morgana and Lancelot what I have revealed. They will become Magisters to the six. You will prepare the Chosen Ones for whatever waits beyond the paths I can currently see.

“The Chosen Ones.”

That is what they are.

Merlin looked once more at the images of the young Oasis.

“What if they reject us?”

Then earn their trust.

“What if they are not ready?”

Then make them ready.

“And if we fail?”

The light of Godark darkened.

For a moment, Merlin felt the full weight of the Cosmos pressing upon him.

You have faced failure before.

The mountain disappeared from Merlin’s awareness.

In its place, he saw a world covered in black rain.

He heard the screams of one hundred Excelsiors.

He saw dead Kwasars rise from the ground with darkness inside their eyes.

He remembered twenty four hours that had never ended inside him.

Merlin’s jaw tightened.

Godark felt the memory.

You survived Serath.

“Four of us survived.”

That is why I have chosen you.

Merlin’s eyes hardened.

“Survival does not make us worthy.”

No. What you chose to become after surviving does.

The six flames returned.

They appeared smaller now.

Young.

Human.

Fragile.

Yet something within them made the Antiverse itself respond.

This will be the most important mission Excalibur 4 has ever received.

Merlin felt the finality in those words.

More important than wars.

More important than fallen worlds.

More important than the thousands of Raptors they had destroyed.

Godark continued.

Go to Earth. Return to the place where humanity first turned your presence into legend. Remember who you were when power had to remain hidden. Then find the six.

The light began to recede.

Merlin stepped forward.

“My Architect.”

Godark paused.

Merlin asked the question he had not intended to speak.

“Is this connected to the Great Loss?”

The spiritual silence changed.

The wound behind Godark’s presence became visible for only one instant.

A grief so ancient that Merlin nearly lost the ability to remain within Mystica.

Then the connection began to close.

Everything is connected to the Great Loss.

The Antiverse vanished.

The wind returned.

Merlin stood upon the mountain of Urkulo, beneath the last dawn of the First Cosmic Year.

Far below him, the Kwasar cities continued to shine.

He opened his eyes.

For the first time in many centuries, Merlin felt afraid.

Not of death.

Not of the Raptors.

Of hope.

The Excelsior Brigade

The Kwasar civilisation contained warriors of almost unimaginable power.

Some dedicated thousands of years to Imperium, until entire mountains moved beneath their mental command.

Some mastered Velox, crossing battlefields so quickly that even other Kwasars perceived only the impact.

Some became living fortresses through Oblivion, allowing worlds to break around them without breaking their bodies.

Others devoted their existence to Pyra, Skimo, Aero, Gea, Hydra, Voltaris, Clipeous, Vitalia, Portalia or the countless other Vision Powers that generations had discovered and refined.

The greatest specialists were incomparable within their chosen discipline.

Yet specialists were not what the Excelsior Brigade required.

Excelsiors were selected from the finest warriors of the Twilight and Umbra lineages, two bloodlines of vital importance within the structure of Kwasar civilisation.

Their complete histories were too vast for a single archive.

Their rivalries had shaped kingdoms.

Their alliances had saved systems.

Their differences reached into the oldest questions of light, shadow, duty, identity and cosmic balance.

But there was one principle upon which Twilight and Umbra agreed.

The Raptors had to be stopped.

The Excelsior Brigade had been created for that purpose.

Its members were not always the greatest masters of a single Vision Power.

They were something rarer.

They were universal combatants.

Kwasars capable of using nearly every known Vision discipline with sufficient mastery to adapt to any battlefield, any enemy and any catastrophe.

An Excelsior might not surpass the greatest Imperium Magister in pure telekinetic force.

They might not outrun the finest Velox specialist.

They might not produce the most destructive Cannon discharge ever recorded.

But they could combine Imperium, Atlas, Oblivion, Celeritas, Velox, Clipeous, Circuitry, Silentium, Nexo, Energya and the elemental powers within a single battle.

They could change methods while an opponent was still learning the first.

They could fight on the ground, in the sky, beneath oceans, inside collapsing cities or across the vacuum between worlds.

The Brigade existed because a Raptor never remained the enemy it had been at the beginning of the battle.

And among the Excelsiors, four names had become inseparable.

Merlin.

Arthur.

Lancelot.

Morgana.

Together, they were Excalibur 4.

Arthur possessed the physical presence of an ancient king.

His hair and beard were black, his shoulders broad, his body shaped by aeons of war. He carried himself with severe dignity, as though every room became a throne chamber the moment he entered it.

He spoke less than Lancelot and doubted more than Merlin.

He trusted actions over promises.

He rarely expressed affection through words, but he placed his body between danger and those he loved before anyone else had even recognised the threat.

Arthur was the wall of Excalibur 4.

When he activated Atlas, the ground acknowledged him.

When he entered Oblivion, destruction lost authority over his flesh.

When his ObiceX expanded into its war form, armies reconsidered whether advancing was still a rational decision.

Lancelot appeared younger.

His hair was blond, his face clean shaven and his expression often carried the faint suggestion that he knew exactly how dangerous he was and found the knowledge entertaining.

He moved with almost irritating grace.

There was humour in him, impatience, pride and a competitive instinct that had survived every century of his life.

Yet beneath the confidence existed absolute loyalty.

Lancelot could mock Arthur through an entire briefing, challenge Morgana simply to see whether she would react, and question Merlin’s plans until the moment battle began.

Then he would follow them into death without hesitation.

He was movement.

Celeritas.

Velox.

Kung Arts transformed into personality.

Morgana was elegance sharpened into a weapon.

Her hair was long and white, flowing around her like the tail of a comet. Her face carried a beauty that humans had once worshipped, feared and eventually rewritten as wickedness because they had never understood women who possessed power without requesting permission.

Morgana observed more than she revealed.

She understood emotion, deception, hierarchy and fear with a precision that made even Silentium seem unnecessary.

She could dominate minds through Control, but preferred understanding them.

She could use Mystica to perceive spiritual disturbances that remained invisible to others.

Her humour was quiet, dry and frequently devastating.

When Morgana smiled during a disagreement, someone had usually already lost.

And Merlin stood between them.

Leader.

Magister.

Strategist.

The person capable of containing Arthur’s severity, Lancelot’s impulse and Morgana’s merciless clarity within a single direction.

They were not merely companions.

They were a family formed across aeons.

A team forged by victories.

And sealed by one defeat.

The Journey to Earth

Merlin called the others to a chamber beneath the eastern towers of Urkulo.

They arrived wearing their Sublime Skins.

Arthur came first, walking with the controlled heaviness of someone capable of lifting the chamber if the conversation became disappointing.

Morgana entered without sound.

Lancelot appeared last, not through a door, but through a brief Asgardio displacement that left a pulse of white and gold light behind him.

Arthur looked at the fading energy.

“There was a door.”

“I know.”

“You were standing on the other side of it.”

“I know.”

“You used Asgardio to cross three metres.”

Lancelot smiled.

“I felt the entrance needed character.”

Morgana looked at Merlin.

“Godark has spoken.”

Lancelot’s expression changed immediately.

Arthur said nothing, but the air around him became still.

Merlin explained everything.

The last day of the Cosmic Year.

The six Oasis signatures.

The uncertainty surrounding their future.

The growth of the Raptor plague.

Godark’s command.

When he finished, no one spoke for several moments.

