The journey back to Ashenvale took three days, and I barely remember any of it.My body went through the motions of riding, eating, sleeping, but I felt disconnected from all of it, like I was watching someone else live my life while I floated in the vast emptiness that had consumed my core. The void had grown so large that it felt like I was the void now, a walking absence wearing flesh as a disguise.Aldric tried repeatedly to reach me, to spark some response beyond mechanical acknowledgment. But what could I say? That I'd traded my humanity for tactical value? That saving forty seven people had cost me the ability to care that I'd saved them?The words wouldn't come anyway. The void had swallowed language along with emotion.Commander Thane seemed pleased, which somehow made everything worse. "You've proven yourself invaluable," he said during our final night before reaching Ashenvale. "The Church will want to deploy you for similar situations. This was a major victory."Victory. I

The journey to Luminas took five days by carriage, traveling through increasingly civilized territory as we approached the kingdom's heart.Aldric spent most of the trip studying Academy materials, learning about professors and curriculum and the complex social hierarchy we were about to enter. I spent it staring out the window, watching the countryside transform into towns into cities, feeling nothing about the changing landscape except academic awareness that yes, things were different here than the frontier.Luminas itself was overwhelming in scope and grandeur. Where Ashenvale had been rough and practical, Luminas was elegant and intentional, every building positioned according to Script guided city planning, every street laid out in patterns meant to channel fate energy efficiently. The city literally hummed with divine power, thousands of Scripts overlapping and interweaving into a tapestry of destiny so complex it made my Error nature ache."First time in a major city?" Aldric

Classes began the following morning with a complexity that immediately highlighted the differences between Script blessed students and myself.Aldric's schedule was packed with courses designed to develop his Ultimate Victory Script into its full potential. Advanced Combat Theory, Script Integration Practices, Tactical Leadership, Historical Heroes Analysis, and Divine Order Studies filled his days from dawn until evening. He attended each class with dozens of other first years, all of them Script blessed, all of them certain of their places in the grand design.My schedule consisted of three entries. Morning combat practice, afternoon weapons maintenance, evening availability for any student requiring a sparring partner. I was a resource to be utilized, not a person to be educated."This is wrong," Aldric said, comparing our schedules over breakfast in the dining hall. "You should be in classes with me, learning the same material.""Why? I have no Script to develop, no tactical leade

Three weeks into the Academy term, Mira appeared at my window in the dead of night.I woke to the soft scraping of her knife against the lock, a sound so quiet anyone without my constant void enhanced awareness would have missed it completely. She slipped through the window like shadow made flesh, her Script of Silent Blade developing rapidly, turning her into the assassin destiny demanded she become."You shouldn't be here," I said without sitting up, voice flat in the darkness. "If you're caught in attached personnel quarters after hours, you'll face disciplinary action.""Good thing I won't be caught then." She sat on the edge of my narrow bed, close enough that I could see her face in the moonlight streaming through the window. "I came to see if there's anything left of you worth saving, or if the void finally won completely.""The void won the moment I absorbed corruption from forty seven people at Millbrook. This is just delayed recognition of that victory." I sat up, studying h

The knowledge from Scholar Davos's journal consumed my thoughts for days after discovering it, the void humming with possibilities I'd never considered before.I could absorb corruption because corruption was broken destiny, inverted Scripts that had nowhere else to go. But what about intact Scripts? What about the pure fate energy radiating from every blessed student walking through the Academy? Could I pull that in too, consume destinies themselves rather than just their corrupted remnants?The hunger grew stronger daily, the void stretching toward Script bearers with intensity I struggled to suppress. During combat practice, during weapons maintenance, during sparring sessions, I felt it reaching toward the fate energy surrounding me, wanting to test whether Elara's techniques could be replicated.I needed to experiment, but carefully, secretly, in ways that wouldn't immediately alert Professor Thrain or other security focused faculty. The Academy's Script bearers were too valuable