*Central Academy for Awakened Youths, New Beijing Safe Zone – Rebuilt Sector 7**
**October 17, 2040 – 14:32 p.m.*
The holographic projector hummed softly as it dissolved the final image: a triptych of shattered silhouettes against a blood-red sky. One a void that swallowed stars. One a blaze of inverted crosses. One a crimson-black maw that devoured even the void and the blaze.
"And all of this," the teacher said, her voice steady but laced with the faint tremor of someone who had lived through the tail end of it, "is the history of the Three Calamities."
Professor Li Mei stood at the podium, her exosuit-gloved hands clasped behind her back. At 58, she was one of the last "First Wave" survivors—those who had awakened in the chaotic months of 2025. Her own talent, a modest B-rank Temporal Echo, let her replay fragments of the past for her students, but never the full horror. The system still censored the raw feeds; even after fifteen years, the trauma filters were ironclad.
She adjusted her spectacles, the lenses flickering with embedded AR displays. The classroom of thirty-two teenagers—ages 16 to 18—hung on her every word, though their expressions varied. Some wide-eyed with awe. Others bored, scrolling hidden feeds on wrist implants. A few, the ones with "heritage scans" showing latent high-rank potential, looked hungry.
"The Three Calamities—Zhao Hu the Abyss Sovereign, Zhou Ling the Devil Queen, and Zhou Jun the Devourer King—didn't just reshape the world. They *broke* it. Safe zones fell like dominoes. Guild empires rose and crumbled in their shadows. By Year 3, global population had plummeted to 1.2 billion. By Year 7, when the final clash at the Void Nexus occurred... well, let's just say the server-wide announcement that followed marked the end of the 'Wild Era' and the beginning of our fragile peace."
A boy in the front row, Lin Wei, raised his hand. His eyes gleamed with that reckless fire all would-be heroes had before their first rift dive. "Professor, did they ever... reconcile? I mean, the stories say Zhou Jun stopped the fight in Beijing. Did he really come back from the Myriad Tribulation Hell?"
Li Mei smiled faintly, though it didn't reach her eyes. "The archives say he tried. For a while. But hatred like that doesn't fade—it evolves. The Three became the *One* Calamity, then scattered to the fringes. Zhou Jun vanished into the Hell Realms entirely. Zhou Ling sealed herself in the Primordial Abyss to contain her devils. And Zhao Hu... he's still out there, they say. Whispers from the frontier zones. Shadows that move against the light."
The class murmured. A girl with silver hair—rumored to have Zhao bloodline traces, though she'd deny it—shifted uncomfortably.
"Alright, children," Professor Li said, powering down the projector with a wave. The room's ambient lights brightened, chasing away the gloom of the lesson. "History class is over. Reflect on this: The Calamities teach us that power without control is poison. Tomorrow is your Awakening Ceremony. All of you, prepare mentally. The monoliths don't care about your grades or your family names—they measure your soul."
She gathered her data-slate and nodded. "Goodbye for now."
The door hissed shut behind her, and the classroom erupted.
"Did you *see* that Beijing sim? The canyon's still there—tourists pay 500 essence crystals just to hologram-jump it!"
"Forget the canyon. I wanna know if the Devourer King's talent could eat a *law* today. Like, gravity? Or taxes?"
Lin Wei leaned back, arms crossed, grinning at his cluster of friends. "Taxes, ha. Nah, he'd eat the whole system. Rewrite the patch notes himself. My grandpa was in the military back then—says the Three Calamities were why we got the 'Awakening Equity Act.' No more bloodline monopolies."
Across the aisle, the silver-haired girl—Su Yan—rolled her eyes, but her fingers drummed nervously on her desk. "Equity? Please. Half the council seats are still held by Zhao descendants. And don't get me started on the Zhou cultists in the outer rings. They think the Devil Queen was a *saint*."
A lanky boy named Chen Hao snorted, popping a nutrient gum. "Saint? She signed a deal with *devils*. My aunt lost her leg in the Devil Incursion of '28 because of spillover from her seal. But hey, if I awaken SS-rank tomorrow, I'll take on all three ghosts myself."