Lancelot was the first.

“Earth.”

“Yes,” Merlin said.

“I thought we had agreed never to return.”

“We agreed no such thing,” Morgana replied.

“We strongly implied it.”

“You strongly complained about the food.”

“The food was dangerous.”

Arthur looked towards Merlin.

“Why us?”

“Because Godark commanded it.”

“That explains authority, not reason.”

Merlin understood the distinction.

“He believes these six may become the last hope of Tzion.”

Arthur’s expression did not change, but his attention sharpened.

“Six untrained EvoSapiens on an abandoned world.”

“Yes.”

“Against the Raptors.”

“Perhaps.”

Arthur looked away.

Lancelot leaned against a column.

“What can they do?”

“We do not know.”

“Do they know what they are?”

“No.”

“Do the humans around them know?”

“They understand that the Oasis are different. They do not understand why.”

Morgana’s pale eyes narrowed.

“Who controls them?”

“The Supranational Union. They live within Arkadia, in District 199, under the Oasis Program.”

“Observed?”

“Yes.”

“Studied?”

“Yes.”

“Protected?”

Merlin hesitated.

“That remains to be determined.”

Morgana’s expression became colder.

Arthur asked, “When do we leave?”

Merlin looked at the three beings who had survived the worst day of his existence.

“Now.”

The four placed themselves at equal distances around the centre of the chamber.

Their Sublime Skins began to shine.

Golden lines intensified across their bodies as Arkana prepared the crossing.

Merlin held the image of Earth within his mind.

Not merely the planet.

The exact destination.

An isolated coastline beneath an iron sky.

Ancient cliffs.

Ruined stones.

A cave opening beneath the castle where humanity had once transformed their presence into legend.

Tintagel.

The Asgardio barriers formed.

White and gold energy sealed around each Kwasar, preserving body, mind, soul, spirit and Arkana as a single existence.

The air compressed.

Space folded.

For one instant, Urkulo and Earth became adjacent.

Then Excalibur 4 vanished.

The Farthest World

Earth existed near the outermost reaches of Tzion’s macro sphere.

Urkulo stood at the centre, surrounded by systems, territories and great currents of Asgardio energy that had supported Kwasar civilisation for billions of years.

Earth lay almost at the opposite extreme.

A small world orbiting an ordinary star in a region so distant that most Kwasars would never consider visiting it.

It possessed no Proferrum.

No known Symbiont Cradle.

No great Kwasar sanctuary.

No strategic position within the central defence of Tzion.

To most cosmic orders, Earth was irrelevant.

Yet several centuries earlier, Excalibur 4 had received one of the rare missions that brought Kwasars to the planet.

Human civilisation had entered a period of fragmentation.

Kingdoms fought over land they could barely feed.

Knowledge disappeared whenever a library burned.

Violence was mistaken for strength.

Authority was mistaken for wisdom.

The four Excelsiors had been ordered to observe, guide and intervene without revealing the true nature of Tzion.

They had descended during an age humans would later call medieval.

They did not wear the Sublime Skin openly.

They did not manifest ObiceX.

They did not cross battlefields surrounded by Cannon fire, nor raise castles through Imperium, nor split armies with Atlas.

Their orders had been absolute.

No display of advanced Kwasar power.

No weapons of Proferrum.

No Bio Skin forms visible to human eyes.

No divine intervention that might reduce an entire civilisation to worship.

They adopted human clothing through Adagio.

They wore armour forged by human hands.

They carried swords made from human metals.

Their blades were not sacred.

Their shields were not alive.

Their armour could rust, bend and break.

Their greatest challenge had not been defeating human warriors.

It had been restraining themselves enough not to destroy them.

Arthur learned to strike with a fraction of his strength.

Lancelot learned to move slowly enough for human eyes to follow him.

Morgana concealed her perception beneath the behaviour expected of a noblewoman, then dismantled entire conspiracies without anyone realising she had heard the thoughts behind them.

Merlin guided rulers through words rather than commands.

Together, they gathered warriors, scholars and leaders around a circular table.

Arthur insisted upon the shape.

“No head,” he had said.

“Every throne has a head,” one human lord replied.

“Then this will not be a throne.”

The table became a symbol.

The symbol became a story.

The story became mythology.

Arthur was remembered as a king.

Lancelot became the perfect knight, although humanity added romances, betrayals and tragedies he still found personally offensive.

Morgana became a sorceress, a healer, a traitor, a guardian and a villain depending upon which frightened man had written the account.

Merlin became an impossible wizard who lived backwards through time.

Even their ordinary weapons became divine in human memory.

The sword called Excalibur had not been forged from a star.

It had not been granted by a mystical lake.

It was a human blade.

Beautifully made.

Perfectly balanced.

But human.

The sword had become legendary because Arthur had carried it.

The miracle had never been the metal.

It had been the hand.

Over generations, the truth disappeared beneath stories.

Humanity remembered enough to create a myth.

Not enough to recognise the beings who had inspired it.

Now Excalibur 4 returned to the same coastline.

The Asgardio crossing ended above the cliffs of Tintagel.

Four figures appeared beneath the clouds, surrounded by dying trails of white and gold energy.

The sea roared below.

The ruins of the castle stood against the horizon.

Merlin hovered in silence.

Lancelot looked towards the broken walls.

“They allowed it to collapse.”

“Everything collapses,” Morgana said.

Arthur studied the coastline.

“The land remains.”

Merlin descended towards the cliff.

“That is enough.”

They landed where stone met grass.

For a while, none of them spoke.

Memory existed everywhere.

Arthur saw the place where human knights had once trained.

Lancelot remembered racing horses along paths too narrow for the speed he had demanded from them.

Morgana looked towards a hill where women had secretly gathered to learn medicine, mathematics and languages forbidden to them by their own rulers.

Merlin watched the sea.

Humans believed they had invented the legends.

In truth, they had only remembered badly.

Morgana approached him.

“Are you regretting this already?”

“I have not begun.”

“You began the moment Godark spoke.”

Arthur looked towards the ruined castle.

“We should not remain visible.”

Lancelot gestured at the empty cliffs.

“There is no one here.”

“There is always someone somewhere,” Morgana replied.

Merlin looked down towards the coast beneath the castle.

The tide had receded.

A dark opening waited within the rock.

His cave.

Or, as humanity remembered it, Merlin’s Cave.

“Come,” he said. “We will speak below.”

They stepped from the cliff.

Celeritas awakened beneath their bodies.

The four descended through the air towards the sea.

Merlin’s Cave

The cave opened beneath Tintagel like the mouth of an ancient memory.

Water moved through the entrance in slow silver lines. The walls were dark, wet and carved by centuries of tide. Every sound multiplied within the stone.

Merlin entered first.

The others followed.

Pearlescent light emerged softly from their Sublime Skins, illuminating the cavern without flame.

Merlin walked until the sound of the sea became distant.

There, within a chamber hidden from the coastline, Excalibur 4 gathered in a circle.

For several moments, they simply looked at one another.

They had planned wars in palaces.

They had coordinated planetary defences from command vessels.

They had debated the survival of species beneath the authority of Sovereigns.

Yet the simplicity of the cave gave the moment greater weight.

Godark had not sent them to conquer.

He had sent them to teach six young beings.

Arthur broke the silence.

“We need information before contact.”

