The sky opened around them like an endless sea of silk.
Kola didn't scream. He didn't even blink. Not because he was calm—but because his brain hadn't caught up yet. He simply stared as wind rushed around him and clouds swirled past like slow-moving ghosts.
Omegamon soared like a silver comet across the afternoon bright sky, a streak of white and red against the pale horizon. His wings were formed from data-light, invisible yet present—lifting him effortlessly through the upper reaches of Kendari's cloudy dome. In his massive palm sat Kola, Dian, and Oren, the little black cat pressed flat against Dian chest with wide, silent eyes.
Dian hadn't moved.
Her expression was frozen. Not terrified, but utterly stunned. Her mouth slightly parted. Her hands clutching the edge of Omegamon's finger plate. Her eyes wide open, not blinking, not breathing—a girl caught mid-freefa ll, even while seated.
Kola glanced sideways. The wind tugged gently at her hair. He could see the pulse in her neck. She wasn't okay—but at least she wasn't screaming.
He decided to give her space. Let her mind try to make sense of whatever this was.
Instead, he looked up.
"Omegamon," he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the wind. "What just happened? Who were those people?"
Omegamon didn't turn his head, but his voice responded like a calm drumbeat through the air.
"I do not know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"Their clothing. Their energy signature. The child's face. None of it appears in any recorded database. Not on local networks. Not in the archives. Not even in the global cloud. They are unknown."
Kola frowned. "So... they're not from this world?"
Omegamon hesitated.
"I am unsure. I have theories, but they are incomplete. What I do know is this: they are dangerous."
Kola let that sit for a moment.
Then he asked quietly, "Could you defeat them?"
Omegamon's voice lowered.
"Victory is not the only factor. The battle would not just be physical. It would mean exposure. Escalation. War, perhaps—and not just between men."
Kola swallowed hard.
"He mentioned a kingdom. Even an empire. What does that mean?"
"I fear," Omegamon said slowly, "that there is a larger world behind this than we were prepared to see."
Kola didn't answer. He looked out at the horizon.
The sky stretched endlessly in all directions. Below, the clouds glowed like lakes of sunlight. Far beneath those, the land was hidden—but he could just barely make out the gleam of rooftops, the curve of the Kendari coastline, and the glint of morning on distant waters.
It was beautiful.
The kind of beautiful that made you forget the ground existed. The kind that reminded you how small you were.
"Where are we going?" Kola asked.
Omegamon replied, "Take out your phone."
Kola pulled his cracked, secondhand phone from his pocket.
Omegamon lifted one glowing finger and tapped it gently. Light passed from fingertip to screen.
The phone vibrated once.
Then the screen changed.
A new interface had appeared—sleek, glowing, unfamiliar. There was a digital map now, overlaid with small glowing icons. Kola recognized a few of them immediately: his kost, the UHO campus, the twin trees.
Each was marked in blue. Each had a small glowing name attached. One dot was larger than the rest: "Omegamon." Two others: "Kola" and "Oren." Even Dian had a label now.
But there were red dots too.
Red dots blinking like blood.
"These," Omegamon said, "are hostile signatures. The ones from earlier."
Kola watched.
One by one, the red dots began to disappear.
"They're leaving," Kola said. "One by one."
"Which means," Omegamon answered, "that they are not acting alone. They move in formation. With precision. This is not a fluke. And that boy is the king."
Kola lowered the phone slowly.
"So what now?"
Omegamon didn't hesitate.
"We leave Sulawesi. I will continue scanning as we fly. We must find a location remote enough to remain hidden—for now."
Kola glanced once more at Dian.
She still hadn't said a word.
And Oren, faithful as ever, was curled in the crook of her arm, staring at the sky.
They flew on.
Into the wide clear sky.
...
The wind above the sea carried a strange kind of stillness.
They were far from Kendari now.
Far from the university. Far from the twin trees. Far from the child king and his masked soldiers.
Kola stood barefoot on the warm, sandy edge of Palabuhan Ratu beach, a stretch of coastline that folded itself gently between the sea and the land. The waves rolled in slow and low, carrying the scent of salt and fish and something older — something he couldn't name.
His phone, old and battered, buzzed weakly in his hand. 3:08 PM. Still January 6th.
It felt like a different world entirely.
Omegamon floated beside him in his smaller form, cape fluttering softly as he hovered a foot above the sand. He had explained — briefly — that they were now in West Java. Sukabumi, to be exact. Palabuhan Ratu. He'd flown them here as safely and quickly as he could, bypassing normal airspace and security radars using energy fields Kola didn't fully understand.
Now, with the wind brushing against his skin and the call of seagulls in the distance, Kola could almost believe this was a vacation. Almost.
Omegamon had cast a cloaking veil over them, enough to blur their presence from attention. Still, a few passersby looked around, frowning — as if they'd just sensed something strange and couldn't quite name it.
A cat in a cloth sling hung lazily from Dian's shoulder. Oren. Safe. Unbothered.
The plaza near the beachfront was slowly filling with people — families, vendors, teenagers on motorbikes with loud music. A small food cart clinked as it rolled over uneven pavement. Children laughed, chasing each other across the grass under the shade of coastal trees.
But the two of them — Kola and Dian — said nothing.
Dian stood at the edge of the sand, eyes fixed on the sea. The wind tugged gently at her hair.
