The room felt smaller the moment the last student left.Master Deylan didn't speak at first, he just stared at Kael like he was staring down a ticking bomb.
Then, finally—"Do you have any idea what you just summoned in front of my class?"
Kael kept quiet. His chair creaked as he leaned back, one brow raised. "You mean Zaida?""The thing you call Zaida," Deylan snapped. "You're lucky the academy barrier still holds. If it hadn't, you might've turned the whole district into a feeding ground."
Zaida was standing quietly in the corner, her eyes tracing the walls like she could see through them. She looked harmless enough—barefoot, skirt swaying gently, Black hair brushing her shoulders. But the air around her pulsed with something wrong. Too quiet. Too alive.
"I read the archives," Kael said calmly. "Her kind existed before the Purge Era. They called them Soul Wraiths, didn't they?"
That name made Deylan flinch. "You're playing with fire. Those spirits don't serve—they consume."Zaida tilted her head. Her smile was gentle, almost innocent. "Only when I'm hungry, Master."
The teacher's blood drained from his face.Kael sighed. "See? She's polite."
"Polite?" Deylan's palm slammed the desk. "You're a fool, boy! That creature feeds on life essence! Every contract of her kind ended with the master's soul rotting from within!"
"Then I'll just have to rot slower than the others," Kael muttered.
Deylan grabbed his wrist and yanked it forward. "Show me the mark."Reluctantly, Kael turned his palm upward. A faint black sigil spiraled beneath his skin—alive, pulsing with each heartbeat.
Deylan's expression changed from fury to horror. "That's not a Spirit Mark. That's a Blood Seal. How did you—who helped you forge this?""No one," Kael said simply. "It appeared when I formed the contract."
"That's impossible. The system can't create blood pacts."
But before Kael could answer, a deep vibration rolled through the ground. The barrier outside the academy shimmered—then cracked.
The air went cold. Screams echoed from the courtyard.
Deylan turned toward the window, his voice low. "Demons. Class B or higher."Zaida's eyes snapped open, Her color shifting to deep crimson. "It's calling me."
Kael felt it too—a pulse at the edge of his mind, like something familiar was whispering his name from beyond the barrier.
"Stay here!" Deylan ordered. "If that barrier fails, none of you—"
Too late. Kael was already walking toward the door.
"Zaida.""Yes, Master?""Let's see what's calling you."
Outside, chaos reigned. The sky above Ironveil turned black as smoke. Students scrambled, their spirit pets crying out. And there, tearing through the barrier, was a hulking demon—its body stitched with veins of molten light.
It roared. Every spirit nearby recoiled.
Except Zaida.
She stepped forward slowly, the air distorting around her. "I know that scent…" she whispered. "I remember its taste."
Kael frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"I killed this one once," she said softly, her voice almost sad. "Back when I still had wings."
Before he could react, she moved. The world blurred. The demon lunged—then froze mid-strike, its core glowing red-hot as Zaida's hand plunged straight through its chest.
The monster let out one strangled shriek before it collapsed into dust.
For a moment, nobody breathed.
Deylan stood frozen at the doorway, disbelief etched into his face. "That… that can't be possible."
Zaida turned, her lips curling into that same broken smile. "I told you, Master. I remember."
And then—her body flickered. The mark on Kael's hand burned.
Words flashed across his vision:
[Warning: Synchronization Level 34%]
[Host compatibility decreasing…]
[Proceed with Soul Merge?]
Kael's eyes widened as the world dimmed around him.
Then—
[Countdown initiated…]
The classroom blurred.
Kael blinked hard, but everything kept warping, tilting sideways like reality itself was losing balance. The noise of the barrier trembling faded, replaced by an eerie hum — a low, vibrating pulse that seemed to come from his chest.
"—Kael!" someone called, maybe the teacher, maybe Jorin. But the voice came from far away, as though through water. His limbs felt heavy. His vision blurred, and the last thing he saw before the darkness took him was Zaida's smile — a stitched, broken curve that somehow looked... almost sad.