“I have gathered what I can,” Merlin said. “The six live together within the Tower of District 199. Their movements are monitored. Their physical and mental development is recorded continuously.”

Morgana’s eyes hardened.

“Are they prisoners?”

“Not officially.”

“That was not the question.”

Merlin held her gaze.

“I do not yet know.”

Lancelot sat upon a section of stone.

“How much do they understand about their abilities?”

“Almost nothing.”

“Then they have abilities.”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“Enhanced strength, perception, speed, recovery and cognitive capacity. The complete extent remains unknown.”

Arthur folded his arms.

“And they have survived without Magisters.”

“They have had human teachers. Fernand Claes appears to be the most important.”

Morgana considered the name.

“A human?”

“Yes.”

“Reliable?”

“His records suggest genuine care.”

“Records suggest what their author wants them to suggest.”

Merlin nodded.

“That is why we observe.”

Arthur looked towards the entrance.

“And if the humans refuse access?”

“We enter without their awareness.”

“Silentium?” Lancelot asked.

“Only if necessary.”

“Control?”

“Only if absolutely necessary.”

Morgana looked at him.

“You have become cautious.”

“I have always been cautious.”

Lancelot laughed.

Arthur and Morgana looked at him.

He stopped.

Merlin continued.

“We will conceal the Sublime Skin. Adagio will allow us to manifest human clothing and appearances appropriate to Arkadia. We enter as ordinary inhabitants, study the environment and determine the safest way to approach the six.”

Arthur looked at the white and gold skin covering his arms.

“It has been a long time since we needed to appear ordinary.”

“Do you remember how?” Morgana asked.

Arthur gave her a severe look.

“I remember everything.”

“Except humour.”

“I remember it. I do not value it.”

Lancelot leaned forward.

“Do the six have a name for their group?”

Merlin looked at him.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“The Entourage.”

The word remained in the cave.

Morgana repeated it quietly.

“The Entourage.”

“They formed it through music,” Merlin explained. “Music appears to be one of the strongest structures holding them together.”

Lancelot smiled.

“That is promising.”

Arthur looked at him.

“You cannot play an instrument.”

“I can learn.”

“You said the same about cooking.”

“The fire was educational.”

Morgana ignored them.

“Six young beings connected through music, friendship and a shared sense of displacement. They do not know what they are, but they know they are not entirely human.”

“Yes,” Merlin said.

“And Godark believes they may save Tzion.”

“Yes.”

Arthur lowered his gaze.

The cave fell silent again.

The distant sea struck the rocks.

The sound returned through the chamber like marching feet.

Merlin felt the memory before it fully entered him.

Black rain.

Broken armour.

The voices of dead companions.

Twenty four hours.

Morgana saw the change in his face.

“Serath,” she said.

Lancelot stopped smiling.

Arthur’s body became still.

They did not need Mystica to know that all four had reached the same memory.

The first true Raptor hunt of Excalibur 4.

The mission that had begun with one hundred Excelsiors.

And ended with four.

The Forbidden Universe

Reader, you believe you understand monsters.

You imagine teeth.

Claws.

Hunger.

You imagine creatures that hunt because their bodies demand flesh.

You imagine enemies born from hatred, madness or ambition.

You know nothing.

The Raptors were not born.

They were occupied.

To understand them, one must first speak of the Sumaya.

And to speak of the Sumaya is to speak of something even the Astrals did not understand.

The known Universes of the Cosmos had been created through Astral design.

Each existed beside an Antiverse, its spiritual reflection, separated by laws older than matter.

Universe and Antiverse were never meant to become a single undivided realm.

Matter required boundary.

Spirit required boundary.

Life required the distance between them.

Yet beyond the authorised architecture of the Cosmos, another Universe appeared.

No Astral admitted to creating it.

No Prime Architect had written its laws.

No record existed of its birth.

It had grown spontaneously, like a wound that decided to become a world.

It connected itself to the Cryptoweb and the Astral World without permission.

It existed as Universe and Antiverse simultaneously.

Matter and spirit were not separated there.

They contaminated one another.

Physical law behaved like thought.

Thought behaved like disease.

No Astral could enter.

No mortal could cross its boundary.

No instrument could observe its interior for more than a few moments before the information became corrupted.

It became known as the Forbidden Universe.

Within it existed the Sumaya.

They possessed no natural bodies.

They were spiritual entities, but not Pioneer Spirits, not souls and not divine intelligences.

They were hunger without flesh.

Will without identity.

Chaos given awareness.

They could not materialise naturally within the authorised Universes of the Cosmos.

So they discovered another method.

They stole bodies.

A Sumaya could not enter a healthy living host whose soul remained completely anchored.

It required death.

A dead Sapiens.

A dead animal.

A fallen warrior.

A Kwasar whose heart had stopped upon the battlefield.

The Sumaya entered the corpse through the space left behind when life departed.

It moved into the nervous system.

The organs.

The muscles.

The cells.

The dead body rose.

But the being inside it was no longer the person who had lived.

The stolen body became a Raptor.

If the host had possessed strength, the Raptor inherited the structure capable of producing it.

If the host had wings, it flew.

If the host had claws, it hunted.

If the host had been a Kwasar, the result was an abomination capable of using the pathways that Kwasar discipline had spent millennia creating.

The Vision Powers remained written in the body.

The Symbiont remained connected to the DNA.

Arkana still recognised the physical vessel.

But the soul that had guided those forces was gone.

In its place existed a Sumaya.

No restraint.

No loyalty.

No mercy.

Only stolen power and the intelligence to corrupt it.

The first confirmed Raptors appeared within Tzion shortly after the Great Loss, around the twenty eighth day of the eighth month of the First Cosmic Year.

At first, there were only rumours.

Bodies missing from battlefields.

Dead soldiers seen walking beyond ruined cities.

Voices of lost relatives heard from inside sealed tombs.

Then an entire world fell.

The plague expanded.

Every battle created more bodies.

Every body became a potential soldier.

The stronger the army sent against the Raptors, the stronger the Raptors became if that army failed.

They were not merely an enemy.

They were war feeding upon itself.

The Kwasars had once guarded the balance of Tzion.

After the coming of the Raptors, they were forced to defend the Universe from the corpses of its own protectors.

The Excelsior Brigade was created because ordinary armies could not survive that horror.

Its first great hunts became legends.

Its failures became sealed archives.

And one of its earliest missions carried one hundred warriors to the planet Serath.

Serath

Serath had once been beautiful.

Its cities were built around enormous silver trees whose roots drank from subterranean oceans. At night, the leaves reflected the light of three moons, turning the forests into fields of moving stars.

The inhabitants were scholars, navigators and artists.

They had little military power.

They believed distance protected them.

They were wrong.

A month before the Excelsior deployment, every transmission from Serath stopped.

The final message contained no images.

Only breathing.

Then a voice.

A child’s voice.

“Do not come.”

The message ended with laughter that did not belong to a child.

Kwasar reconnaissance detected Raptor energy across the northern continent.

The first estimates suggested thirty hostile entities.

A small emerging nest.

The Excelsior command authorised immediate extermination.

One hundred members of the Brigade were selected.

Excalibur 4 travelled among them.

They crossed through Asgardio in a single coordinated deployment.

