vox ex ultra Games
11.5M subscribers
3,781,755 views 27 April 20XX
Luna and Albus failed to stop the machinations of The Seventh Legion, and their leader, Cadena, has claimed the destructive power of the Void. Upon hearing her words and seeing her use her power, Luna is reminded of a face from her mysterious past…
Is all hope for the world lost? Is this the end of civilization as we know it?
The secret to victory lies in Luna’s memories…
Delve into the past and witness the epic conclusion to Seekers of Lost Sin’s first saga ‘A Call from Beyond’ today!
Download Seekers of Lost Sin here: www…
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3,226 Comments
@xxxxxxxx 15 hours ago
1:49 ESTELLE HIJACK????
THE ESTELLE ARC…
THE ESTELLE ARC IS REAL!!!
^ 5.4K v
v 25 replies
@xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
1:49 Ah, yes, menhera… my favourite
^ 2.8K v
v 6 replies
@xxxxxxxx 15 hours ago
Mommy Cadena please chain me up
^ 3.9K v
^ 12 replies
- @xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
real
^ 335 v - @xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
choke me with your black hole harder mommy
^ 1.5k v - @xxxxxxxx 12 hours ago
y’all are vile lmfao
^ 174 v
…
@xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
0:38 Judiciary Cut
^ 3.5K v
^ 15 replies
- @xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
0:45 Hat Breaker
^ 1.1K v - @xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
0:42 Stabber
^ 1K v - @xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
0:55 Hallucination Blade
^ 1K v - @xxxxxxxx 10 hours ago
bro thinks hes the storm thats approaching
^ 381 v - @xxxxxxxx 9 hours ago
bros the rain that was forecast
^ 627 v
…
@xxxxxxxx 15 hours ago
guys its been like 30 minutes since her design was revealed on the announcement stream why does Estelle already have 15 entries on rule 34 wtf
^ 6.5K v
^ 31 replies
- @xxxxxxxx 12 hours ago
Why were you looking at her rule 34 results 30 minutes after she was revealed?
^ 4.2K v - @xxxxxxxx 12 hours ago
CAUGHT
^ 343 v - @xxxxxxxx 12 hours ago
IT WAS FOR SCIENTIFIC REASONS I SWEAR
^ 2.6K v
…
@xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
They said on stream there’s gonna be a new welfare SSR after Part 1 of the event. No way it’s Estelle right? She’s Anniversary headliner material. Also she’s in like super jail or something at the moment so the pacing and writing would be WAY off compared to the epic buildup we’ve had up to now.
^ 1.2K v
^ 8 replies
- @xxxxxxxx 12 hours ago
Legit I think it might be Setsuna. We know that she’s on the hunt for Cadena as well and we got an Interlude a couple months ago with the Pyphorus event with her meditating on how to reach the ‘Fifth Element’, which is probably the Void if we assume the inspiration for her character comes from Musashi Miyamoto.
^ 236 v - @xxxxxxxx 9 hours ago
Wasn’t it also mentioned offhandedly that Setsuna and Luna have worked together before? Probably has something to do with secrets of the Void. I kind of like this theory. Sign me up for Void Samurai Setsuna.
^ 161 v
…
@xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
Are we all just gonna skip over the fact that fucking CADENA mentioned ESTELLE talked about Luna? They’ve met??? Estellebros… is it over? Is she evil? im gonna cry if Estelle is an antagonist
^ 3.3K v
^ 7 replies
- @xxxxxxxx 14 hours ago
Not yet… I believe in the agenda COPIUM
^ 864 v - @xxxxxxx 14 hours ago
Yuribros… its time to pack it up. its never been more over…
^ 399 v - @xxxxxxxx 13 hours ago
Cowards, all of you. You need Estelle to be good? You need to be able to fix her? You’re all fools and simpletons. Unlike all of you, I’m a true believer. I don’t need to be able to fix her. I can make her worse.