Kola glanced toward her, uncertain. He took one step closer, slowly raising a hand to touch her shoulder.
Then her voice broke the silence.
"Was that real?"
Her voice wasn't loud. But it carried.
Kola paused. Lowered his hand.
He looked at her. Then looked out at the ocean. It was beautiful. Endless. The kind of beauty that didn't need explanation. The kind that should bring peace.
But nothing inside him felt peaceful.
"Yeah," he said finally. "It was real."
They stood like that for a while. Just breathing.
Laughter from a child burst behind them. The flap of sandals on stone. The rustle of palm leaves above.
But in Kola's eyes, the whole world felt like a dream.
A moment later, Dian spoke again.
"I… I think I've seen that thing before," she said.
Kola blinked. "What thing?"
"Omegamon, isn't it?" she said. "Years ago. My little brother watched that cartoon all the time. Digimon, right? White armor. Red cape. Giant sword and a cannon. I thought it was just some weird Japanese thing."
Kola gave a small laugh. "Yeah. That sounds about right."
"So why is it real?" Dian turned to him, her eyes wide. Not accusing. Just confused. "Why are we here? Why was there a boy with white hair threatening to kill you at campus? Why is there a Digimon flying us across the country?"
Kola couldn't answer right away.
His hand found its way to the back of his neck. He looked back at the sea.
"I don't know. I really don't."
He sat down slowly on the sand, letting the warmth seep through his jeans.
"It all started last night," he said. "I lost everything. Then Omegamon appeared out of nowhere. Like some kind of miracle. Then there were the twin mango trees. A hidden world. A garden full of treasure. Monsters. A sword. A grave. And now…"
He trailed off.
Dian crouched beside him, studying his face.
"And you just went with it?" she asked quietly.
Kola met her eyes.
He smiled. Tired. Honest.
"I didn't have a choice."
The sound of the waves answered them. The world, for now, held its breath.
The late afternoon sun hung low over Palabuhan Ratu, casting long shadows across the sand. A quiet breeze tugged at the waves, and the sea shimmered with fractured light. Children still played at the edge of the plaza, and vendors called out their final snacks of the day.
But something else stirred now.
Oren began to squirm in Dian's arms.
"Whoa—hold on, buddy," she murmured, but the cat twisted and leapt lightly to the ground. Without hesitation, it padded toward the shoreline.
"What is it?" Kola asked, watching the black cat make its way through the sand.
Omegamon hovered beside him. "He sees something. Something unusual."
Kola followed, leaving Dian behind momentarily, though she remained close, still nursing the weight of everything they'd been through.
Omegamon drifted ahead slightly, eyes narrowing. "I'm still scanning the campus," he said absently. "If all is stable, we can return tonight. I've tapped into the city's surveillance grid — CCTV, local signals."
Kola stopped in his tracks. "Wait… you can do that?"
Omegamon turned with a curious tilt of his head. "Of course I can."
Kola brought a hand to his forehead and groaned. "Then you can track the guys who stole my bag last night!"
There was a long pause.
Omegamon blinked. Then blinked again.
"Oh. That… yes, I could have done that."
Kola shot him a deadpan stare. "You forgot, didn't you."
"I may have been… distracted by dragons," Omegamon replied, rubbing his helmeted head.
Their attention snapped back as Oren let out a sharp meow.
He was standing at the edge of the waves now, ears perked forward, tail stiff. Something shimmered in the sand before him, half-buried and wet.
Kola approached.
Two things had washed ashore.
The first was a marble-sized sphere — glowing green, like it had swallowed the northern lights. Inside its glassy surface, patterns swirled like tiny galaxies. It pulsed with soft, calming light.
Next to it was a creature.
Small. Round. Blue and gelatinous, its transparent body jiggled like jelly as it tried to retreat from Oren's curious sniffing. It had two wide, shiny eyes — and a mouth that was now pulled into a panicked frown.
Kola squatted down. "What… is that?"
Omegamon landed beside him and looked closely.
"That's… Blumon. A lower-form life being. Not hostile. But not common in this region. It's from the deeper layers. I don't know how it got here."
Kola carefully picked up the green sphere. It felt warm — not hot — and surprisingly light. As he held it up to his face, the glow reflected in his eyes.
It was beautiful. Impossible. Like holding a piece of a forgotten sky.
He didn't notice Blumon crawl up his leg until it was thwacking his calf with tiny fists.
"Uh… Omegamon?"
"It seems… upset," the knight said. "Possibly territorial."
"You think?"
Dian caught up to them just as Kola tried shaking the gelatinous creature off his leg.
"That… what is that?" she asked, pointing at the wobbly blue being now attempting to scale Kola's jeans.
"This," Kola said, motioning between the marble and the creature, "is the weirdest beach day of my life."
Dian reached out and gently scooped Blumon into her hands.
The creature stopped struggling.
It blinked up at her.
She blinked down at it.
Then, curiously, it smiled.
There was something about the way it looked at her — as if it recognized her.
Kola stood beside her, still holding the green marble.
Behind them, the waves whispered. The sun dipped lower.
Above them, clouds began to gather.
And far, far away — in a room of white marble and silent flame — Kardias Salmenra Kaleostro III sat before a mirror of glass.
He watched the scene unfold.
And he whispered:
"So the next one has chosen already."