Deep planetary transportation required an enormous concentration of Arkana. Once the crossing was completed, the Asgardio pathways within their Sublime Skins needed approximately twenty four hours to rebuild the energy, precision and spiritual alignment required for a return journey.

It was considered an acceptable restriction.

The operation was expected to last less than three hours.

One hundred entered Serath.

Four returned.

Hour Zero

The Excelsiors appeared upon a plateau overlooking the capital.

One hundred barriers of white and gold light opened almost simultaneously.

Then space sealed behind them.

Merlin felt the Asgardio pathways collapse into dormancy within Arkana.

Twenty four hours until extraction.

Below them, the capital of Serath remained intact.

No fires.

No collapsed buildings.

No visible enemy.

The streets were empty.

The silver trees moved beneath a wind none of the Kwasars could feel.

Commander Caelum, leader of the battalion, raised one hand.

“Formation.”

The one hundred Excelsiors divided into five groups.

Merlin activated Nexo.

His awareness expanded through the plateau, into the city and beneath the ground.

He expected to find survivors.

He found thousands of biological signatures.

None of them were alive.

The bodies remained inside the buildings.

Homes.

Schools.

Transport stations.

Public chambers.

Thousands of corpses.

Merlin opened Silentium across the battalion.

No living presence detected.

Morgana stood beside him.

Her eyes had become pale with Mystica.

“There are spirits.”

“How many?” Merlin asked.

She listened.

Her expression changed.

“Too many.”

Commander Caelum approached.

“Reconnaissance estimated thirty.”

“Reconnaissance was wrong,” Morgana replied.

The first scream came from the city.

Then another.

Then hundreds.

Every corpse began screaming at the same time.

The sound rose through the capital like a siren made from the dead.

Lancelot looked towards the streets.

“That is not a warning.”

Arthur summoned his ObiceX.

White and golden structures grew from his Sublime Skin, forming heavy armour across his chest, shoulders and arms.

“No,” he said. “It is an invitation.”

The dead came out of the buildings.

Men.

Women.

Children.

Animals.

Thousands of bodies walking in perfect silence now that the screaming had ended.

Some moved slowly.

Some crawled.

Some ran upon limbs broken during death.

All looked towards the plateau.

Their eyes were black.

Commander Caelum raised his arm.

“Excelsiors, prepare.”

Merlin reached through Mystica.

The spiritual world surrounding the capital opened briefly before him.

He saw darkness inside every body.

Not thirty Sumaya.

Thousands.

“They have occupied the entire population,” he said.

Caelum stared at the city.

“Can we destroy the hosts?”

“Yes.”

“And the spirits?”

“Only during transition. When a body is destroyed, the Sumaya will attempt to escape and enter another corpse.”

Arthur looked across the battalion.

“Then no fallen body can remain intact.”

The meaning reached every Excelsior.

Not only the enemy dead.

Their own.

Commander Caelum’s voice entered Silentium.

No Kwasar body will be surrendered. If a member falls, recover them or destroy the vessel.

No one questioned the order.

Below, the first wave began climbing the plateau.

Hour Two

The Excelsiors descended.

Celeritas ignited around one hundred bodies.

They struck the advancing dead in five formations.

The first impacts tore through the Raptor hosts with catastrophic force.

Arthur landed at the centre of the main road.

Atlas surged through his muscles.

He drove one fist into the ground.

The road split.

A seismic wave travelled through the city, throwing hundreds of stolen bodies into the air.

Morgana raised both hands.

Pyra answered.

White flame crossed the street in two vast arcs, consuming bodies before they touched the ground.

As the hosts burned, black shapes erupted from them.

Sumaya in transition.

For an instant, they possessed no flesh.

They resembled distortions in reality, skeletal shadows formed from smoke and screaming faces.

Merlin locked them in place through Imperium.

“Now.”

Lancelot vanished.

Velox carried him through the suspended spirits as a streak of golden light.

Proferrum blades appeared in both hands.

Each blade had been reinforced by Arkana, allowing physical force to strike spiritual contamination during the brief transition.

Lancelot crossed the entire street before the first Sumaya could move.

The spirits split apart behind him.

Black fire consumed them.

For the first hour, the operation seemed possible.

The Excelsiors advanced district by district.

Clipeous barriers protected the formations.

Cannon discharges cleared the streets.

Aero prevented airborne hosts from surrounding them.

Gea sealed subterranean passages.

Skimo froze entire waves in place.

Pyra destroyed the bodies.

Mystica identified the escaping Sumaya.

Arkana killed them during transition.

The battalion destroyed more than six thousand hosts.

Only seven Excelsiors were injured.

Then the first Kwasar corpse appeared.

It walked from the central temple.

The body wore a damaged Sublime Skin.

Its golden lines had turned black.

Commander Caelum stopped.

He recognised the face.

“Magister Orian.”

Orian had disappeared during a previous reconnaissance mission.

His body looked towards the battalion.

Then it smiled.

“Commander.”

The voice was almost correct.

Almost.

Caelum’s face tightened.

The Raptor raised one hand.

Imperium struck the battalion.

Twenty Excelsiors were lifted from the ground and hurled into the buildings.

Orian moved.

Velox.

He crossed the distance instantly and drove his hand through the chest of an Excelsior before anyone understood that the attack had begun.

The dead warrior fell.

A Sumaya shadow descended from above.

Morgana screamed through Silentium.

Destroy the body.

Arthur moved first.

He struck the fallen Excelsior with a Cannon discharge at point blank range.

White and gold energy consumed the corpse a fraction of a second before the Sumaya entered it.

The blast left nothing.

Arthur remained motionless.

He had known the warrior for eight thousand years.

There was no time to grieve.

Orian attacked again.

His stolen Sublime Skin formed an ObiceX made from black gold.

The battle changed.

Hour Five

The reconnaissance report had not detected thirty Raptors.

It had detected thirty Kwasar Raptors.

Thirty fallen guardians whose bodies had been brought to Serath from other battlefields.

Each retained the physical pathways of multiple Vision Powers.

Each was controlled by a Sumaya old enough to understand how those powers functioned.

They attacked in coordinated groups.

They used the voices of the dead.

They called the living by name.

They repeated final conversations copied from the biological memories of the stolen brains.

One Raptor wore the body of a woman Morgana had trained centuries earlier.

It approached through the smoke with tears running down its face.

“Magister.”

Morgana froze.

The voice was perfect.

“Please.”

The creature reached towards her.

Morgana entered Mystica.

She searched for the soul she remembered.

There was nothing.

Only a Sumaya watching her from inside the corpse.

Morgana’s expression emptied.

“You should not have used her voice.”

The Raptor attacked.

Morgana allowed the claws to reach her chest.

Her body distorted through Invisibilia, confusing the creature’s perception for one critical instant.

She moved aside.

Skimo spread from her hand into the Raptor’s arm, freezing the stolen tissue to the shoulder.

Morgana seized the creature by the throat.

Control entered its nervous system.

The Sumaya attempted to invade her mind in return.

For a moment, they stood connected.

Morgana saw the Forbidden Universe.

A sky beneath an ocean.

Cities made from thought.

Spiritual beings hanging inside bodies that had never been alive.

Something immense moving beyond the Sumaya.

Something that noticed her.

Morgana broke the connection.

Blood ran from her nose.

The Raptor smiled with her student’s face.

“It saw you.”

Morgana formed a Cannon sphere against its chest.