^ 2.5K v
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[SOLS] 2nd Anniversary ‘The Moon and the Stars’ Episode 1-4: ‘The Salted Wound’
s1nful
453K subscribers
181,482 views 3rd May 20XX
silent playthrough as usual for folks who dont play the game but still want the story
I really liked this opening. I was really worried that they were gonna solve the cliffhanger from the last event in a really messy way and just brush it aside to tell a hasty story for anni but I’m pleasantly surprised they just followed through and let the bad guys win for once, at least momentarily. Excited to see where this all goes.
PLAY
EPISODE 1-4 - ‘The Salted Wound’
Summary of previous events
Luna’s intimate knowledge of the ritual that bestows the power of the Void onto individuals allowed her to briefly turn the tables on Cadena. After a tense battle, which Luna only survived due to years of research and your timely intervention, Cadena became furious and levelled the ritual chamber and the rest of the castle, disappearing into the night.
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The Knights Templar surrounded the crater where Fortress Goldbaum once stood.
Albus limped up out of the rubble, carrying a barely-conscious Luna with him, her arm hanging loosely around his shoulder.
Armored knights ran up to him.
“Sir, wa-”
“The operation was a failure,” He shook his head, cutting them off.
“Then, the demon, she…”
Albus nodded solemnly.
“Cadena has claimed the full power of the Void. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do but brace ourselves now.”
“N-no…” Luna hacked weakly, coughing up blood as she mustered the strength to speak, “n-not… the full power.”
Albus bristled, not wanting Luna to exert herself.
He quickly pulled her all the way out of the rubble and set her sitting down on the floor.
“Luna, don’t exert yourself. You’re critical to this operation. We can’t have you passing out on us before the night ends.”
Albus gripped Luna’s shoulder tightly.
He craned his head to the side, calling out to the formation of knights.
“I need a healer! And all of you with pegasi, return to civilization immediately! The entire kingdom MUST be evacuated, there’s no telling where Cadena could strike next! Send word to the king immediately, all of the Kingdom’s forces must be prepared for the march of the Seventh Legion!”
Luna tried to shove Albus’s hand aside.
“Cadena, she-... she’s still a coward. She completed the ritual, but… she wasn’t prepared to accept the full power of the Void into her body.”
“Hm? What do you mean,” Albus blinked, frowning, “are you saying there’s a chance we can still stop her?”
“D-do you remember…” Luna coughed again, hurling more blood onto the dirt beneath her, “the instructions I gave you during the battle?”
“Aim for the bracelet,” Albus confirmed. “Wait, are you implying that’s the source of Cadena’s power right now?”
Luna nodded grimly.
“What difference does that make?” Albus scowled, “the power of the Void is just the power of the Void. It’s the same either way. What difference does it make if its channelled through a person or an object?”
“Everything.” Luna shut him down coldly, glaring at him with freezing fury.
Albus flinched, retracting his hand.
It was rare to see Luna, who he had known for almost two years now, get so angry.
“It’s the difference between what my master… my mother was trying to accomplish… and what happened to… to my sis-... sister.”
Albus paused.
He understood one half of that sentence, having heard the whispers before.
It was impossible not to have heard about it, given that his closest companion since waking up in the temple two years ago was her, Luna.
Adventurers, knights, soldiers, wizards, other explorers and treasure hunters, they all whispered about ‘her’ behind Luna’s back, snidely looking down on his friend by proxy.
Estelle, the White Witch.
Six years ago, when the Seventh Legion first broke past the dimensional barrier and made it to the Human Realm, that woman surrendered to madness, claiming the forbidden power of the Void.
She single-handedly wiped out the entirety of the Seventh Legion’s advance forces by herself, but it came at the cost of the entire city of Arden.
But, this other party, Luna’s ‘mother’... what part did she have in this?
“Belle Symphonia,” a gruff and grizzled voice followed up from behind him.
