2026-07-14 20:28:51The factory horn blasted through the streets.
Once.
Twice.
Then a third time. The final call. The doors began to close slowly.
“No… please not yet!”
Eryx Varyn shoved through the crowd of workers filling into the iron gates, his boots slipping over loose stones as shoulders crashed into him from every direction.
“Move boy!”
Someone elbowed him hard enough to make him fall but he immediately steadied himself. Another cursed as he stumbled into their path, sweat dripping down his face.
Eryx had his eyes fixed on the narrowing gap between the closing gates, not noticing the looks of contempt on the workers’ faces as he walked passed them.
Please… let me make it.
This was the last factory in the Lower District still accepting applications this seasons. If they rejected him… he would have nowhere to go.
His brothers had made that painfully clear to him before he left that morning.
“Come back empty handed and don’t bother coming home at all.”
That memory seemed to shove more strength into him.
“I’m here!” He shouted, waving the worn-out application clutched in his trembling and sweaty hands. “Please wait!”
The gears groaned as the massive gates slowed just enough for him to squeeze through before they shut behind him with a deafening clang!
Eryx bent over, hands against his knees as he closed his eyes fighting to steadying his breathing.
“I… I made it.”
A shadow fell on him. A deep husky voice followed.
“You almost didn’t.”
Eryx looked up.
The gate guard stood over him, broad shouldered and middle aged, studying him with tired eyes rather than the disgust and contempt others had showed to him before.
For a brief moment, hope flickered. Perhaps, today would be different?
“Application?” The guard drawled out.
Eryx quickly handed over the folded document along with the fading identification badge hanging around his neck.
The guard reached for the badge first and within that instant, his expression changed. His eyes lingered on the almost faded black stamp on the metal.
DEAD PULSE.
He looked back at Eryx, pity in his gaze as he sighed quietly.
“So you are one of them?”
Knowing what he meant, Eryx lowered his head. This was a pattern. They found out what he really is and they send him away. The hope that he had instantly fizzled out.
After a long moment of silence, the guard returned the badge.
“You have been turned away before.”
Eryx gave a small nod. “Twenty four times.”
The words tasted like bile as he spoke. The guard stared at him for a few beats before asking.
“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”
Eryx blinded, confusion etched on his face. No one had ever asked him that before.
“I have no choice,” he answered after a long pause. “If I don’t earn my food, I will starve.”
His hands tightened around his badge, eyes filled with determination.
“I want to stop being a burden.”
Something in the guard’s face softened. He had seen several applicants like him, struggling to survive but the world was cruel, very cruel especially to people like Eryx.
“The office is down the hall,” the guard said before slowly lowering his voice. “I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but don’t get your hopes too high.”
Eryx gave an appreciative nod and smiled.
“Thank you.”
The guard watched him walk away while shaking his head.
He already knew how this would end. He had seen it way too many times.
…
“Next!”
The application office buzzled with quiet conversations. Everyone had hopeful gazes on as they watched the clerk. Some began to discuss excitedly about wages.
Others discussed about which workshop they wished to join. In all of this, Eryx say alone not like he wanted to but immediately one of them took a glance at his badge, they scurried away.
“Number thirty eight!”
One applicant stood up and walked straight to the clerk, handing in his application letter.
A few minutes later, the soft slap of a stamp on the paper echoed.
“Accepted.”
Soft cheers erupted.
“Number thirty nine?”
The same happened.
“Accepted!”
Hope instantly swelled inside Eryx’s chest again, he had shoved the guard’s advice to the back of his head. Today will be different.
Maybe…
Just maybe…
“Forty one?”
Eryx stood up quickly, his heart rapidly beating in his chest as he walked forward.
“That’s… that’s me,” he stuttered.
The clerk barely looked up at him before saying, “Application?”
Eryx placed his application in the clerk’s hands, watching with anticipation and anxiety as he walked him read through it.
His pulse quickened.
For the first time in months, someone was actually reading his application!
The clerk nodded once, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes.
“You have worked the docks?”
“Only unloading deliveries, sir.”
The clerk gave a small nod before turning the page.
“You can read?”
“Enough to follow maintenance manuals.”
That response earned him another nod. Eryx’s face brightened up.
Maybe today was his lucky day.
The clerk finished reached the final page and his eyes stopped. He glanced up slowly at the identification badge hanging around Eryx’s neck.
His face instantly darkened slightly with disgust.
“Dead pulse!”
His words echoed inside the office, others immediately stopped their bickering and stared up at them.
The clerk instantly tore the application into shreds. The sound was like a knife stabbed into Eryx’s heart as he watched the clerk discard his application into the dustbin.
“You didn’t even read my application to the end,” Eryx said, trying to stop his voice from breaking.
The clerk raised a brow in annoyance. “Get out of here kid. We don’t need someone like you. You all bag of bones and with Dead Pulse effect, what good could you be of around here? You would be a liability. Get lost!”
Around them, dozens of applicants stood in a line. Some avoided looking at Eryx like he was a plague while others openly stared and smirked.
The words seemed to stab deep into Eryx’s heart, but he had no other place to go.
“I can carry loads,” he pleaded, his eyes glistening with tears. “I can clean equipment. I can work longer hours if necessary. You don’t have to pay me the same as everyone else.”
He received nothing but silence.
“Half is enough.”
The clerk slammed his palm hard against the desk.
“Ain’t you listening to me? You can’t even circulate enough mana to be able to activate the factory tools!”
“I will find a way.”
“Find somewhere else! Security!!!”
Someone in the line forcibly shoved Eryx away and he almost landed on his face. He bit back the bile in his throat as he walked towards the gates.
Outside, machines were roaring to life while the workers worked tirelessly.
