Chapter 159: The Black Moon

The festival had ended nearly an hour ago, but the atmosphere from it still seemed to linger in the hotel room.

Lily was still talking about the food stalls, insisting the festival had been much better than the one they had visited years ago.

Maki occasionally corrected her whenever she exaggerated something, while Yuna sat comfortably on the sofa and listened with an amused expression.

Reinhard leaned back in his chair, occasionally adding some completely unnecessary comment that made Lily complain about him again.

Emily, however, had been unusually quiet. She had smiled during the festival, laughed when Reinhard embarrassed her, even joined in when Lily and Rhea caused trouble. Yet now that they were back in the hotel room, something had changed.

Reinhard noticed it, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he quietly watched his wife while Lily kept talking about how Reinhard had definitely cheated at the festival games.

After a few minutes, Emily took a slow breath. "I think it’s time I told all of you what happened during the Black Moon Incident."

The room gradually went quiet. Lily stopped talking, Maki turned toward Emily, and Yuna’s relaxed expression grew more attentive. Reinhard didn’t move, but his eyes settled on her.

Emily folded her hands together. "I’ve kept this to myself for years. Part of that was because I didn’t understand what happened. Another part was because so much of my memory from that day is incomplete." She hesitated before continuing. "And I wasn’t sure who I could trust with the information." Her eyes moved across the room before settling on Reinhard. "But if we’re going to face whatever is coming next, you deserve to know."

"You could have told me you were scared," he gave her a small smile.

"I know," she looked away slightly.

"I’m not particularly good at letting my wife carry things alone."

"I’ve noticed."

The small exchange eased some of the tension, and Emily gave him a faint smile before looking back toward the others. "It started with two missions. The first one was strange. The mission itself didn’t have anything to do with the Black Moon directly, but the records we recovered mentioned something called a Black Moon. It was described as an abnormal phenomenon that had appeared in the past, but the information surrounding it was incomplete."

She paused. "The second mission was similar. Different location. Different people. Completely different circumstances." She paused again. "But the same name."

"Wait. You saw the same thing twice before you even knew what it was?" Lily frowned.

"Yes."

"And you just kept investigating something called the Black Moon?"

"I didn’t know it was dangerous yet," Emily’s expression grew slightly embarrassed.

"That’s exactly how dangerous mysteries usually begin," Maki folded her arms.

"You should probably stop calling them mysteries after the third corpse," Yuna glanced toward her.

"That is not helping," Lily gave a small shiver.

Emily couldn’t help smiling slightly, but her expression turned serious again. "The third discovery changed everything. We found a group experimenting on one hundred people."

The room went quiet. "Their purpose was to recreate the Black Moon."

"One hundred?" Lily’s eyes widened.

Emily nodded. "They believed the Black Moon couldn’t simply be summoned through Mana or a normal ritual. They believed something more fundamental was required." She looked down at her hands. "Pain. Resentment. Will. Suffering. People desperately wanting someone to save them." Her voice grew quieter. "They believed those emotions could become a key."

Maki’s fingers tightened around her arm. Yuna’s expression hardened. Reinhard didn’t make a joke.

"They were using those people to recreate the conditions that supposedly caused the Black Moon to appear," Emily continued. "They weren’t studying something that had happened centuries ago. They were actively trying to bring it back."

"So someone really was trying to recreate it," Lily stared at her.

"Yes. That group was called Black Ink."

Emily explained that she eventually found other people who had been researching the Black Moon.

Some had discovered old records, while others had encountered strange missions or disappearances connected to the phenomenon, and they eventually began working together.

"We didn’t agree on everything," she said. "We had different theories about what the Black Moon was and where it came from. But we agreed on one thing." She looked at them. "Black Ink had to be stopped."

They fought them repeatedly, destroyed laboratories, disrupted experiments, and rescued people who had been used in their research. Then they discovered something worse.

"The Black Moon had apparently been attempted before."

"Before Black Ink?" Maki’s eyes narrowed.

"Before them." She took another breath. "Twice. The first was connected to the Black Sovereign Kingdom. The second was connected to the Everlasting Light Kingdom."

"What happened to them?" Lily tilted her head.

Emily was quiet for a moment. "That’s the problem. There were no records of a normal war destroying either kingdom. There wasn’t a conquered capital. There weren’t abandoned palaces or ruined cities." Her eyes slowly hardened. "There was nothing. No buildings. No monuments. No signs that either kingdom had ever existed."

"Gone as in destroyed?" Lily swallowed.

"No."