A burly, freakishly tall middle-aged main with wild, sharp facial hair and scars all over his face stomped across the field, approaching the pair.
His bulging, audacious silver armor – which did nothing to hide his monstrous physique – clattered with every step he took.
“The Black Matter Witch,” General Hywind finished solemnly.
Albus blinked.
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Symphonia?
That was the last name that had appeared on Luna’s papers.
“The top brass were very interested in her research. The ‘Paradox Engine’, I believe she called it?” Hywind raised a scarred eyebrow towards the witch.
Luna nodded in affirmation.
She coughed into her hand, continuing on.
“She was conducting research and experiments on the power of the Void with approval and oversight from the Citadel of Magi, and explicit warning from the King himself. She believed there was more potential for the Void than just destructive power. She was the one who created the ritual to bestow objects with that power. Before her, the only way we knew to harness it was to accept it directly into your heart…”
She grunted, clearing her throat of a buildup of phlegm.
“The Paradox Engine, it was supposed to be a way to generate infinite energy. It was an impossible, extraplanar contraption that extended into five dimensions, using the Void to power it.”
Hywind nodded remorsefully.
“It was a shame we lost her during the attack. The completion of that machine would have seen Humanity ushered into the next era. Who knows what miracles would have come from such an invention?”
Albus scowled, shaking his head. “And what does any of this have to do with Cadena and how we can stop her?”
“The key…” Luna hacked again, interrupting herself, “the key is that Mother believed that the Void, at a base level, is inert and inherently non-destructive. In its natural form, it is simply a mass of energy like any other form of magic, simply infinitely more potent than we could possibly imagine. The problem… is what happens when this energy is given the chance to feed on a consciousness… a living thing.”
At that moment, a veiled man in priestly robes approached her, holding a wooden staff high up to the sky as a golden light surrounded Luna.
She gave him a quick glance, nodding in thanks.
“Thank you, father.”
She quickly focused back on Albus, resuming her explanation.
“When it gets into a beating heart, the Void starts to eat away at the mind of its occupant, and… something happens.”
She shook her head, dismayed.
“No one knows for sure what it is. No wielders of the Void have ever lived long enough or been subdued to be interrogated. But the most credible theory suggests that a consciousness from Beyond wakes up after being nourished, and this mysterious thing, it either makes a contract with the subject or it fully consumes and dominates their being, either way, the result is the same. A surrender to madness, complete control over the unfathomable power of the Void, and…”
Her eyes dulled.
A dozen traumatic images flashed in her mind.
A body losing its warmth as it hugged her protectively.
A hundred unheard cries and a thousand unseen tears.
Mad laughter.
Screams. Blood. Corpses. Fire.
A lack of oxygen.
Blackness.
“Absolute and complete devastation. Death and destruction beyond comprehension.”
Albus gulped.
He remembered the number he saw when he briefly looked at the files.
There were just over one million and six hundred thousand people living in Arden.
In the blink of an eye, the city had just…
Disappeared.
“And on the scale of Belle Symphonia to Estelle Symphonia, I imagine Cadena the Chained lies more towards the Belle side of the spectrum?” Hywind asked.
“No,” Luna gave the general a glare of disgust after hearing him speak her sister’s name, “she doesn’t even appear on it. If it was Mother we were up against, we wouldn’t stand a chance. Her understanding of the power of the Void might have been comprehensive enough to even match those who have had their minds consumed by it. Cadena is just a dumb brute, barely smart enough to have enough self-preservation to know that accepting the Void into your heart and mind is a one-way road to death.”
“Still, the Void is the Void. Dangerous beyond human comprehension,” Hywind stated firmly, “even if Cadena the Chained has no idea on how to grasp its power, we would be even larger fools compared to her if we approached her head-on. We’ve both seen the destruction that power is capable of in the hands of reckless fools.”
Luna snarled at the implied undertone, her fingers curling into a tight fist.
But she made no move to act on her emotions.