Eryx pursed his lips in disappointment as he stared at his empty hands which had once held his application.
Twenty five.
Twenty five factories.
Twenty five rejections.
He let out a shaky breath and turned away, dread knotting in his stomach.
What would his family do to him now?
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108
The suppression cuffs dug into Lira's wrists, cold and heavy, blocking the spirit-fire in her veins.Commander Vane marched three paces behind her, one hand resting on the brass pommel of his long blade. Six grey-coated Rift Trackers surrounded them, their lead-lined cloaks moving through the dark, fog-covered trunks of the southern ash-woods.In Vane's left hand, the brass compass glowed in the dim light. Its violet needle pulsed in a steady rhythm that seemed to match every beat of Lira's heart."Focus your mind, girl," Vane growled, his rough voice cutting through the rustling leaves. "If the needle flickers because you're trying to suppress the blood resonance, I'll have my men break your fingers one by one."Lira didn't look back. She kept her chin raised, her eyes cold, and her boots sinking into the wet black soil with every step.Let them hold the brass, Lira thought, her jaw tightening beneath her bruised skin. Let them follow the needle.She knew how the paired-bond compass
107
The Vanguard Academy was silent, save for the rhythmic metallic clicking of the projection array mounted atop the Spire of Order.Thousands of students, nobles, and junior instructors stood shoulder to shoulder across the cold marble plaza. No one spoke or cheered. A suffocating dread hung over the crowd as the massive blue spirit-lens projected the recovered memory crystal's contents onto the white stone face of the central tower.The footage was shaky but clear.It showed the narrow, fog-covered entrance to the Devil’s Trench. It captured the exact moment Lieutenant Vane’s gilded spear snapped like a dry twig. It showed Eryx, barefoot and drenched in blood, his chest covered in jagged scars, taking down twelve fully armed lieutenants with frightening efficiency.Then came the part that made even the hardened third-year instructors turn away in disgust.The lens zoomed in on Drogo. The massive shadow dragon didn't simply kill the marsh drakes. It pinned them against the granite roc
106
The evening wind was cold, leaving the Devil’s Trench in a deadly silence.The six upper-house recruits drinking by the campfire weren’t alone. As the yellow dusk faded into darkness, six more figures dropped from the high cedar canopy, landing in their iron stirrups. Twelve lieutenants in silver-and-crimson cloaks formed a curved wall of steel across the narrow canyon exit, blocking the only path south toward the river delta.Their mid-tier marsh drakes lined the stone ledge, their scaled wings half-spread and their nostrils releasing thin streams of orange spirit-fire into the damp air.The lead lieutenant was a tall, broad-shouldered noble named Vane. He held a gilded dragon-killer spear in his gloved hand and urged his mount three paces forward. His silver breastplate gleamed in the torchlight, free of dents, rust, or blood.“Come out into the light, stray!” Vane shouted, his voice echoing off the granite walls. “We know you’re hiding in the ditch! The Directorate put three hundre
105
For seven days, the routine continued without a break. Every morning, before the yellow mist cleared from the high granite walls, Eryx dragged his broadsword through the narrow, sunless ravines, searching for the oldest and most territorial beasts in the unmapped reaches of the Outer Wilds. He never let Drogo strike first. He wouldn’t let the shadow dragon spread his wings or open his jaws until the steel had done its work.Eryx launched himself from the rock ledges with frightening precision. He severed the tendon of a mountain drake, shattered the jaw plate of an iron-scaled boar, and pinned each beast to the canyon floor with his bare hands and the weight of his broadsword.Only when the creature lay gasping and helpless in the mud would Eryx step back, wiping sweat and blood from his eyes.“Feed,” Eryx rasped, his voice low and firm.Drogo stepped out of the shadows. The dragon didn’t thrash or roar. He lowered his broad snout, clamped his jaws around the beast’s chest, tore out i
104
The cold wind carried the metallic stench of fresh spirit-drake gore. It clung to the damp air and mingled with wet stone.Eryx didn’t lower his broadsword. The cold steel tip remained planted two inches from the center of Drogo’s broad, obsidian-scaled snout. His chest heaved with shallow gasps, every rib aching, but his dark eyes held a desperate focus that did not waver.“Look at me,” Eryx rasped, his rough voice cutting through the canyon breeze. “Look at my eyes, Drogo.”The shadow dragon didn’t move. His dark-violet pupils remained locked on Lira, who stood ten paces back against a jagged wall, her hands clenched over her empty dagger sheaths. She had little room to retreat, and she knew it.Then, slowly, Drogo shifted his massive head back toward his rider.“We set the line again,” Eryx said, his voice dropping into a deliberate growl, carrying what remained of his authority despite his drained spirit-core. “Just like in the lower pens. Right now.”He gripped Drogo’s broad snou
103
Eryx and Lira stood alone amid the wreckage of the Hundred Wings. The basin was covered with the remains of high-house war drakes and shattered vanguard galleys. Iron breastplates lay split across the white soil, and torn reins moved in the damp wind. The bodies were still warm, sending thin plumes of grey mist into the freezing morning air.The wind carried ash across their faces, and every gust stirred the wreckage underfoot. Lira shifted her weight carefully, wincing when the cut on her jaw pulled. Her arms felt heavy from the fight, but she kept watching Eryx. She was too tired to run, and too frightened to turn her back on him. Even the distant sounds of retreat had done little to ease the fear pressing against her ribs.Far above the cloud line, the wild, unbonded dragons that had bowed their heads turned and vanished into the mist, their wings beating in a silent, eerie rhythm.Drogo kept moving.The shadow dragon passed from one fallen war drake to the next with slow, heavy st
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