“Then it knows I am coming.”

She fired.

The body disintegrated.

The escaping Sumaya lunged towards her.

Morgana trapped it within a Clipeous sphere and compressed the barrier until the spirit collapsed into black light.

Across the capital, the Excelsior formation began to fail.

The Raptors did not attack to kill immediately.

They attacked to create bodies.

A severed artery.

A broken neck.

A heart stopped for three seconds.

That was enough.

Every fallen Excelsior became a battle over possession.

The living could not retreat without recovering the dead.

The dead could not be recovered while the Raptors continued advancing.

Some Kwasars chose self destruction when they understood they could not be saved.

They ignited Arkana from within and reduced their own vessels to light before the Sumaya reached them.

Their final thoughts travelled through Silentium.

Names.

Farewells.

Apologies.

The number of living Excelsiors fell from one hundred to eighty six.

Then seventy nine.

Then seventy one.

Each loss increased the strength of the enemy if the body was not destroyed quickly enough.

At the beginning, the Raptors had worn civilians.

By the fifth hour, they wore friends.

Hour Eight

The battalion reached the central plaza.

Commander Caelum ordered a defensive circle.

The surviving Excelsiors raised layered Clipeous barriers while the Raptors surrounded them through every street.

Merlin counted the living signatures.

Sixty four.

He looked at the Asgardio cycle within his Sublime Skin.

Sixteen hours remained.

Lancelot stood beside him, covered in blood that was not his.

“Tell me you have a plan.”

“I have several.”

“Do any involve leaving before the remaining sixteen hours?”

“No.”

“Then I dislike all of them.”

Arthur landed inside the circle carrying two injured Excelsiors.

One had lost an arm.

The other was not breathing.

Arthur placed the first upon the ground.

He looked at the second.

A Sumaya shadow moved above the barrier.

Arthur closed his eyes.

Then he destroyed the body.

No one spoke.

Morgana approached Merlin.

“The Sumaya are not arriving individually.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are connected.”

“Through Silentium?”

“Something deeper. The bodies are separate, but the spirits act as extensions of a collective presence within the Forbidden Universe.”

Merlin looked towards the waves of Raptors beyond the barrier.

“If we destroy the hosts, the presence remains.”

“Yes.”

“Can it send more?”

“I believe it already is.”

The sky above Serath darkened.

A fracture appeared between the three moons.

Not a portal.

A spiritual wound.

Black shapes began descending from it.

Thousands of Sumaya.

They moved towards the dead bodies across the city.

Merlin felt the scale of the trap.

Serath had never been a nest.

It was a gate.

Commander Caelum heard the conclusion through Silentium.

“Can the fracture be sealed?”

Morgana looked at it through Mystica.

“Perhaps.”

“How?”

“Someone must reach the centre of the spiritual disturbance.”

“Where?”

She pointed towards the palace beyond the plaza.

A black tower rose behind it.

Merlin had not seen the tower when they arrived.

It existed partly within the physical Universe and partly within the Forbidden one.

Caelum studied the surviving warriors.

“We divide.”

Arthur stepped forward.

“That will weaken the circle.”

“If we remain here, the gate continues feeding bodies into the battle.”

Merlin looked at Excalibur 4.

They understood before he spoke.

“We go to the tower.”

Commander Caelum nodded.

“Take twenty.”

“No,” Merlin said. “Take none.”

Lancelot glanced at him.

Merlin continued.

“The battalion needs every barrier. The four of us can reach the tower faster.”

Arthur looked towards the enemy.

“And if the tower is another trap?”

“It is.”

Morgana’s eyes remained fixed upon the spiritual wound.

“That does not make it optional.”

Commander Caelum placed one fist against his chest.

“Seal the gate.”

Merlin returned the gesture.

“Hold the plaza.”

Excalibur 4 left the circle.

The Black Tower

Lancelot moved first.

Velox carried him through the nearest street before the Raptors could turn.

He did not attack every enemy.

He created a path.

Aero compressed around his body, forming a corridor of violent pressure. The dead were thrown against the walls.

Merlin, Arthur and Morgana followed through Celeritas.

Raptor Kwasars intercepted them above the city.

Arthur engaged Oblivion.

His body condensed beneath the Sublime Skin.

A black Cannon beam struck him in the chest.

He did not stop.

The energy divided around his body and tore through the buildings behind him.

Arthur seized the Raptor by the face.

Atlas ignited.

He drove it downward through twelve floors.

Morgana opened Portalia beneath another attacker.

The Raptor entered the gateway and emerged directly in front of Merlin.

Merlin had already gathered a Cannon sphere between his hands.

He fired.

The stolen body vanished.

The Sumaya escaped.

It moved towards the nearest corpse.

Lancelot appeared between them and struck the spirit with Voltaris.

Blue white current spread through the black shape, holding it in transition.

Morgana completed the destruction with Pyra.

They reached the tower.

Its surface was not stone.

It was made from bodies.

Thousands had been fused into the structure, their faces visible beneath a translucent black surface.

Some mouths moved.

Some eyes followed the Kwasars.

The entrance opened like a wound.

Lancelot stared.

“I preferred the castle.”

Arthur stepped inside.

“That is because the castle was not alive.”

The interior rejected physical geometry.

Corridors turned upward and became floors.

Walls breathed.

Gravity changed direction without warning.

The four remained connected through Silentium.

Merlin used Hyper Sense to interpret movement.

Morgana used Mystica to identify spiritual pathways.

Arthur anchored them through Gea whenever the floor attempted to fold.

Lancelot moved ahead through Velox, returning each time with information before the structure could alter itself.

At the centre of the tower, they found the gate.

A sphere of black spiritual matter hung above a chamber filled with Kwasar corpses.

Hundreds.

The bodies had been collected from battlefields throughout Tzion.

Some were ancient.

Some had fallen only days earlier.

All waited to be occupied.

Morgana stopped breathing for a moment.

“This is not an army.”

Merlin looked at the bodies.

“It is a reserve.”

The sphere opened.

A presence looked through it from the Forbidden Universe.

Not one Sumaya.

Something larger.

A consciousness assembled from countless spirits.

It spoke through every corpse in the chamber.

“Children of Kronos.”

Arthur’s fists closed.

Merlin answered.

“We are not his children.”

The corpses smiled.

“You carry his fear.”

Morgana stepped towards the sphere.

“What are you?”

The presence moved closer.

The chamber filled with images of the Great Loss.

Not truth.

Fragments.

A silhouette falling.

Kronos screaming.

A light disappearing from Tzion.

Merlin felt anger rise.

The presence tasted it.

“We remember what he lost.”

Merlin raised his hand.

Imperium closed around the sphere.

“Then you will die remembering it.”

Excalibur 4 attacked.

Hour Twelve

The gate resisted physical force.

Arthur struck it with Atlas.

The chamber collapsed around the impact, but the sphere remained.

Lancelot crossed its surface thousands of times through Velox, each strike reinforced with Voltaris and Cannon.

The sphere absorbed the energy.

Morgana entered Mystica and attempted to separate the spiritual layers.

The collective presence reached back through the connection.

Black lines spread beneath her Sublime Skin.

She screamed.

Merlin severed the contact through Silentium and caught her before she fell.

“What did you see?”

Morgana struggled to focus.

“The gate is anchored to the bodies.”

Arthur looked around the chamber.

