The Valerian warrior stepped out of the cell, her footsteps fading into the iron-dark corridors.
The door sealed shut behind her with a hiss that sounded too final.
Silence followed.
Not gentle silence—
but a sharp, carved stillness,
a blade pressed against every throat in the chamber.
Whispers rose like cracks in stone.
"Janus… dead?"
"No—no, the pulse just dropped—"
"Did the device reject him?"
The red glow along the walls flickered once—
then died,
as if even the machine had given up.
Near the railing, the Ash Prince and the two shadows beside him did not move.
Not a shift, not a breath.
Faces carved from dusk-stone,
unreadable, unshaken—
monstrously calm.
Cassiel wasn't calm.
The announcement slammed into him—
a fist to the ribs,
a crack in the spine.
For a heartbeat, he forgot how to breathe.
The room, the cadets, the whispers—all dissolved into static.
Only one word remained.
Janus.
Gone.
His jaw trembled.
His hands curled into fists so tight his nails cut skin.
A thin line of blood formed—he didn't feel it.
He tried to speak—
a word, a denial—
but it caught in his throat like barbed wire.
The breath he dragged in shook violently,
and the tremor betrayed him.
Teramon stood stiff beside him, the whispers washing over him like distant echoes.
The genius.
The calm one.
The one who always had an answer.
Now he had nothing.
His mind—usually a storm of calculations—was blank, hollow, ringing with a single impossible truth.
Shock cracked through him like frozen glass.
His lips parted, but all the sharp remarks, all the sarcasm, all the cleverness—
nothing came.
Only two words scraped out, thin and disbelieving:
"…he's dead."
The chamber seemed to darken around the sentence.
Even the device below, still pulsing faintly with dead-red veins, felt colder for it.
Janus's name wasn't supposed to echo like this—cold, final, hollow.
Memories crashed into him without mercy.
The struggle.
The mockery.
The way other warriors spat at his shadow because he had no connection to the Veil.
A "failed fighter."
A "burden."
Janus always laughed it off.
Always pushed forward.
Always pretended it didn't cut deep.
Cassiel remembered him on that long night by the fire, voice low, eyes tired but burning:
"I'm doing this for my brother… he's sick.
He needs that herb from the Forgotten Lake.
If I don't find it… nobody will."
That lake—
the one buried in the Wild Zone, the forbidden place where even the strongest warriors refused to walk.
Impossible to reach.
Deadly to even approach.
But Janus tried anyway.
Janus always tried.
And now—
Cassiel's chest tightened, breath trembling through clenched teeth.
The strongest effort he ever made…
was the one that killed him.
From the far end of the chamber, a voice cut through the whispers like jagged steel.
"Pathetic," it sneered, sharp and dripping with disdain.
Cassiel turned.
Teramon's jaw tightened.
A noble stood there—tall, perfectly straight-backed, silver hair gleaming even in the dim light. Leimen.
"Oh, spare me the dramatics," he said, eyes flicking over the room with a smirk.
"That fool Janus… couldn't find his own shadow in a darkened hall, let alone the Forgotten Lake. And now you all mourn him?"
His words were venom coated in silk.
A blade that cut deeper than grief itself.
"Was he… trying to be a hero?" Leimen continued, voice mockingly soft.
"You call this strength? Laughable. A child with ambition, no Veil, no skill… and yet somehow, dead anyway."
Cassiel's teeth ground together.
Teramon's usual calm flickered—but only briefly.
Even to Cassiel, Leimen's arrogance burned, a fiery itch under his skin.
The noble leaned slightly forward, grin curling like smoke:
"Honestly… I don't see why anyone bothers to pretend he mattered."
Cassiel's jaw snapped tight.
Blood pounded in his ears.
Every word Leimen spat—mocking, cruel—fueled a fire in him he couldn't control.
And then it happened.
A tremor rolled under his skin.
A pulse of heat.
The Veil—wild, raw, and untrained—erupted from him without thought.
Killing intent radiated outward like a storm breaking through the chamber walls.
Whispers rose into gasps.
"He's… he's releasing Veil energy?"
"But… Cassiel's veil is supposed to be weak!"
"The Noble who never made it to the Noble academy.… why now?"
"Is he… Awakening?"
"No… yes… no… maybe!"
Eyes widened, breaths caught.
Even the strongest warriors took a cautious step back.
Cassiel's own vision narrowed.