Laughter rippled, but it was edged with nerves. Tomorrow wasn't just a ceremony; it was the divide. Awaken strong, and you'd dive rifts, claim territories, maybe even petition for a guild slot. Awaken weak—or worse, fail—and you'd be relegated to support roles: farming synth-crops in hydro-domes or manning the eternal watchtowers for abyss leaks.
In the back row, a quiet girl with messy black hair and faint scars on her knuckles—remnants of unauthorized street fights—said nothing. Her name was Xia Rou. No famous lineage. No flashy implants. Just a battered wristband from the reclamation projects and eyes that burned like she'd already seen too much.
She stared out the window at the rebuilt skyline: spires of alloy and ether-crystal piercing the perpetual haze. New Beijing was a testament to survival—walls thrice as thick, arrays powered by salvaged Calamity artifacts. But Xia Rou knew the truth from the underground feeds: rifts were opening again. Whispers of shadows stirring in the Eternal Silence Sea. Devil cults chanting in the sublevels.
*History doesn't repeat,* she thought, clenching her fist. *But it rhymes.*
As the bell chimed for free period, Lin Wei slapped the desk and stood. "Yo, Rou! You in for sim-rift tonight? Practice our formations. Gotta look sharp for the monolith."
Xia Rou blinked, pulling herself back. "Yeah. Sure. But no hero mode this time—you died last round."
The class dissolved into chaos: plans, boasts, quiet fears. Outside, Professor Li paused in the corridor, leaning against the wall. Her Temporal Echo talent flickered unbidden—a ghost-image of Beijing's fall overlaying the sterile hall.
*They have no idea,* she thought. *The Calamities weren't history. They were a warning.*
And somewhere, in the fractures between realms, that warning stirred once more.
**October 18, 2040 – Dawn of the Awakening**
The ceremony hall thrummed with anticipation. A thousand teens from across the safe zone filed in under the watchful eyes of proctors—veteran awakeners with talents tuned for anomaly detection.
The central monolith, a towering slab of obsidian imported from the original Cataclysm sites, pulsed with azure light. It wasn't the crude altar of '25; this one was stabilized, equalized. No more "hidden conditions" or bloodline biases. Or so the Equity Act claimed.
Xia Rou stood in line, heart pounding despite her cool exterior. Lin Wei was two spots ahead, cracking jokes to mask his shakes. Su Yan hung back, whispering to no one—rumors said she communed with shadows.
When Lin Wei's turn came, the monolith lit up gold.
[A-Rank: Storm Caller]
Crowd whooped. He pumped a fist, electricity crackling in his hair.
Su Yan's was silver-black.
[S-Rank: Eclipse Weaver]
Whispers turned to gasps. A proctor's eyes narrowed—Zhao traces confirmed.
Then Xia Rou.
She pressed her palm to the cold stone.
The hall fell silent.
The monolith *screamed*.
Crimson-black veins spiderwebbed across its surface. A wind howled from nowhere, carrying echoes of ten thousand deaths. The azure light inverted to blood-red.
[Error. Anomaly Detected.]
[Hidden Resonance: Calamity Echo Active]
[Awakening... Dual Trigger?]
[First Talent: D-Rank – Unyielding Spark]
[Second Talent: ??? – [REDACTED BY SYSTEM]]
Proctors swarmed. Alarms blared. But Xia Rou didn't flinch.
Because in that instant, as the stone cracked under her hand, she *felt* it.
Not history.
A call.
From the hells below. From the abysses beyond. From the voids between.
*Child of the echoes... do you want power?*
Her scarred knuckles whitened.
*Not power,* she thought, lips curling in a smile no fifteen-year-old should know. *I want them to feel it. All of it.*
The monolith shattered.
Server-wide announcement—suppressed for five full minutes before leaking:
[Irregular Awakening Detected in New Beijing.]
[Resonance with Known Calamity Signatures: 87%.]
[All zones: Prepare for potential derailment.]
In the shadows of the hall, Professor Li Mei's Temporal Echo caught a flicker: three ghosts, smiling.
The cycle turned anew.