"Then what?" Maki looked at her.

"Erased," Emily’s voice dropped.

Nobody spoke.

"The records said darkness swallowed them." The words sat in the room for a moment before she continued. "We couldn’t determine what that darkness was. We couldn’t determine whether it came from the Black Moon itself or from whatever existed beyond it. But two kingdoms had apparently vanished after coming into contact with the phenomenon."

Reinhard leaned back slightly. "So you were dealing with something capable of erasing entire civilizations."

"Yes."

"And you still didn’t know what was on the other side."

"No."

That was when their investigation reached Aurelius.

Emily explained how the security forces wanted transparency, the group’s research, their records, the identities of everyone involved, and everything they knew about Black Ink. "We refused."

"Because you thought there were spies?" Lily frowned immediately.

Emily nodded. "We weren’t certain. But there were too many things that didn’t make sense." She paused. "And unfortunately, we were right. There were spies inside the security forces."

"That’s why you were so stressed during those seven months..." Lily suddenly looked at her. Emily blinked. "You even snapped at me a couple of times."

"I... apologize for that," her face immediately grew embarrassed.

"Meh. Water under the bridge," Lily waved her hand, grinning. "It was still interesting seeing my normally kind sister get that angry."

"Lily..." Emily’s blush deepened.

Lily laughed, Maki’s lips twitched slightly, and even Yuna looked amused. Reinhard smiled as well, but he didn’t interrupt.

Emily waited for them to settle before continuing. "The spies manipulated the situation. They made it appear as though our group was obstructing the investigation. Eventually, we were detained." Her expression turned colder. "We were locked away while Black Ink prepared their attack."

"They didn’t need to beat you," Reinhard’s expression changed.

"What?" she looked at him.

"They just needed you somewhere else."

She slowly nodded. "Exactly."

When the Black Moon Incident began, the entire building shook.

The guards were overwhelmed, something had happened outside, and the people holding them suddenly lost control of the situation.

"We broke out," Emily said. "After that, there wasn’t much time to think. We fought our way through the building and destroyed anything that stood between us and the exit."

Her eyes drifted somewhere far away. "We were desperate. We knew Black Ink was trying to create the Black Moon, and we knew where they were doing it and the Lasko Company building."

She remembered fighting through its lower floors, then the middle floors, and finally reaching the top. "That was where we saw it." She paused. "The Black Moon."

"What did it look like?" Lily leaned forward.

Emily thought about it. "It wasn’t a moon." She slowly shook her head. "It was a hole. A hole in the world."

The room went quiet again. "There was something on the other side. I could feel it, but I couldn’t understand what it was." Before they could ask more, she continued. "The leaders of Black Ink were there. So were the leaders of Lasko Company. They were S-Rank."

"And you fought them?" Maki’s expression sharpened.

"Yes." Emily looked down. "I remember piercing their bodies. I remember them dying." She stopped. For several seconds, she didn’t speak. "And then..." Her fingers tightened together. "I can’t recall what happened after that."

Nobody interrupted her. "One moment, they were dying in front of me. The next second, everything became black." She slowly lifted her eyes. "It wasn’t darkness. There was a difference. It was blackness."

She struggled to describe what came next. "I couldn’t see the building anymore. I couldn’t see the people around me."

"What about your location?" Lily asked in surprise.

"I couldn’t even tell where I was either... It was like the entire world had become distorted, almost everything was black."

"That sounds horrible."

"It was... But there were points of light." Emily brow furrowed. "I don’t know what they were. They felt different from everything else and stable, somehow."

She closed her eyes briefly. "If I focused hard enough, I could catch glimpses of things inside the blackness. Not enough to understand them but just glimpses."

Reinhard listened carefully.

"And as whatever was happening began to close..." her voice grew quieter. "I saw Aurelius. Not just the city but the people." She swallowed. "They were there and looking at me."

Nobody spoke.

"Then everything disappeared."

The next thing Emily remembered was waking up alone on top of the Lasko Company building and her Gnosis was shattered. Both of her legs were broken inside while she couldn’t move, and she couldn’t understand what had happened.

"It didn’t take long for the Aurelius security team to find me," she said. "They rescued me, and the leader of the security forces at the time apologized. They admitted there had been spies. They dropped every charge against me and the others."

"And you never found out who was responsible?" Maki quietly asked.

She shook her head. "No."

"Did anyone investigate them afterward?" Yuna asked.

"Some disappeared. Some were arrested. But the Black Moon itself..." Emily looked down. "No one could explain it."

