The claw was still inside him.Dante could feel it, the thing's bone hooked through his chest and scraping against his spine, and the world was going sideways in slow, ugly lurches. Blood filled the back of his throat. He tried to breathe and got copper instead of air."Dante!" Lucia's voice was somewhere above him, cracked down the middle. "No, no, no, don't close your eyes. Look at me. Dante, look at me!"He tried. He really did. But his vision was draining like water through a cracked glass and everything was turning into shapes without edges, sounds without sources. The sky above him was still torn open, still bleeding that wrong red, and somewhere in the distance more of them were coming. More teeth. More hunger.So this is how it ends. On the side of a road, with nothing to show for any of it.Then his blood stopped falling.He felt it before he saw it. The warmth leaving his chest just stopped, like someone had pressed pause on his dying. The drops that had been running down hi

"Do you have any idea what you put me through?"Gianna's voice cracked on the last word. She was sitting in the plastic chair beside his bed, gripping both of his hands like she could keep him alive through pressure alone, and her eyes were swollen from a night of crying that clearly hadn't stopped just because he'd woken up. Morning light came through the hospital window in pale strips, catching the gray in her hair that Dante didn't remember seeing before."Mamma, I'm okay.""You are not okay. You were dead. The doctors told me your heart stopped twice on the operating table. Twice, Dante. I sat in that hallway for six hours and nobody could tell me if my son was going to open his eyes again." Her grip tightened until his knuckles ached. "And then I find out you ran toward those things? You ran toward D-rank Blightbearers with no power, no weapon, no nothing?""I had a reason.""Your reason is sitting on that couch and she's just as stupid as you are." Gianna shot a look at Lucia, w

The glass doors slid open and the floor beneath his feet was transparent, thick glass over streams of blue and violet energy that rippled and pulsed like something alive was running through the veins of the building itself. Holographic panels bloomed across the walls, floating directories and welcome messages in white text rotating slowly in the air.Dante followed the signs to New Awakened Registration.The hall was massive. Hundreds of people stood in neat lines stretching from numbered booths at the far wall all the way back to where he was standing. Some of them looked dazed, blinking too much, touching their own hands like they weren't sure their bodies still belonged to them. Fresh awakenings. Others moved with the polished confidence of people who'd been preparing for this their whole lives, flanked by coaches and managers in expensive suits who spoke into phones and carried tablets like this was a business deal, not a registration.Dante joined a line and let his mind work.Ho

The quiet in his room felt wrong.Not peaceful. Not restful. The kind of quiet that sits on your chest and waits for you to close your eyes so it can fill your head with every thought you've been avoiding. Downstairs, Lucia was washing dishes, the faint clinking of plates and running water coming through the floor like a lullaby meant for someone who could actually sleep. Gianna had the television on in the living room, volume barely above a whisper, probably already half asleep in the armchair with her tea going cold on the side table.Dante lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling and waited for exhaustion to do its job. It didn't. His body was tired in ways he couldn't name, but his mind was a dog that wouldn't stop pacing. The Tower. Ten impossible floors. A Celestial Domain where humans were hated. Limits that were supposed to be permanent. A class that didn't exist in any known system. Two skills designed to kill, both locked for three months.He sat up and pulled his old laptop

Rain whispered against the car windows. Streetlights flickered past in rhythm, casting shadows across their faces before erasing them just as quickly.Dante sat with his hands buried in his pockets. The velvet seat beneath him felt wrong, too soft, too expensive, like sitting on something that didn't belong to people who lived in apartments with cracked tiles and second-hand furniture.Gia rested her elbow on the window, fingers touching cold glass. Her expression was flat, unreadable, the kind of face that gave away nothing and asked for everything. The driver said nothing. The engine hummed so quietly it barely existed.She broke the silence without turning her head."When did you awaken?""Two days ago.""Two days." Her fingers tapped once against the glass. "And you're already looking into the Tower. Most people spend their first week celebrating. Posting pictures. Telling everyone they know. You went straight to work.""I don't have time to celebrate.""Nobody your age says that.