The message came two hours after the championship ceremony ended. "All tournament finalists report to Conference Room Seven immediately. Bring identification. Come alone." Miko stared at the official notice that had been slipped under his door. His team gathered around him, reading over his shoulder. "That's weird," Akiya said. "Why would they want just the competitors?" "And why come alone?" Anna added, her healer instincts picking up on the ominous tone. "Something's up," Liam muttered, already pulling out his tablet to research Conference Room Seven. "This room is in the secure wing of the academy. High-level meetings only." Miko folded the notice and put it in his pocket. "Guess I'll find out." "We're coming with you," Akiya said immediately. "The notice says come alone." "Since when do you follow rules?" Miko smiled at that. "Since they might involve my friends getting in trouble. Stay here. I'll be back soon." The walk to Conference Room Seven took him through parts o

The competitors couldn't stop talking about it.Even after splitting up to their own rooms, they kept finding excuses to gather again. In the dining hall, in study lounges, in the training rooms. Nobody wanted to be alone with their thoughts about what was coming."I keep reading these documents, hoping they'll make more sense," Zoe said, stabbing at her lunch. "But they just get more terrifying.""Did you see the part about 'temporal displacement events'?" Bertha asked. "What does that even mean?""Time moving wrong," Liam answered, not looking up from his tablet. "Like you go in for a day and come out to find a week has passed. Or the opposite.""The opposite?" Cabin looked confused."You spend a week inside, but only an hour passes in the real world.""That's impossible.""So is dual manifestation," Samson said again. "We need to stop saying things are impossible."They'd been having variations of this conversation for two days now. The shock was wearing off, replaced by a mix of e

Somewhere in the city, Aria's room was too quiet.She sat on her bed, staring at her laptop screen for the twentieth time today. The video was paused on the moment Miko's body had split into dual aspects - ash on one side, fire on the other. The moment he'd stopped hiding what he really was."Incredible," she whispered to herself, then immediately felt embarrassed for talking out loud.She'd been watching tournament footage for three days straight. Not the official broadcasts - those focused too much on commentary and crowd reactions. She'd gotten the raw camera feeds, the ones that showed every detail of Miko's transformation.The way his eyes had glowed when the ash element fully manifested. The confidence in his voice when he'd stopped pretending to be normal. The raw power that had shattered a Church weapon with a single punch.She pressed play again, watching him demolish Samson like it was nothing. Her chest tightened with something she didn't want to name."You're pathetic," sh

Miko was checking his gear for the third time when his door burst open."Guess what!" Akiya practically bounced into the room, waving an official document. "We're coming with you!""What?"Anna stepped forward with a huge smile. "Official invitation to join the Keth'mor Expedition. All four of us."Miko stared at the papers they were shoving in his face. Imperial seals, signatures from General Voss, everything looked legitimate."How?" he asked."Don't ask questions," Liam grinned. "Just be happy we get to watch your back in hell.""They said the expedition needed support personnel," Aria added, though something in her voice suggested there was more to the story. "Healers, tactical analysts, communication specialists.""And general badasses," Akiya finished.For the first time in days, Miko felt genuinely happy. He'd been dreading the idea of going into the Abyss without his team, leaving them behind while he faced unknown dangers with people he barely knew."This is incredible," he s

The landscape changed after they left the giant territory behind.Where the red stone plateau had been harsh but predictable, this new region felt like walking through a fever dream. The ground shifted between solid rock and something that looked like crystallized shadow. Trees grew upside down with their roots reaching toward the purple sky. In the distance, structures that might have been buildings flickered in and out of existence."This place makes my head hurt," Cabin said, rubbing his temples. "It's like trying to focus on something that doesn't want to be seen.""Reality distortion," Liam explained, consulting his instruments. The readings were going crazy. His compass spun wildly before settling on directions that shouldn't exist. "The deeper we go, the less stable everything becomes.""Define unstable," Zoe asked, then immediately got her answer when she tried to create a water barrier. Instead of flowing normally, the water moved in slow spirals that defied gravity, eventual