Instead, she continued to distract herself with the current predicament of the Seventh Legion.
“There’s one advantage we still have,” Luna vaguely gestured towards herself, “me.”
Albus and Hywind quirked their eyebrows in response to the audacious statement.
“There’s only one person left in the world who has any idea of the full breadth and scope of Belle Symphonia’s research. Her legacy, all her teaching and all of her knowledge…”
She raised a pale finger to her face, tapping her temple with her index.
“Is locked in here. Cadena simply has a bastardised version of the ritual she stole from my mother’s workshop during the invasion. The full notes and research papers are stashed away in my brain. As long as I am alive, she will not be able to utilise the full power of the Void, and if I am present on the battlefield, we will have full knowledge of how to counter it.”
“You stand in front of me, alive, after a confrontation with that power,” Hywind grunted reluctantly, “that is all the confirmation I need of your expertise regarding the matter. I doubt any other living person in this Realm would match that feat. Your aid would be better than the alternative course of action, I suppose…”
He turned away from the witch, glaring off into the distant mountains.
“Which would be freeing the White Witch from her shackles momentarily and bargaining with her.”
He scoffed.
“But it would be a cold day in Hell before I ever consider letting that wretched woman free from her cell, Estel-”
Suddenly, Luna snapped.
“KEEP MY SISTER’S NAME OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!”
She lunged towards Hywind in a maddened frenzy, intent on pushing the impossibly large man to the ground.
Albus’s eyes widened in surprise.
He reacted quickly, tackling Luna away from the general.
“YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHIN-”
He hurriedly covered her mouth, muffling her impassioned shouts.
Hywind simply regarded the young woman’s outburst with a cool glare.
“When your temper has cooled, meet me at the war room at the encampment half an hour’s ride south from here. Reconvene with the rest of your party and take only your best men and women. I will not be satisfied until we have drawn a complete battle plan with at least three layers of contingencies.”
He spun around on his heel, kicking up a cloud of dust.
“Men!” he commanded the Knights Templar, “we move immediately! Send word to the Speaker, the Voice and Templar Commander! All twelve regiments are to be mobilised. I want a full line of scouts surrounding the ruins of Arden and the Yrd’ll Mountains YESTERDAY!”
In a dozen seconds flat, the ruins of what was once Fortress Goldbaum were empty, leaving only Albus and Luna behind, the latter of whom was still desperately thrashing on the ground.
It took a minute of subduing Luna for her to calm down.
Albus sighed.
“You good now?”
“…”
Luna nodded limply.
Albus lifted himself off of Luna.
He hopped up on his feet, dusting himself out.
His head turned towards the surrounding treeline.
He brought his pinched index and thumb to his lips and puffed, creating a sharp whistle that echoed through the forest.
“Hallowed!”
At his command, a beautiful white horse burst out from the trees, galloping towards him at a staggering pace.
He flipped himself up onto the horse, grabbing her reins as she came to a still.
Albus extended his hand to Luna.
The witch silently took it, allowing herself to be propped up onto the horse’s back.
Hallowed quickly turned around and galloped away to the south.
…
It was a long, awkward, tense, and silent ride.
Albus gave a quick glance behind himself as they dashed through the forest.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“…”
“It’s about your sister, Estelle, right?”
“…”
“I can’t really say I know anything about the situation, or about her or you, or… well, I barely even read the file on Arden. Heard the whispers you were involved but… well, figured it wasn’t my place to ask or find out. Should be your story to tell.”
“…”
“I can’t exactly say I’m an expert on the Void either. That isn’t the kind of enemy I’m used to fighting. Before you woke me up, I was just a soldier fighting against the Seven Legions, trying to help where I could. I’m a bit out of my depth here, even as the so-called ‘Child of Sol’.”
