~CielaThe training room smelled faintly of metal, chalk, and effort. My breath fogged faintly in the cold air each time I exhaled. It was a Saturday, which meant the place was almost empty — no shouts, no thuds of sparring pairs. Just the echo of my own movements and the low hum of the lighting.I lifted my hand, palm out. The barbell on the rack trembled, then lifted cleanly into the air, plates rattling against each other. My system’s pulse synced with my heartbeat — steady, sharp. The bar floated above me, gleaming faintly under the ceiling lights. I tightened my focus, beads of sweat sliding down my temple.“Steady,” I murmured to myself.I rotated my wrist slightly. The bar tilted, balanced at an impossible angle, before dropping down toward the floor. I caught it with my mind and froze it midair, the metal groaning softly. My psychokinesis wasn’t strong enough yet to manipulate heavier objects for long, but I could feel the edges of that limit stretching. If I pushed just a lit

~Omniscient POVThe air inside the cavernous room thickened with silence.Ivelle’s throat clicked as she tried to form a sentence. “I–I was just—uh—I got lost!” Her laugh came out strangled. “T-the crates all look the same, so I just… wandered in.”The hulking monster before her didn’t blink. His eyes gleamed red, pupils thin as blades. “You’re unauthorised. You can’t be in here.” he growled, voice like gravel scraping metal. “You’ll have to come with me.”He stepped closer. The ground trembled with each stride. Ivelle’s tail curled around her leg, panic rising. Her lips parted, ready to scream—The ceiling above them cracked.With a deafening crash, two figures dropped through the dust and smoke. Laurent landed in a perfect crouch, shadows curling from his boots. Denzel slammed down chest-first beside him with a grunt that echoed.“Ugh! That’s going to be a bruise,” Denzel muttered, rolling over. Then he caught sight of the monster. “Oh.”Laurent straightened, cloak swaying. His eyes

~LaurentThe air inside Denzel’s house buzzed faintly with mana. What was left of the ceiling lights flickered overhead as blue arcs crawled across the crate, wrapping it in a shimmer that looked like static trapped under glass.Silas knelt in front of it, sleeves rolled to the elbows, chalk dust coating his fingers. His hair stuck up in odd directions, eyes bright with a kind of nervous excitement that made me slightly uneasy.“Alright,” he muttered, drawing another sigil on the floorboards. “If this works, the magic from the crate should respond to the mana circuit and form a line to its sister enchantments.”Denzel stood beside me with his arms crossed. “And if it doesn’t?”“Then we start again.” Silas grinned, too cheerful for what we were doing.Ivelle crouched beside him, watching the glowing lines snake outward. “You can do it,” she said. “It looked like it was working that time.”“It looked like it,” Denzel echoed dryly.Silas ignored him. He pressed his palm against the edge

~Omniscient POVThe creature lunged before either of them could breathe. Its mouth tore open in a scream that didn’t sound like a human’s — too raw, too jagged. Claws glinted in the lamplight as it came for Ciela, fast and low, every muscle coiled for the kill.Kendrix moved first.His arm shot out, catching the thing mid-charge. The slap landed like a thunderclap. The half-monster flew sideways, crashed into the alley wall hard enough to leave a crater, and slumped into the rubble with a low, broken laugh.“Stay behind me,” Kendrix said, voice calm but heavy. “I’ll handle this.”The figure staggered upright, bones cracking into place. It grinned through split lips, eyes flickering between human brown and a ghostly white. “Help me,” it whispered — then the voice warped. “Kill you.”The air dropped a degree. Shadows along the walls began to move.Thin, spectral hands crawled out from the cracks — translucent, shaking, some too small, some too long. Their shapes shimmered with violet li

~LaurentThe moment those words left its mouth — I see you — something in my chest snapped tight.It wasn’t supposed to be possible. No one, not even a Saint-tier tracker, could pierce Shadow Cloak. I was invisible to light, mana, scent, even heat. Yet those red eyes were fixed exactly where I stood, unblinking, amused.A low hum rippled through the air, then my system flared in warning:[Danger: S-Rank Adversary Detected]My stomach dropped.Before I could retreat, the thing blurred. One heartbeat it was standing inside the shattered cage, the next it was in front of me. I thought I was fast but the way this thing moved was too fast for me to track.Its hit came like a hammer through air — a backhand that I didn’t even see coming. My ribs folded, the world tilting sideways as I slammed into the stone wall hard enough to crack it. My invisibility shattered, Shadow Cloak winking out in a burst of black mist.Pain bit through my body, but training forced me upright.He stood there, calm