The land past the portal was not alive, not truly. It pulsed, yes, and groaned when you stepped wrong—but it didn't breathe like something living. It breathed like something waiting. Waiting for its next prey its next feast.
Hollow Vale stretched before them, a decayed forest of twisted trees and ash-colored vines. Fog clung to the ground in tendrils, licking at their boots like curious tongues. The sky hung overhead, an unmoving sheet of bruised gray. Even time felt wrong here. Stuck.
Cid walked ahead of the others without a word, hands tucked in his pants, white hair tousled by wind that shouldn't exist. He looked almost bored as if this was nothing of any vlue to him no fear , no recognition.
Iris trailed behind him, eyes wide, blade in hand. Leon led the flank, face tense, sword etched with fire runes at his side. Vaelra moved like a ghost, muttering quiet incantations under her breath, the sigils on her gloves pulsing faintly.
No one spoke.
Then the forest screamed.
A sound split the air—like a thousand mouths wailing at once. From the soil crawled things that should not be: beasts made of muscle and bone, eyeless, limbs too many and mouths too wide.
The ground cracked. Ten. Fifteen. More.
Leon shouted, "Formation!"
Cid didn't stop walking.
His voice was calm. "No need. Watch."
He exhaled—and the ground around him blackened. Spectral chains burst from his back, spinning in a circle of runes drawn in smoke and blood. A figure loomed behind him, skeletal, horned, wings spread in silence. It didn't speak. It hungered.
Cid whispered, "Unbind."
One of the beasts lunged. Cid raised his hand. It vanished midair—ripped from existence, soul and flesh pulled into one of the spinning chains, which glowed briefly before dulling again.
Iris shivered. The others flinched.
But Cid only smiled.
Everyone had a Cipher. It was more than just a spellcasting technique—it was a soul-forged engine, created during a binding ritual each student underwent when they entered the Academy. But the origin of Ciphers was not divine, nor natural. It was technological—arcane architecture rooted in a forgotten civilization that predated the empires by millennia.
The Ciphers were designed by ancient sorcerer-engineers, not to control magic—but to survive it. Magic in this world was not ambient or elemental. It came from deeper strata of existence, tapping into layers of reality most minds could not touch without breaking. The Cipher formed a lattice inside the soul—a circuit of will, belief, memory, and pain—that allowed the user to draw in specific wavelengths of raw magical essence and manifest them safely.
Each Cipher was unique to its bearer. It reflected not only personality, but potential. A reflection of one's inner architecture.
Cid's was different.
His Cipher wasn't born of the ritual. It wasn't designed, or structured, or even stable.
His was a Devourer-Type. A ruinous anomaly theorized in old banned tomes. Not a channel, but a rift—a hole punched into the metaphysical strata, where rules collapsed and raw entropy bled through.
It didn't shape magic. It ate it. Deconstructed spells, bodies, even concepts into formless energy—and remade them under Cid's will. He was not a mage. He was an aberration.
The beasts came faster. Leon summoned flame to his blade and cleaved through one, its blood turning to steam. He struck another cutting its head clean off the rest of its body engulfed into flame and later turning into ash. Iris blinked forward—her dagger kissed with violet light—and struck at their spines, blinking again before retaliation. Her Cipher burned on emotion; the stronger her feelings, the faster she moved and being in the presence of cid her emotions were too strong.
Vaelra etched a crimson sigil into the air. Chains of blood erupted from the ground, binding limbs, breaking bones. More blood chains arose grabbing another beast and then ripping it apart. Her magic was contract-based—control sealed through spoken price. Cid didn't ask what it cost her. He didn't care.
One beast remained.
Cid stared at it. "Kneel."
The word echoed like thunder. The creature collapsed, twitching. Cid stepped forward and placed a hand on its skull. It screamed—until it didn't.
All that remained was smoke.
They camped in a chapel strangled by vines. The stone was cracked, windows long gone. A place once holy, now hollow.
Cid sat atop the altar, shirt off, wiping blood from his arms. The chains on his back had faded, but faint burns remained where they'd emerged.
Iris approached quietly. She didn't speak at first. Just watched him.
"You didn't need to do all that," she finally said.
"You're right," Cid murmured, eyes half-lidded. "But it was fun."
She bit her lip. "They're scared of you."
"They should be."
She sat beside him. Too close.
"I found something," she whispered, reaching into her coat. A locket. Old. Bloodstained.
"I took it from Ravyn's room."
"She didn't mention family."
"She didn't. But it belonged to her sister. Who disappeared."
Cid opened it. Inside: a torn scrap of parchment.
"They're feeding it. It sleeps beneath the stone. The faculty knows."
Cid's brow lifted. "Feeding what?"
Iris leaned closer. Her breath was warm on his neck.
"You've felt it too," she whispered. "Hollow Vale isn't just cursed. It's connected. To something deeper. Older."
Her voice trembled. "They want to wake it."
"What?"
She touched his chest. "The Veil. That's not just the academy's name. It's a cage."
He stilled.
"There's something beneath us. A god. Or worse." Her voice cracked. "The founders of the Academy bound it in the earth, and built the school as the lock. Every ritual. Every structure. Every tradition. It all fits together to keep it dreaming."
Cid's fingers twitched.
"And now… they want it back."
He nodded slowly. A truth slotting into place.
Vaelra called them to the graveyard behind the chapel.
They followed.
One grave had split open—not dug, ruptured. Inside the pit, dozens of pale, featureless faces stared up from the dark. Waiting. Not alive. Not dead.
The chains beneath Cid's skin stirred.
And somewhere deep underground, something smiled.