“…”
“But, well… if there’s anything you have to settle, now’s probably the last chance we’ll have to do so. It’s life or death from this point on, the entire Human Realm hinges on tonight. So, if there’s anything you want to get off your chest…”
“…”
“I don’t know how much you trust me, Luna, but… I literally owe my life to you. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be stuck sleeping for a thousand more years in that dusty tomb in a ruined temple. I will always be on your side. I will always listen to your words.”
Luna chuckled emptily.
“You say that, but… we… we really don’t know that much about each other, do we? Well, I guess I know about you, having read all about your life through all the inscriptions across all those temples, but you don’t really know anything about me, do you? Are we even really that close?”
“…”
A few seconds of silence passed.
Albus sighed.
“You think you know me just because of the inscriptions and scriptures, huh?”
He scoffed.
“I doubt it.”
“?”
“Pray tell, why do you think I accepted the call? When I was bestowed with my destiny as ‘Child of Sol’, why do you think that young man accepted the call of fate and faced the terrifying dangers of the Seven Legions?”
Luna just rolled her eyes.
“Because you were the most dedicated, humble servant of Sol. You were taken in at a young age as a child in their temples and spent your life dedicated to the religion out of gratitude. You took all of your goddess’s words to heart and became a pure-hearted, righteous young man. When she named you her champion, it was only natural that you accepted her blessings in return for the life that you had received.”
Albus outright laughed at that.
“Oh, seriously, that’s what those old men wrote? That’s kind of fucking hilarious.”
He snorted sloppily.
“That’s about as far away from the truth as you could get. I was a real god-damned brat of a kid. Loudest, stupidest troublemaker around. Hated being trapped in that temple with those annoying old men and the nuns preaching my damn head off. At the time, I hated Sol’s guts for not letting me see the outside world. That’s all I’d ever wanted back then.”
He sighed.
“When she descended through the Voice and blessed me as her champion, I didn’t accept the call because I wanted to do good or anything, I just… Well, I was planning on accepting the title so I could get out of the Holy Capital and then ditch everything I had and just run away to god knows where. Shame things never ended up turning out that way, but… maybe it’s for the better.”
Luna was stunned into silence.
“Another question. How’d they write about my first battle? You know, the one with the Sixth Legion’s Hydra?”
“…”
Luna sighed, and begun to quietly sing a poem.
“One by one, the Orders fell,
Their swords broken, their spirits quelled,
The Speaker was silenced, and the Voice cried,
The banner aflame, and so came the dark tide.
The Boy In White, he marched alone.
Through the fallen kingdom, atop the toppled throne.
And so bravely, he faced it, that thing,
The dreaded six-headed Slayer of Kings.
Day and night, the boy wrestled the beast,
His determination unmoving, no more would it feast.
No more would the soldiers fall,
No more would the children cry,
No more would the famine spread,
And no more would the desperate pray.
And at the break of dawn, his blade struck true,
The beast had been felled, no more heads to cut through.
He raised his blade into the sky,
And the light shone through, silencing the cries.”
Albus just chuckled again.
“Yeah, sure, I guess. But I guess those poems and songs never told you about the fact that I immediately pissed my pants, dropped my sword, and was the first person on that battlefield to run away from the fight.”
“…?” Luna blinked at him, puzzled.
“I told you, I-... I wasn’t a hero or anything. I wasn’t brave. Not then, not now. I didn’t want to lose my life fighting that monster. I wanted to see the world, eat good food, meet a pretty lady and marry her, maybe. So when I saw those soldiers get eaten whole, I just… left.”
A grave silence filled the forest, broken every now and then by the fierce clopping of horse hooves.
“So then,” Luna whispered, “why’d you come back?”
“T-there… there was a young woman. A mother. In the burning wreckage. She couldn’t escape. She was crying, holding her baby to her chest. The child was crying too. And I just-… I-… I just couldn’t stand it. The sound of the crying. I stopped right there and I just… I just imagined it.”
Albus sighed heavily.