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

The corpses began opening their eyes.

Hundreds of dead Kwasars rose simultaneously.

The battle inside the tower became impossible.

Raptors activated Vision Powers in every direction.

Imperium tore sections of the chamber apart.

Pyra and Skimo collided.

Cannon beams crossed through portals.

Clipeous barriers formed and shattered.

The dead used Celeritas within a space too small for flight, turning their bodies into living projectiles.

Excalibur 4 fought together.

Not as four warriors.

As a single structure.

Silentium connected every thought.

Arthur moved before Merlin completed commands.

Morgana redirected enemies into Lancelot’s paths.

Lancelot carried energy towards Arthur through Circuitry contact.

Merlin controlled the centre, using Imperium to alter trajectories by fractions, enough to transform fatal impacts into survivable ones.

Arthur became the anchor.

His ObiceX expanded into a monumental form, covering him in white and gold plates. Oblivion hardened beneath it. He held back entire groups of Raptor Kwasars while Atlas turned each strike into seismic destruction.

Lancelot became absence.

Velox erased him from perception.

He appeared only as impact, blood and broken black gold.

Celeritas carried him through the upper chamber.

Aero changed direction around him.

Voltaris transformed his body into a moving storm.

Morgana became the mind.

She sensed the Sumaya before they changed hosts.

She used Control not to dominate the spirits, but to interrupt the stolen nervous systems for fragments of a second.

She froze bodies through Skimo, destroyed them through Pyra and sealed escaping entities within barriers of Clipeous.

Merlin became command.

His Silentium reached every companion.

His Nexo measured every energy rise.

His Hyper Sense read the battlefield.

His Imperium held collapsing structures above them while his Cannon tore through the gate’s anchors.

But there were too many bodies.

Every corpse in the chamber had once been a Kwasar.

Every one had possessed centuries or millennia of training.

The gate continued pouring Sumaya into them.

Excalibur 4 could not destroy the sphere while defending against the dead.

Morgana saw the answer.

“The bodies must burn.”

Arthur struck a Raptor away.

“There are hundreds.”

“All of them.”

Lancelot appeared beside her.

“That will require more Pyra than any of us can sustain.”

Morgana looked towards the black sphere.

“Not if we combine it.”

Merlin understood.

“Circuitry.”

The four moved towards the centre.

Arthur raised a vast Clipeous dome around them.

Raptors struck from every side.

The barrier trembled.

Lancelot placed one hand against Arthur’s back.

Morgana placed hers against Lancelot.

Merlin completed the circuit.

Their Sublime Skins connected.

Golden lines extended across their arms and joined.

Circuitry aligned four Core systems.

Arthur supplied Atlas stability and Oblivion resistance.

Lancelot accelerated the energy flow.

Morgana shaped Pyra.

Merlin controlled the release.

The dome began to crack.

The bodies advanced.

Merlin spoke through Silentium.

Now.

Fire erupted from Excalibur 4.

Not ordinary flame.

White and gold Arkana fire.

It filled the chamber without crossing the Clipeous dome.

Hundreds of Kwasar bodies ignited.

The Sumaya screamed as their available hosts disappeared.

The collective presence within the gate roared.

The tower convulsed.

Morgana directed the flame towards the sphere.

The gate began to close.

Black energy struck the dome.

Arthur dropped to one knee.

“Continue.”

The ObiceX across his back shattered.

Lancelot redirected more energy into him.

Blood ran from his nose.

“Arthur.”

“Continue.”

The gate collapsed inward.

Merlin used Imperium to prevent the spiritual mass from escaping.

Morgana forced Mystica through the closing fracture.

For one instant, she touched the Forbidden Universe again.

The immense presence beyond it looked at her.

This time, Morgana did not look away.

“We know you exist,” she said.

The presence answered through a thousand dying voices.

“And now we know you.”

Morgana closed her fist.

The gate sealed.

The black tower screamed.

Then it began to fall.

Hour Fourteen

Excalibur 4 escaped through Portalia moments before the tower collapsed.

They emerged above the central plaza.

The battle below had become a massacre.

The gate was closed.

No new Sumaya entered Serath.

But those already present remained.

Commander Caelum’s defensive circle had broken.

Only thirty seven Excelsiors remained alive.

Hundreds of Raptor hosts surrounded them.

Many wore Kwasar bodies.

Excalibur 4 descended into the battle.

Merlin opened Silentium.

The gate is sealed. Destroy the remaining spirits.

Caelum’s response was weak.

Extraction?

Merlin checked the Asgardio cycle.

Ten hours remained.

Not yet.

The commander laughed once inside their minds.

There was no humour in it.

Then we fight.

Hour Sixteen

Thirty seven became twenty nine.

Twenty nine became twenty two.

The Raptors changed tactics.

They stopped attempting to overwhelm the survivors.

They began separating them.

A portal opened beneath one Excelsior and moved her into a distant street.

She survived fourteen seconds alone.

Another Raptor used Control to force a wounded Kwasar to lower his own Clipeous shield.

Black blades entered his body.

He destroyed himself before possession.

A third used Silentium to imitate Commander Caelum’s voice and issue false orders.

Merlin closed the battalion link and rebuilt it using individual spiritual signatures rather than thought alone.

The survivors gathered beneath the remains of the palace.

Arthur had lost part of his ObiceX.

Lancelot’s left arm no longer moved correctly.

Morgana’s connection to Mystica had become unstable after contact with the Forbidden presence.

Merlin’s Core was approaching depletion.

None of them stopped.

They had eight hours until Asgardio returned.

Eight hours had never felt so long.

Hour Nineteen

Twelve Excelsiors remained.

The capital was burning.

The silver trees had become pillars of black flame.

The three moons disappeared behind ash.

Commander Caelum stood at the palace entrance.

Half of his Sublime Skin had been corrupted by a Raptor strike.

Black lines moved towards his heart.

Morgana examined them.

“I cannot remove it.”

Caelum looked at Merlin.

“How long?”

“Five hours.”

The commander smiled faintly.

“I do not have five hours.”

Arthur stepped forward.

“We can contain you.”

“No.”

“We can try.”

“No.”

The black lines reached Caelum’s neck.

His eyes remained his own.

“For the moment.”

He looked at the remaining warriors.

“You will need time.”

Merlin understood.

“Caelum.”

“I command this battalion.”

“There is no battalion left.”

“Then I command what remains.”

The commander turned towards the approaching Raptors.

His ObiceX expanded around him.

Not defensive.

Every plate opened.

Arkana gathered inside his body.

Caelum looked back once.

“Go.”

Lancelot shook his head.

“We do not leave our own.”

Caelum’s expression softened.

“You are not leaving me.”

The black corruption reached his jaw.

“You are obeying me before I become something that can order you to stay.”

Merlin placed his fist against his chest.

Caelum returned the gesture.

Excalibur 4 and the seven remaining Excelsiors retreated through the palace.

Behind them, Commander Caelum entered Hyper Fury.

Level one.

Level two.

Level three.

The palace shook.

His aura became a sun beneath the ruins.

The Raptor horde reached him.

Caelum broke the final seal.

Transcendent Fury.

For several seconds, the entire capital became white.

When vision returned, the palace entrance no longer existed.

Neither did Commander Caelum.

Neither did the first thousand Raptors behind him.

The surviving Kwasars continued moving.

