~LaurentRaka laughed. Not the mocking kind people use when they know they’re safe — the desperate kind, built to mask fear. His voice bounced off the ruined walls. “You think you can win?” he said. “Look around, Laurent Draven. You’re outnumbered. And last I checked…” He tilted his head, grin spreading, “you’re just an E-rank.”The shifters behind him hissed in unison, eager for the command.Raka’s hand sliced through the air. “Kill him.”Four of them lunged at once, limbs blurring in the dim light — too fast for the eye to follow.My blade was already moving before their claws reached me.Ereval sang through the air, a single, fluid sound — the kind that didn’t break so much as erase. A flicker of red light trailed behind the arc, blooming a heartbeat later into a line of severed heads thudding to the floor.Their bodies stumbled forward without them, twitching as blood fountained in silent rhythm.Ereval’s edge glowed faintly, dripping scarlet.I turned to Raka, my head down, my vo

~Omniscient POVThe house was silent except for the sound of breathing that wasn’t hers.Ciela lay motionless on the floor, the faint rise and fall of her chest almost too shallow to see. Kendrix knelt beside her, every few seconds brushing the hair from her face, whispering something that didn’t quite reach words.Behind him, Denzel stood with his arms crossed, face unreadable. “Stay with her,” he said. “Don’t let anyone in. I’ll be back.”“First Laurent. Now you,” Kendrix looked up. “Where are you going? Shouldn’t you be here with her?”“To her father.” Denzel’s voice was clipped, already halfway gone.Kendrix didn’t utter another word as Denzel walked away. The door closed behind him with a hollow thud that carried farther than it should have.–––Denzel moved through the street, his boots steady against the stone. Street lamps spilled long pools of yellow light that bent and broke around him.He didn’t rush. He never rushed. But his pulse betrayed him.The Ardent mansion loomed ah

~KendrixThey say time doesn’t stop for anyone.Turns out, that includes people lying in comas.Two days had passed since the night everything fell apart—Ciela, still unmoving in that hospital bed, machines breathing for her; Laurent, gone without a trace. No note, no message, not even a whisper from Denzel about where he might’ve gone.So, yeah. Life moved on. Classes resumed, tournaments restarted, and the Academy acted like the world hadn’t tilted off its axis.Me? I needed a distraction. I needed noise.That’s how I found myself standing in the center of this arena again.The roar of the crowd filled the stadium—thousands of voices layered over each other, waves of heat and excitement rolling through the air. Dust lifted from the sand-covered ground as combatants from earlier fights left behind the smell of sweat, steel, and burnt mana.“Next match!” The referee’s voice boomed, magically amplified. “Titan System—B rank—versus Necromancy System—B rank!”The crowd screamed louder.I

~KendrixThe ride felt longer than it was.Ardent’s car hummed over the road, quiet except for the faint rumble of the mana engine and the rhythmic sweep of the wipers. Night pressed against the tinted glass, the city lights sliding by in blurred streaks of white and gold. Denzel sat to my left, elbow against the window, face unreadable.I watched the reflection of Ardent in the rearview mirror. His eyes didn’t move from the road.We hadn’t spoken since leaving the arena. The silence sat heavy.Halfway through the trip, he finally broke it.“How long have you known her?” His tone was casual on the surface, but every word carried weight.I didn’t have to ask who he meant. “Ciela?”“Yes.”“A few months,” I said. “Feels like longer.”Ardent hummed like that answer wasn’t enough. “And you’d do anything for her?”I hesitated, then nodded once. “If I have to.”He turned the wheel, voice flat. “Good.”The word landed with the finality of a verdict. I didn’t know what he meant yet, but it did

~Kendrix We stayed in that lab until the lights went flat and the hum in the walls felt like it might be the only thing left alive. When Ardent left, he took the projection with him—literal evidence of what he’d done—but the map and the seed of his plan had stuck to the air between Denzel and me like a stain. Before we went hard at it, Denzel insisted we get the facts straight. No heroics, no stunts. Only facts. That was his thing — quiet certainty. My thing was usually “smash first, ask questions later,” but I’d learned the hard way not to do that with people who could rearrange your bones with a flick of their finger. We sat back down at the black table. The screens were dark; the only light came from the thin veins of conduit overhead and the reflection where the projection had been. “So what’s the play?” I asked. I pushed my knuckles against the glass because thinking felt better when my hands did something. Denzel tapped a rhythm on his knee with two fingers. “We don’t walk