The arena reeked of ozone and fresh blood as I stood on the cracked marble platform with thousands of eyes pressing down on me. Holographic screens floated throughout the vast circular chamber, displaying student names alongside the majestic silhouettes of the beasts they had summoned. A phoenix wrapped in living flame circled above one platform, casting flickering orange light across the stands. A storm serpent crackled with raw lightning, its scales shimmering like liquid mercury. Even a lesser void wraith earned approving nods from the senior instructors seated along the raised dais.Central Beast Academy occupied several blocks in the heart of New York, where towering skyscrapers blended with ancient rune-etched spires. Here, strength decides everything: your rank, your future, your very right to exist in the upper echelons of society. Today decided my entire future, and I had spent years training in the hope that this moment would finally tip the scales in my favor. I had memoriz

The laughter from the arena still clung to me as I moved through the academy corridors, but I refused to let it show on my face. I kept my pace steady and my expression blank, weaving between clusters of celebrating students who displayed their newly bonded beasts with open pride. A girl laughed as her water elemental danced around her shoulders in shimmering arcs. A boy boasted loudly about his iron-horned rhino that could shatter concrete with a single charge. Their voices carried the easy confidence of those whose futures had just been handed to them.I slipped past them like a ghost until a familiar voice cut through the noise near the central atrium.“Look who decided to crawl out of whatever hole they threw him in,” Marcus Vale called out, loud enough for the growing crowd to hear. His newly bonded flame lynx lounged at his feet, tail flicking lazily while its eyes glowed with inner heat. “The F-rank wondered himself. Tell me, Drax, did your egg even bother to pretend before it

I sat alone in the outer dorm long after midnight, the cheap new keycard still resting in my palm like a final verdict. The room was smaller and colder than anything I had known before, its thin walls carrying every burst of distant laughter from the upper levels where students celebrated their perfect awakenings and bright futures. Each joyful sound scraped against me, a reminder that my own path had narrowed to this forgotten corner of the academy.Selene’s cold dismissal still echoed in my mind, along with Lina’s tears and the official’s flat reassignment order. Everything I had built, every quiet hope I had allowed myself to hold, had been stripped away in a single afternoon because one egg had cracked the wrong way.The last tiny shard from the egg lay on the cracked floor where I had dropped it earlier. It looked like a piece of midnight given solid form, and the cold presence inside my chest pulsed stronger now, no longer simple discomfort but something alive, patient, and unmi

The logistics office smelled of stale coffee and old paper, a mundane contrast to the humming runes that lined the walls. I stood in front of the clerk’s desk while he scrolled through my reassignment file on his tablet, his expression one of bored disdain. The man barely looked up as he spoke.“Support duties, Drax. Cleaning the lower training halls after sessions, running errands for ranked students, inventory checks in the beast supply wing. Nothing glamorous. You start tomorrow at dawn. Don’t be late, and don’t cause any more trouble than you already have.”I took the tablet he slid across the counter, scanning the long list of degrading tasks. Sweeping up shattered training dummies. Fetching fresh meat for higher-ranked tamers’ beasts. Scrubbing blood and scorch marks from the floors where real students proved their worth. It was designed to remind me of my place or rather, my lack of one.Behind my eyes, Nyxar stirred with dark amusement. “They give you scraps and expect gratitu

The lower training hall stretched out before me like a battlefield long after the war had ended. Dim rune-lights cast long shadows across the scarred floor, where dried blood and scorch marks told stories of yesterday’s triumphs and failures. The air still carried the faint metallic tang of magic and sweat. I stood in the center with the mop in my hands, the crate of cleaning supplies forgotten at my feet.This was supposed to be my new reality scrubbing the evidence of other people’s power while they climbed higher.Instead, it felt like the perfect stage.I closed my eyes and reached inward. Nyxar responded instantly, his presence wrapping around my thoughts like cool, possessive silk.“Show me,” I whispered.“Gladly,” he replied, his voice rich with dark amusement. “Fear has a name now, Lucien. And that name is ours.”The shadows in the corners of the hall stirred. They did not simply move they answered. Thin tendrils rose from the floor like smoke given life, slithering across the