No one spoke.

Hour Twenty Two

Seven became six.

Six became five.

The final Excelsior outside Excalibur 4 was named Sera Valen.

She had fought beside Morgana during the earliest campaigns of the Brigade.

She had mastered Vitalia beyond any of them.

Throughout the battle, she had kept the others alive.

Every healing had cost her energy.

By the twenty second hour, almost nothing remained.

They reached the plateau where Asgardio had delivered them.

Two hours remained.

Raptors surrounded the base of the mountain.

Sera sat against a broken stone.

Morgana knelt beside her.

“Let me transfer energy.”

Sera smiled.

“You cannot use Energya on me without taking what little life remains.”

“I can control it.”

“No one controls desperation as well as they believe.”

Morgana placed her hand over the wound in Sera’s abdomen.

Vitalia answered weakly.

Sera stopped her.

“You need the energy.”

“So do you.”

“I need two hours.”

“Yes.”

“I have minutes.”

Morgana’s face hardened.

“I refuse.”

Sera looked at her with exhausted affection.

“You always did confuse refusal with authority.”

The first Raptors reached the plateau.

Arthur and Lancelot moved to meet them.

Merlin raised Clipeous around the injured.

Sera looked towards the battle.

“Destroy my body before they reach me.”

Morgana said nothing.

“Morgana.”

“No.”

“You know what happens.”

“No.”

Sera reached up and touched her face.

“The person you love is already leaving. Do not let the thing that comes after wear her.”

Morgana’s eyes filled with tears she did not permit to fall.

Sera closed her eyes.

Her final breath left slowly.

The Sublime Skin dimmed.

A Sumaya shadow descended through the smoke.

Morgana screamed.

Pyra erupted around Sera’s body.

White fire consumed her before the spirit arrived.

The Sumaya turned towards Morgana.

She destroyed it with enough force to split the plateau.

When the light faded, there were four.

Merlin.

Arthur.

Lancelot.

Morgana.

Excalibur 4.

The Final Hour

The Raptors climbed from every direction.

Hundreds remained.

Perhaps thousands.

The four Kwasars stood around the dormant Asgardio coordinate.

One hour.

Arthur formed the strongest ObiceX he had ever manifested.

The armour grew across him in monumental layers. Golden structures anchored his legs to the plateau.

He activated Oblivion.

His body became a fortress.

He raised Clipeous.

A hemispherical barrier covered the four.

The first wave struck.

The shield trembled.

Lancelot stood behind Arthur.

His damaged arm hung at his side.

He smiled through the blood on his face.

“I have had better missions.”

Arthur did not look at him.

“You said that during Serath’s briefing.”

“I was correct.”

“You also said three hours.”

“That estimate came from command.”

“You repeated it confidently.”

“Confidence improves information.”

Morgana stood beside Merlin.

Her white hair had turned grey beneath ash and blood.

“Can Asgardio activate immediately when the cycle completes?”

“If our spiritual alignment remains intact.”

“And if it does not?”

“We remain here.”

“How encouraging.”

Merlin looked at the three.

“We must synchronise through Silentium.”

The Raptors struck the shield again.

Cracks appeared.

Arthur grunted.

“Do it quickly.”

Merlin opened the deepest Silentium link they had ever shared.

Their minds connected.

Not merely thoughts.

Memory.

Pain.

Fear.

Arthur’s determination.

Lancelot’s refusal to die quietly.

Morgana’s grief.

Merlin’s guilt.

They felt one another completely.

The connection could have broken them.

Instead, it aligned them.

Arthur’s Circuitry fed stability into the group.

Lancelot accelerated the shared neural rhythm.

Morgana used Mystica to anchor their spirits against Sumaya interference.

Merlin held the Asgardio destination.

Urkulo.

Home.

The shield broke.

Raptors entered the plateau.

Excalibur 4 fought.

Arthur held the centre.

Atlas multiplied through Hyper Fury.

Every punch destroyed a stolen body.

Every impact against him strengthened Oblivion.

Gea rose around his feet, forming walls from the mountain itself.

Lancelot disappeared into Velox.

He crossed between the enemies, destroying bodies before Sumaya could transfer.

Celeritas carried him into the air.

He returned as a comet, striking the plateau with a Cannon discharge that sent a ring of white and gold energy through the horde.

Morgana entered Mystica fully.

The physical world became transparent.

She saw the Sumaya moving between bodies.

Through Control, she interrupted the nervous systems of their hosts.

Through Skimo, she froze them.

Through Pyra, she destroyed them.

Through Clipeous, she trapped the spirits.

Merlin commanded all of it.

Imperium held enemies in place.

Portalia redirected attacks.

Voltaris crossed from his hands into the Raptors surrounding Arthur.

Aero prevented the spiritual smoke from reaching fallen bodies.

Nexo counted every living signature.

Four.

Only four.

The final minute began.

The Raptors understood.

Every stolen face turned towards the centre.

The collective presence beyond the sealed gate spoke through them.

“You cannot leave.”

Merlin answered through Silentium.

Watch us.

The horde attacked.

Arthur’s ObiceX shattered.

Lancelot fell from the sky.

Morgana’s Clipeous spheres broke.

Merlin lost the Urkulo coordinate for one terrifying instant.

Then the others gave it back to him.

Not through memory.

Through their bond.

Arthur remembered the mountains.

Lancelot remembered the skies.

Morgana remembered the rivers beneath the First Seat.

Merlin rebuilt the destination from all four minds.

The Asgardio pathways awakened.

White and gold barriers began forming around them.

The Raptors crossed the final distance.

Arthur seized Lancelot and threw him towards the centre.

Morgana used Imperium to pull Arthur after him.

Merlin held the barrier open.

A Raptor wearing Commander Caelum’s face emerged from the horde.

The body should not have existed.

Caelum had destroyed it.

Yet the Sumaya had built an imitation from memory.

It smiled.

“Go.”

The false voice almost broke them.

Morgana looked at it.

“No.”

She fired a single Cannon beam through its head.

The Asgardio barriers sealed.

The collective presence screamed.

Space folded.

A black hand entered the light and closed around Merlin’s arm.

Arthur seized Merlin.

Lancelot seized Arthur.

Morgana placed both hands against the barrier and forced Mystica outward, striking the Sumaya connection directly.

“Release him.”

The darkness pulled.

Morgana opened every remaining channel of Arkana.

“Release my Magister.”

The black hand burned.

Merlin tore free.

Asgardio completed.

Serath vanished.

Four Returned

Excalibur 4 appeared inside the Urkulo command sanctuary.

They did not land with dignity.

Lancelot struck the floor first.

Arthur fell beside him.

Morgana remained standing for one second before her legs failed.

Merlin appeared last, one arm covered in black spiritual burns.

The sanctuary healers rushed towards them.

Merlin looked around.

He expected others.

A second Asgardio arrival.

A third.

Commander Caelum.

Sera.

Anyone.

The chamber remained empty.

One hundred Excelsiors had entered Serath.

Four returned.

The mission changed the Brigade.

It changed Kwasar warfare.

From that day onward, no body was left unguarded upon a Raptor battlefield.

The dead were recovered, protected or destroyed.

Every Excelsior learned that defeat did not end when the heart stopped.

Every Kwasar learned to fear the voice of someone they had loved.

But the mission changed Excalibur 4 more than anyone understood.

