The Awakened Arcane Legacy

Who Will Save Them?

After a while, he managed to stand up. He sobbed bitterly, as not having parents had always been a challenging burden for him. He had never experienced the privileges that children with parents enjoyed.

He surveyed his small shanty, now distorted from its usual shape. Clutching his stomach, the rumbling noise it made was audible.

Desperate, he searched for somewhere to find his next meal. Suddenly, a black hover van appeared out of nowhere. Strange, bulky men wearing masks emerged from the vehicle.

They approached Talon with the intention of taking him. “Hey! Please… I’m…” Talon tried to speak, but they swiftly covered him with a black sack, sedated him, and loaded him into the van before speeding away.

There had been recent cases of missing children, but the alliance did not take it seriously. They had no concern for the low-born.

A mysterious organization conducted research on children aged ten to twelve. Their sole purpose is to find a way to ascertain the Divine Virtues even though the individuals don’t believe in God.

Talon never imagined that after the horrifying ordeal he had just experienced, he would encounter something even worse.

Talon found himself in a room that was entirely white. The room was covered in some kind of foam material that insulated sound.

There was a transparent glass in the room. Talon, lying on the ground, felt a slight headache. The only thing he could remember was being captured by some men.

Then, as he looked towards the corner, he saw a boy who was likely his age. The boy was wearing rags like him and appeared even thinner.

Talon, weak but determined, summoned all his strength to stand up and tried to reach the transparent glass. He moved his hands towards the glass, but the boy sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and his hands holding his legs spoke up.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t do that,” said the boy, causing Talon’s hands to pause in the air for a moment.

Talon turned to stare at the boy, considering his words as a joke and not taking them seriously. Ignoring the warning, he immediately touched the glass and was taken aback by a powerful electric shock that vibrated through his whole body. “I told you… Those glasses are voltaic charged,” added the boy.

Talon, now on the floor due to the electric shock, stayed there for a few minutes before standing up again and moving towards the glass once more.

“I can see you’re the hot-headed type,” the boy said to Talon as he observed him. “I’m not a fool…” Talon temporarily responded, peering through the glass with his head to catch a glimpse of the environment they were in.

Talon noticed that the structure he was in was replicated for another kid opposite, adjacent, and sideways. The entire hallway was filled with identical cells, each holding no more than two children.

Talon recognized many of them as kids from the safe zone. They appeared malnourished, just like him, and wore expressions of sadness.

“How did I get here? Where is this place? Why are we here?” Talon asked, surprised, as he stared at the boy beside him.

“By the looks of it, you should know that we are prisoners here. And if you take a closer look at everyone, you’ll see they are all from the Safe Zone.

Those who are high-born wouldn’t be here because their environment is more secure. And rest assured, no one is coming to save us here. We are as good as dead,” the boy said, casually picking his nails.

The world had two distinct kinds of people: the high-born and the low-born. The names imply what they stand for.

The high-born are those who live in big cities that are not war zones, while the low-born are those who live in war zones, which the demons are about to conquer.

“We will be tested by them,” he added.

“Who are them?” Talon was surprised as he stared at the boy.

“They are… them!” the boy said, pointing at some men wearing lab coats. Talon’s gaze followed the direction of the boy’s finger, and he saw them too.

The men used their handprints to open the doors of the cell opposite them, causing the little boys inside to cry and scream.

Talon’s curiosity about what they wanted to use the children for was interrupted as the boy broke the silence. “They are going to test them. If we are fortunate enough to pass the test, we would be trained for three years. But after that, we might as well end up being dead.

I’ve been here for quite some time, and I can tell you that no one has ever returned alive. So all of us here are just waiting to be killed,” the boy said, his tone becoming somber.

“How do you know about all this?” Talon asked the boy.

“I was able to gather the information from the cleaner here. We’re close because I helped him out back in the safe zone,” the boy replied.

“But if you have a connection with him, why didn’t he get you out of here?” Talon inquired further.

“He can’t do that because he doesn’t have access to the cells. The cells require handprints from the scientists in charge. The only way out is to defeat the scientists, who are highly skilled Artificers ranked A-Class,” the boy explained, emphasizing the difficulty of the situation.

Talon pondered for a moment, realizing the challenges they faced.

“I still think we should try to find a way to escape. Perhaps some of the Awakened children here possess abilities that could help us,” he suggested, holding onto hope.

“That would also be impossible because each cell has a Divine Sentinel Dampener, and the only class that wouldn’t be affected by the dampener is the S-Class.

And you know that nobody in this entire cell holds that rank. We simply have to wait for our fate, as it ultimately depends on God.”