Then everything went black.
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A whisper slithered through the void.
"You shouldn't have called me here yet, Master… not before they wake."
Kael tried to open his eyes, but they weren't his anymore. His body was gone — replaced by weightless nothing. When he finally managed to look around, he was standing in a dim, glassy space where reflections drifted like shards of a shattered mirror. Each shard floated midair, flashing scenes from his life — his dead body back on Earth, the crash, the blood on the road, Hannah's missed call.
"What the hell…" Kael muttered. "Either I'm dead again, or this is one of those trippy system updates."
"Neither."
He spun around. Zaida stood there — except she wasn't the rotting creature from before. Her skin was smooth, porcelain pale, her wounds gone. Her eyes glowed faintly green, and her hair moved as though underwater.
She smiled faintly. "Alex Mercer of the Second Cycle. You really don't remember me?"
"The second what now?" Kael said. "And no offense, lady, but I've never met a half-naked corpse before, so I think I'd remember."
Her laugh was soft, melodic — and disturbingly human. "You've forgotten your first death. But I haven't."
He froze. "What do you mean 'first death'? I've only died once."
Zaida stepped closer. "You think so? The system that saved you wasn't built for you. It belonged to someone else — someone who was supposed to live."
Kael's frown deepened. "Are you saying I'm… squatting in another guy's afterlife?"
Her expression darkened. "You fell through the Rift. You weren't supposed to end up here, but you stole his fate when you did."
"Yeah, sure, that makes perfect sense," he snapped. "And next you'll tell me I owe rent for it?"
Zaida didn't answer. Her body suddenly jerked, trembling violently as if invisible hands were gripping her throat. "I can't—say—more…"
The mirror realm began to fracture. Cracks split across the air like lightning bolts. Shards of his memories — the crash, the blood, the pain — shattered and disintegrated into dust.
Kael lunged toward her. "Zaida!"
She caught his face between her cold palms and whispered, voice trembling but fierce: "Don't trust their contracts, Kael. The academy isn't training you — they're baiting you."
Her words echoed like thunder. Then the world shattered completely.
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Kael gasped awake. The floor was cracked straight down the middle, faint green runes still smoking. His schoolmates that had gathered around him stared at him like he'd just vomited demons.
The teacher stammered, "Y-you've been unconscious for… maybe five seconds?"
But his system screen flashed something else:
[Elapsed time: 01:07:22]
His throat felt dry. Every pair of eyes in the hallway was locked on him, and the air felt heavy, tense. Pets whimpered and retreated behind their owners. Jorin whispered, "Bro, what the hell just happened to your eyes?"
Kael frowned. "What about my eyes?"
Jorin hesitated. "They were red. Blood red. Then they went back."
Kael turned slightly, catching his reflection on a large glass door, for half a second, his pupils flickered crimson before turning back to normal. His stomach twisted.
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That evening, an announcement flared across every student's system.
[Official Notice: Any student found bonded to a forbidden or unclassified spirit shall be immediately disqualified from the Entrance Exams.]
Kael stared at the glowing message, jaw tightening. "They're definitely talking about me," he muttered.
From the corner of his dorm room, Zaida sat silently, legs crossed, eyes fixed on his system screen. She wasn't supposed to be able to read that — yet she did, scrolling through the code like she understood it better than he did.
"Hey," he said cautiously, shooing her away. "What the hell are you doing?"
She looked up, meeting his gaze. "Reading your death sentence."
"Comforting," Kael said dryly.
Zaida's expression didn't change. "They're lying, Master. The exams aren't meant to select survivors. They're meant to eliminate threats."
Before he could ask what she meant, his screen flashed red — bright enough to light the entire room.
[Hidden Quest Unlocked: Survive the Trial of Culling.]
[Time remaining: 14 hours.]
The glow dimmed, and for a moment, the only sound was his heartbeat.
Zaida smiled softly — the same stitched, broken smile from before. "It's starting again," she whispered. "Just like the last time you died."