Leimen's smirk—once sharp, untouchable—flickered.
Cassiel walked toward him slowly, every step heavy with Veil and fury.
He reached Leimen.
Fingers dug into the collar of the noble's finely tailored jacket, leather creaking under his grip.
A backward reel of his fist.
Veil energy coiling around his arm like living fire.
Every muscle tense.
Every heartbeat a drum of wrath.
And the punch… if it landed, it would tear Leimen apart.
The room fell into stunned silence.
Veil shimmered in the air, pale and dark at once, bending shadows around Cassiel.
Gasps and murmurs ran like wildfire.
"Is it real?"
"He can't… that's impossible!. The corrupt veil all around should have killed him already"
"The weakest Noble is… awakening?!"
"Yes… no… maybe…"
And then—
A shadow stepped between them.
The Princely Prince of Dawn.
Golden hair catching the dim light, calm but unwavering.
Hands raised, halting the motion.
"Cassiel," he said, voice steady, carrying authority without effort.
"Janus… wouldn't want this. I understand what you might be feeling but try to do the right thing ."
Cassiel's fist trembled, the Veil flickering around him like storm clouds.
Breath rattling, jaw clenched.
He felt the fire… and it did not subside.
But he froze.
The words sank.
The anger remained.
But for now… he let it wait.
The Malevolent Dawn stepped forward, shoulders loose, eyes glinting.
A laugh tore from him—low, dark, and unhinged.
It rolled through the chamber, echoing off stone walls like a sharpened blade.
The sound carried malice, amusement, and something almost inhuman.
He laughed again, louder this time, the kind of laugh that made the air feel heavier, colder.
The Ash Prince turned his gaze toward the Malevolent Dawn, eyes sharp, unblinking.
The laughter faltered, stuttering, and the Malevolent Dawn stopped.
He tilted his head, watching, sensing the sudden shift.
The Ash Prince stepped forward, calm but firm, and placed a hand on Cassiel's shoulder.
"We will find the one who killed our… amazing friend," he said, voice steady, carrying weight.
The Malevolent Dawn's lips curled, and he laughed again—dark, twisted, savoring the words this time.
"Amazing friend," he hissed, letting the syllables drip with amusement.
He laughed a second time, deeper, hungrier, relishing the sound.
Without warning, Duskheart's fist slammed into the Malevolent Dawn's head.
The laughter cut off mid-note, replaced by a sharp grunt of pain.
"Ugh… damn it… you bastard it hurts." the Malevolent Dawn complained, rubbing his temple, teeth gritted.
Silence fell instantly.
All eyes turned to the Ash Prince.
The chamber held its breath, every gaze heavy and unblinking, the weight of seriousness pressing down like stone.
The Ash Prince stepped forward, chest rising with slow, measured strength, eyes sharp as blades, unflinching.
"It has been two days since they threw us into this cage.
Four days since Gareth… and the blue-haired girl… vanished from our ranks.
Six days since Layla and the others… were torn from us by those monsters.
Ten days since we dared to step into the Wild Zone."
He let the numbers hang in the cold air, heavy, jagged—each one a stone dropped into the silence, a reminder of what had been lost.
"And this…" His voice dropped lower, carrying the weight of inevitability.
"This… is only the beginning. Perhaps the beginning of our end. Perhaps the moment when all hope fractures."
He paused, letting every word strike like iron. Then, his gaze swept the chamber—every cadet frozen under his stare—and finally landed on Cassiel.
"But if we are to survive—truly survive—we have no choice. We must adapt. We must endure. We must rise stronger than the fear, stronger than the loss. Stronger than ourselves."
The Ash Prince leaned forward, eyes blazing like molten gold, his voice sharp enough to cut the stone around them:
"By the grace of the God of the Sun… look me in the eyes, Cassiel. Tell us all—how did you wield your Veil? And tell us… how did you resist letting it consume you?"
A silence fell again, heavier than any before, as if the room itself awaited the answer—as if even the walls held their breath.
Cassiel's eyes flickered downward, fists clenching so tight his nails dug into his palms.
He shook his head, voice barely more than a rasp:
"I… I can't say it."
The chamber went still.
Even the whispers faded.
The weight of his inability pressed into the air, heavy and suffocating, and every eye in the room turned toward him.
The Ash Prince's gaze didn't waver, but the intensity deepened, burning into Cassiel like sunlight through steel.