Arthur became even more protective, because he had discovered that strength could not save everyone.

Lancelot laughed more often, because silence reminded him of the hours between deaths.

Morgana became cautious with Mystica, because something within the Forbidden Universe had looked through her eyes and learned her name.

Merlin carried the weight of command, although Commander Caelum had been the one who issued the final orders.

They never stopped fighting the Raptors.

They became stronger.

Wiser.

More dangerous.

Across thousands of years, Excalibur 4 hunted Raptor legions throughout Tzion.

They destroyed nests.

Sealed fractures.

Recovered fallen bodies.

Saved worlds.

Their names became known within the Excelsior Brigade as a promise that some missions could still end with survivors.

Yet Serath remained within them.

One hundred entered.

Four returned.

The Cave Again

The memory released them.

The sound of the sea returned to Merlin’s Cave.

No one had moved.

Lancelot sat upon the same stone.

Arthur remained with his arms folded.

Morgana watched the pale light moving across the water.

Merlin looked at his companions.

“We survived Serath because we knew one another completely.”

Arthur nodded.

“We survived because Caelum and the others bought our return.”

“Yes.”

Morgana turned towards Merlin.

“And now Godark has placed six children in our hands.”

“Not children for much longer,” Lancelot said.

Arthur’s gaze remained severe.

“They will face the Raptors.”

It was not a question.

Merlin looked towards the cave entrance.

“If Godark’s fear becomes reality, yes.”

“Then we tell them everything,” Arthur said.

“Not immediately.”

Arthur looked at him.

“They need to understand the enemy.”

“They first need to understand themselves.”

Morgana agreed.

“If we tell six young beings that they may be the final hope of the Cosmos before they know why they feel different from the humans around them, we will not inspire them. We will crush them.”

Lancelot leaned forward.

“Then we begin with training.”

“We begin with trust,” Merlin replied.

“Training creates trust.”

“So does honesty.”

Arthur looked towards the sea.

“What exactly did Godark ask of us?”

“To watch them. Guide them. Protect them. Train them.”

“And transform them into warriors.”

Merlin considered the word.

“Yes.”

Arthur’s expression hardened.

“Then we cannot treat them gently.”

Morgana looked at him.

“We should treat them intelligently.”

“The Raptors will not.”

“The Raptors are not Magisters.”

Arthur turned towards her.

“No. They are what happens when the Magisters fail.”

The words struck the cave.

Lancelot’s humour disappeared.

Merlin approached the centre of the circle.

“This mission is not Serath.”

Arthur looked at him.

“No.”

“It cannot become Serath.”

“No.”

“We are not leading one hundred trained Excelsiors into a known war zone. We are approaching six young beings who have spent their lives under human observation. They have friendships, fears, loyalties and a world they believe they understand.”

Morgana spoke softly.

“A world that has never explained why they do not belong within it.”

Merlin nodded.

“We cannot arrive as gods.”

Lancelot looked at his Sublime Skin.

“That would certainly attract attention.”

“We enter as humans,” Merlin said. “We observe the Tower. We study Fernand Claes. We determine who within the Oasis Program can be trusted. Then we approach the six.”

Arthur considered the plan.

“And if they discover us first?”

Merlin almost smiled.

“Then perhaps Godark chose well.”

Morgana rose.

The golden lines of her Sublime Skin moved beneath the pearlescent white.

“Human forms.”

“Yes.”

“What period?” Lancelot asked.

“Current Arkadian clothing.”

Lancelot looked disappointed.

“I was hoping for armour.”

Arthur stared at him.

“We are infiltrating a city.”

“Armour can be subtle.”

“Not your armour.”

Morgana stepped away from the group.

“Adagio.”

Her Sublime Skin responded.

The golden lines faded first.

The pearlescent white softened and withdrew beneath her natural skin. Ivoryta did not leave her body. Arkana did not disappear. The symbiont returned to the molecular sanctuary of her cells and DNA.

Human clothing emerged in its place.

A long dark coat.

A fitted high neck garment beneath it.

Elegant trousers.

Boots appropriate to the streets of Arkadia.

Her white hair remained visible, flowing over her shoulders.

She looked completely human.

Except for the eyes.

The eyes still suggested that she knew too much.

Lancelot stood.

His Sublime Skin transformed into dark urban clothing, a fitted jacket, simple shirt, trousers and boots.

He looked down at himself.

“I appear ordinary.”

“You have never appeared ordinary,” Morgana replied.

“I choose to accept that as praise.”

Arthur activated Adagio.

His monumental white and gold form disappeared beneath human skin and restrained clothing. A dark coat covered his broad shoulders. His black hair and beard made him appear like a severe human commander attempting to pretend he had never commanded anything.

Lancelot looked at him.

“You still look like a king.”

Arthur adjusted one sleeve.

“I cannot control the limitations of the observer.”

Finally, Merlin concealed his Sublime Skin.

The gold withdrew.

The pearlescent white vanished from sight.

A human garment formed around him, dark, simple and dignified.

His white hair and beard remained.

For a moment, he looked less like a cosmic warrior and more like the distant human memory of the wizard he had once inspired.

Morgana studied him.

“That may be a problem.”

“What?”

“You look exactly like Merlin.”

“I am Merlin.”

“Yes. Humans occasionally notice obvious things.”

Lancelot smiled.

“Rarely.”

Merlin looked towards the cave entrance.

Beyond the coastline, far beyond the sea, waited Arkadia.

A city archipelago built from human technology, ambition and fear.

Within District 199 stood the Tower.

Within the Tower lived six EvoSapiens who believed music had brought them together.

Tom.

Max.

Cass.

Vega.

Cala.

Kira.

They called themselves The Entourage.

They did not know that Godark had felt their energy from the Antiverse.

They did not know that the most dangerous Brigade in Kwasar history had returned to Earth for them.

They did not know that four beings from humanity’s oldest legends were about to walk into their lives.

Arthur approached Merlin.

“Before we go, answer one question.”

Merlin waited.

“Do you believe they can do it?”

Merlin looked into the distance.

He remembered the six flames.

Separate.

Then united.

A harmony strong enough to create futures Godark could not see.

“I believe they can become capable of doing it.”

Arthur accepted the distinction.

Lancelot moved towards the entrance.

“That sounds like training.”

Morgana followed.

“It sounds like work.”

Merlin remained behind for one final moment.

He touched the wall of the cave.

Centuries earlier, humans had listened to his voice echo through this chamber and believed they were hearing prophecy.

Now, on the last day of the First Cosmic Year, Merlin had no prophecy to give.

Only a mission.

Only six young lives.

Only the possibility that hope might succeed where power had failed.

He closed his eyes.

For a moment, he thought he felt Godark listening through Mystica.

Merlin whispered into the darkness.

“We will prepare them.”

The cave returned his words.

Not as an echo.

As an oath.

Excalibur 4 stepped into the light.

Celeritas awakened around them, concealed beneath Adagio and the Hidden Skin.

They rose from the coast without wings.

Four ancient Magisters crossed the sky towards Arkadia.

Towards the Tower.

Towards six young beings who were laughing, arguing and making music, completely unaware that the legends of Earth were coming to find them.

Behind them, Tintagel remained upon the cliffs.

Before them, the future waited.

The First Cosmic Year was ending.

And the age of the Chosen Ones was about to begin.