The holographic board had vanished as silently as it appeared, leaving a hollow that crowded his chest with each breath. He forced himself to sit, the weight of the token in his palm suddenly unbearably real. More text had followed on that screen—mission details, equipment notes, fallback clauses—and Ronan had read every line with a mounting sense that he was already dead. Somehow, though, he reached the end, numb, and rose with his two new teammates so the next batch of candidates could enter for their briefing.
"Hold," the masked man—Darius—said, voice low and practical. "Before any of you run off to imagine glory or die on a whim, there's one thing I need to explain about that mission."
His words stopped the three about to leave. They listened as Darius outlined the impossible question on everyone's lips: how could three ordinary unawakened people be expected to take down a six-star beast tamer?