“A world where I just kept on running. Everyone would have to keep living in fear of the demons’ attacks. I’d have to hear those cries ringing in my ears, haunting me every night. And every week there would be ten thousand more just like her. Another city would be lost to the demons, ten thousand more families wiped from the world. I just-... I just wanted her to stop crying.”
He chuckled remorsefully, wiping away a stray tear.
“I lifted her out of the wreckage, pushed her away, told her to evacuate, and I… well I ran back to the Hydra, pants still filled with piss. I wasn’t even very good with the sword then. I was just really stubborn and really lucky. I just sat there swinging for enough hours to eventually take down all of its heads and wear out its regeneration through brute force.”
“I-I see.”
“I still remember that woman’s name and face, you know? She’s not someone I’ll ever forget, we would become friends later. Whenever I had free time and I was in the Holy Capital, I’d visit her, and play with her child. She even named me as his godfather. Kid bragged about it a lot, having the resplendent hero and the ‘Child of Sol’ as his nanny.”
This time, his chuckle was much more lighthearted and warm.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. There’s a lot of things written about me, sure, but none of them were written by me. None of them could tell you how I felt in those moments, only whatever the writers wanted to convey.”
He shrugged nonchalantly, pushing all of the heavy memories aside with ease.
“Just like how I’ll never really know anything about your sister. Not from the rumours and reports, anyways. Maybe we all know the end result, just like you know what happened in the poems, but whose to say what kind of person she really was? Or how you felt about her? In the end, the only person who bears the truth of that incident is you.”
“…”
“So, how about it. I told you a little about myself, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
A minute of silence passed before Luna spoke up.
“Th-they’ll… they’ll all tell you she’s a dangerous lunatic. Concerned with nothing but the attainment of more power at any cost, willing to sacrifice her mind and millions of lives for selfish causes. B-but, she isn’t like that at all… or-…”
Her lips trembled.
“O-or…”
A choked sob escaped her.
“She wasn’t like that.”
Albus felt her press her head against his back.
“It’s my fault she became the way she is. I-I was stupid, and young, and emotional. I-I was the one who forced her down that path. I was brash and selfish, I made mistakes and-and… she was the one who had to clean it all up. I did something stupid and she had to force herself down the path of the Void to fix it.”
He felt the clothes on his back become moist with tears.
“A-Arden… what no one will tell you about it… It wasn’t my sister’s fault it was destroyed. It was me. My sister, Estelle, she-... she was nothing but a saint. She was the kindest, strongest person I’ve ever known. She saved my life a thousand times, she’d given me everything I’ve ever known in exchange for nothing but her own pain and- and…”
She wailed into his back.
“I couldn’t repay her. Not once. Not a single time. All I could give her… was her madness and a life in chains, and the weight of a million innocent lives on her back.”
“She sounds like she was a good person.”
“SHE IS A GOOD-”
“…”
“…”
“I-I’m sorry… for shouting.”
“No, it’s alright. Why don’t you tell me about her, Estelle, what kind of person was she?”
Luna sniffled again.
“We-we aren’t biological sisters. H-honestly, I don’t know much about her childhood. She was nine years old when we first met. I-I was just a nameless orphan at the time. Some shady orphanage picked me up and I was going to be sold to some people who in retrospect I think were slavers. T-that was when I first met Estelle. She…”
She sniffled one final time, a warm smile rising on her lips as she lost herself in fond memories of the past.
“She wasn’t another kid at the orphanage or anything. She was just a random girl who happened to see what was going on. Just the wrong person at the wrong time. She’d never seen me and I’d never seen her. She had no reason to pay any attention, b-but still…”
Luna closed her eyes, clutching tightly onto Albus’s warm back, the shape of the figure in front of her changing.
A small child, barely bigger than her despite being double her age. Her hair was dirty, but not even the mud could hide the dazzling gold beneath it.
She seemed to be flying away with her, like she was running on the wind itself.
“She saved me.”