Chapter 4

The wrench tightened the final bolt, and a three-tier holy-light growing rack finally rose in the cargo hold.

Half a month of insane construction had soaked this body through with sweat.

I buried anti-radiation seeds deep in the soilless substrate. Behind me, Elyssia flapped her wings and dutifully hauled two hundred-pound barrels of purified water.

Pure holy light spilled from her fingertips. The seedlings burst up, branched, and shot toward growth like they’d gone mad.

“Look. They’re alive.” Her blue eyes shone brighter than I’d ever seen.

The next second, the overexcited angel spun and rushed to the temperature-controlled pen, trying to pet the cloud goats we’d just bought.

A sudden boom.

The uncontrollable sacred pressure that leaked from her wings made the goats panic as if their souls had been yanked out.

They shrieked and slammed into the titanium fence. The pen erupted into chaos.

I tossed the wrench aside and yanked this walking disaster away from the enclosure.

“From today on, you keep at least ten meters away from the livestock pen.” I delivered the ban with a flat face.

She lowered her six wings, looking like a child who’d been scolded.

I had barely settled her down when the main console’s comm panel flashed with glaring shadow runes.

My dear parents. Coming to “check in” again.

I gave a cold laugh, walked into the smallest, darkest storage bay, and hit connect.

A shadow mirror formed in the air, twisting into shape.

On the other side, my parents sat behind an abyssal obsidian table, smugness barely contained.

“Link, look at this.” My father lifted a stinking lump of flesh dripping black blood on the tip of a knife.

“This is monster meat Morgana just hunted from the Abyss rift. Leo’s been eating it like a king.”

My mother eagerly swung the view toward my brother. Leo was tearing into the meat with black blood all over his mouth, eyes full of provocation.

“So?” Leo mocked through his chewing. “How’s it feel biting moldy black bread back in the human city?”

They had no idea that less than half a meter outside the mirror’s blind spot, my table held a bowl of bubbling creamy mushroom soup, honey-glazed grilled fish, and a huge plate of holy-stewed goat.

The heavy spice aroma was so rich I had to control my breathing to avoid giving it away.

I pinched my thigh hard and forced a dry, envious expression.

“Yeah… Abyss meat looks great.” I ground the words out.

The look of poverty fed their vanity.

“Raining hard in the city now, isn’t it?” my mother sighed with fake sympathy. “Just a big storm. Stay put. When the real flood comes, we’ll remember old times and go collect your body.”

“Okay. I’ll stay put,” I nodded obediently.

The moment the comm cut, the cowardice vanished from my face.

I lifted the thick mushroom soup and leaned back into a real leather sofa. These fools didn’t even realize death was knocking.

Then the metal dome on the fortress exterior began to ring with dense tapping.

The rain had intensified.

It started as a soft patter and within minutes became a deafening waterfall.

Elyssia hurried over, brows furrowed. “My contractor, the wind feels wrong. Holy light is warning me.”

“Take me out. Now.” I set the bowl down and stood.

Elyssia’s expression sharpened. She flung open her six radiant wings like a valkyrie stepping out of myth.

She scooped me up in a bridal carry and drove upward, legs exploding with force, launching for the sky.

A dull, teeth-grinding thud.

She’d started too hard and smashed her head straight into the thick titanium ceiling of the cargo bay.

A small whimper escaped her.

The valkyrie aura collapsed instantly. She crouched on the floor, clutching her head, eyes wet, wings curled in pain.

I bit my lip hard and swallowed the joke I nearly let out.

Seeing the red mark on her forehead, I sighed, reached out, and rubbed the top of her head gently.

“Next time, open the hatch before takeoff.”

We adjusted, the hatch slid open, and icy rain and wild wind filled our vision.

We shot out of the sky island and hovered beneath the clouds.

The moment I looked down at the earth, my pupils tightened.

Disaster had bared its fangs. In the town below, muddy water already reached waist height in the streets.

Cars floated and collided like toys.

But the fools were still wading into supermarkets to grab canned food. Some even splashed and played in the floodwater, thinking it was just a rare storm.

Only I knew this rain would last an entire season until it drowned the last piece of land.

“We can’t save everyone.” I yelled near Elyssia’s ear over the storm. “Back. Now.”

Once we returned to the warm main cabin, I pulled out a sheet of parchment.

A weak holy light, granted by Elyssia, gathered at my fingertips. In a hard, prophetic tone, I branded my warning onto the page.

“The rain will last the whole season. All lowlands will be swallowed by despair.”

“Organize evacuation to high ground and aerial facilities immediately. This is not a warning. It is the final ultimatum for survival.”

I sealed the note inside a waterproof tube and handed it to Elyssia.

“Deliver it to the Human Coalition command. Fast.”

She didn’t hesitate for a second. She took the tube and dove into the raging night.

For the next several hours I stared at the storm vortex on the radar display, heart hammering.

Not until dawn did the heavy hatch finally open again.

Elyssia stumbled into the corridor.

She was soaked through. Her proud holy wings dragged on the floor, dripping mud water.

But when she looked up at me, those blue eyes were bright as stars.

“I delivered it. The commander issued evacuation orders on the spot.” She panted lightly, like a soldier waiting to be decorated.

Something in the softest part of my chest took a hard hit.

Without wasting a word, I grabbed the softest dry towel and stepped behind her.

“Don’t move.”

I wiped gently at the cold roots of her wings, feeling that sacred warmth return under my hands.

Last life, she rotted to death in mud for a pack of ingrates.

This life, inside my fortress, she would remain the proudest angel there was.