Location: Dehi City - The Aethford Academy (Floor 10)
The conference room was silent, high above the clouds. While the world below rotted in the wasteland, the air here was filtered, cool, and smelled of lavender.
Six figures sat around the obsidian table. These were the strongest Awakeners in Dehi City, the gods of the new world.
"Are we really sending scouts to Digul again this year?"
A man with crimson hair leaned back in his chair, resting his boots on the expensive table. He spun a knife between his fingers, looking bored.
"That place is a lost cause," a short woman muttered, sipping her juice. "I don't know why the Headmaster bothers. It's a pit."
"Maybe we should just kill them all," a black-haired man pushing up his glasses said coldly. "Cleanse the area. Claim the land."
The crimson-haired man laughed. "Easy for you to say. Aren't you from the Madu Sector? That's practically next door."
"Madu is civilized," the glasses man snapped. "Digul is... filth. Warlords killing each other, forcing women to breed, eating their own young. It is a cancer. Only the lowest of the low survive there."
"And yet," the crimson-haired man interrupted, spinning his knife faster, "survival is the only metric that matters, isn't it?"
He gestured to the holographic screens displaying the Academy's current rankings.
"Look at this year's batch. The top ten students are already breaking records set by the Founders. That kid, Maya? She's already a monster on her own.
"That is exactly why we must be selective," the short woman said, tapping the table. "We punished the bottom forty percent of the class last week. We don't need an army of soldiers; we need an army of calamities. If a recruit cannot slaughter a Rank Three Beast with their bare hands, they are waste. Space is limited. Only the absolute strongest deserve to breathe the air in this room."
"Agreed," the glasses man muttered, pushing his spectacles up. "If there is a diamond buried in the filth of Digul, we take it. If not, let them rot."
"Enough," a tall woman said sharply. "The Headmaster does not act without reason."
The heavy oak doors creaked open.
The chatter died instantly.
The Headmaster walked in. He was a man in his forties, handsome but with eyes that looked a thousand years old. He didn't sit. He walked to the window and stared up at the grey, choked sky.
"We found out the purpose of the Red Star," he said softly.
The room froze. The crimson-haired man stopped spinning his knife.
"So, what is it?" the glasses man asked, his voice trembling slightly. "Is it a weapon? A mutagen?"
The Headmaster turned, his face pale.
"No," he whispered. "It was a transmitter."
Silence. Absolute, suffocating silence.
"A... transmitter?" the crimson-haired man asked. "Signaling who? For what?"
A yellow-haired woman at the end of the table spoke, her voice barely audible.
"To call the rest of them."
The horror settled in. One Red Star had destroyed civilization. If more were coming, then humanity was already dead.
"We have no time," the Headmaster said, his voice hardening into steel. "We need soldiers. We need weapons. We need every scrap of talent this world has left, even from the pits of hell."
"Who is going to Digul?" the glasses man asked. "It's a death trap. Only a monster can handle the tyrants there."
The Headmaster looked out the window again, toward the dark horizon where the Dead Zone lay.
"Aiden will go."
Somewhere beyond the Dead Zone, a pale young boy was running for his life in the forests.