"Is that why you blamed yourself?" Lily’s voice softened.

Emily didn’t answer immediately and then she nodded.

"Yes." She stared at her hands. "For years, I kept asking myself the same questions. What could I have done differently? Where did I fail? What did I miss?"

Her voice grew strained. "I had spent all that time researching it. I had found people who were trying to recreate it. I knew how dangerous it was and yet, when it finally happened, I still couldn’t stop it."

"Emily, you were fighting something no one understood," Maki shook her head.

"And you were betrayed from inside the security forces," Yuna nodded.

"You were literally thrown into prison while the people causing the problem were outside," Lily leaned closer.

"I know that now," Emily looked at them, her expression softening. "But back then, I didn’t."

For a moment, nobody spoke and then Reinhard leaned forward. "What is required for the Black Moon to appear?"

Lily, Maki, and Yuna all perked up at the question.

Emily took a slow breath. "It has to be a full moon."

"Then?" he nodded.

"First, someone has to use a Space Singularity to strike the moon."

"For how long?" Maki frowned.

"One hour."

"A Space Singularity has to continuously strike the moon for an entire hour?" Yuna’s eyes narrowed.

"Yes." Emily continued, "While that is happening, there needs to be a large number of people suffering beneath the distortion. Pain. Fear. Resentment. Desperation. People crying for help."

She paused. "The laboratory we discovered was specifically designed to reproduce those conditions. They were experimenting on people because they believed their suffering would become the key."

"So the suffering isn’t the portal," Reinhard’s expression turned thoughtful.

"No."

"It’s the key."

"Yes."

He leaned back. "Then the Space Singularity creates the distortion, the suffering creates the key, and once both conditions are met..."

"A space twist opens," Emily looked toward him. "A portal forms. The Black Moon appears."

"Which means destroying the portal isn’t necessarily enough," his eyes narrowed.

"No," her expression changed.

"What happens if it stays open?"

Emily was silent for a moment. "The longer it remains, the worse it becomes. The emotions of everyone in the city begin to distort. People become irrational. Fear turns into hatred. Resentment becomes anger and small conflicts become violence." She continued, "People start vandalizing buildings and even attacking each other--"

"Riots?"

"Yeah... eventually, the entire city becomes a war zone."

Lily’s expression had lost all trace of humor. "And then?"

Emily looked at her. "If my theory is right..." She paused. "The darkness eventually swallows the city."

Everyone went silent.

"And everyone inside it disappears with it."

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Then Reinhard finally looked around the room. "Well."

"What?" Lily glanced at him.

"At least we know one reason everything went to shit last time."

Lily thought about it. "Incompetent security?"

"Lack of communication?" Maki added.

"Too many unknown variables?" Yuna said quietly.

Reinhard smiled. "No." Everyone looked at him. "It didn’t have me."

"Oh my god," Lily immediately groaned.

Maki’s lips twitched, and Yuna looked away with a small smile.

Emily’s expression softened.

"But don’t worry," he spread his hands. "I’m here now."

"Can you please take anything seriously for more than five minutes?" Lily pointed at him.

"I was serious."

"You literally just blamed an entire historical disaster on the fact that you weren’t there."

"It sounds convincing when I say it," he shrugged.

Maki covered her mouth to hide a smile, while Yuna simply shook her head. Emily looked at her husband for several seconds, then smiled. "Maybe you’re right."

"Maybe?" he raised an eyebrow.

She gave a quiet laugh. "But this time..." She reached over and took his hand. "I have you."

Reinhard’s playful expression disappeared. "It will be different."

"You really believe that?" she looked into his eyes.

"Absolutely." He gently squeezed her hand. "You don’t have to face it alone anymore."

Her fingers tightened around his. "I know."

The words were simple, but they carried more weight than anything she had said that night. The Emily who had stood on top of Lasko Company years ago had been alone.

She had fought the Black Moon with people beside her, but when everything went wrong, she had been the only one left standing.

Now she had Reinhard. She had Lily. She had Maki. She had Yuna. And beyond them, she had everyone else waiting for them back home. The Black Moon had once taken everything from her. It wouldn’t find her alone this time.

Reinhard looked at her for another moment before his expression grew thoughtful again. "Emily." She looked at him. "When you saw those blocks of light..." He paused. "Did any of them look familiar?"

Emily thought about it. Her expression slowly changed. "No." He waited, and her eyes grew distant. "But..."

Everyone grew attentive.

"One of them felt like it was looking back at me."

The room fell silent again. And for the first time that night, even Emily didn’t know what to say next.