The Order's complex held nothing of a modern institution. Nestled atop a rocky spur overlooking the ruins of the old city, what was called "The School" was in truth a fortified abbey whose foundations plunged into black stone strata predating known history. Here, the sky was perpetually swept by silica winds, but inside the walls, ancient sealing bells maintained a heavy, motionless atmosphere, saturated with the scent of cold incense and purified metal.
This was the seat of the Grand Lineages. These families did not rule by vote or currency, but by blood and the monopoly of the Rite. Ever since the Glass World began devouring reality, they had proclaimed themselves guardians of humanity—the only ones capable of manipulating Prana to erect barriers against oblivion.
In the Cenacle's crypt, far beneath the classrooms where novices learned the discipline of iron, the Patriarchs gathered.
The room was circular, carved directly from obsidian. There were no windows, only basins where a violet fire burned, producing no smoke. Around the stone table, the representatives of the five clans sat motionless. They did not wear the tactical uniforms of field Exorcists, but rigid ceremonial robes, embroidered with silver threads whose patterns formed permanent protection seals. Their faces were concealed behind White Iron Masks, featureless visors that transformed them into inhuman idols.
"Sector 4 has been condemned by the Grand Sealing," began a cavernous voice, that of the Patriarch of Clan Valerius. "Inquisitor Marcus fulfilled his duty by taking the Anomaly into the resonance void."
"Marcus was a zealot, but an efficient one," replied a feminine voice, sharp as a scalpel, from behind the mask of Clan Solis. "However, the drone reports before the rupture are formal. We are not facing a simple spontaneous infection. We are facing an awakening."
A shiver seemed to run through the assembly, a rustle of silks and parchments. The word was not spoken immediately, as if it carried a curse.
"An Architect," finally whispered the dean of Clan Malakor, the one whose lineage managed the trackers and executioners. "A child of the plebs, a rat from the Lower Sectors, has succeeded where our greatest scholars have failed for centuries. He has stabilized the Demonium. He does not merely repel the glass; he shapes it."
The silence that followed was heavy. For the Lineages, Prana was a Sacred Light, a force of rejection. The idea that someone could use it to fuse with the structure of Glass was the ultimate heresy. If the people learned that Glass was not just an inevitable death, but a material that could be mastered without the Clans' intercession, their spiritual and temporal power would collapse. They would no longer be divine saviors, but mere jailers.
"This child, this Solon, has already rewritten his own anatomy," Valerius continued. "His bones are silica, his nerves are filaments of pure Prana. He has become a living interface. If he survives the sealing, he will become a beacon for all the desperate, for all those who would rather become monsters than die in the shadow of our barriers."
"We cannot allow the Architect's 'truth' to spread," added the Solis Matriarch. "The world order rests on the clear separation between man and reflection. Solon erases that boundary. He is infection made will."
In the center of the room, a complex mechanism of pulleys and chains activated. From the ceiling descended a cage of blessed crystal, its walls engraved with metaphysical torture runes. Inside, a shadow form stirred painfully.
It was Kael.
The Archive was now but a shred of black smoke, constrained by golden light collars to maintain a vaguely human form. The Exorcists had snatched him from the chaos of Sector 4 before the sealing bell closed completely. To them, Kael was not a being, but a living grimoire, a forbidden library they intended to pillage.
"Speak, creature," Malakor ordered, striking the bars with his spear. "Where is the Codex? How could a mere mortal engrave the five pillars without his soul exploding?"
Kael looked up. Even under this torture, his gaze remained that of a millennial archive, filled with sovereign contempt for these men who thought themselves masters of the world because they knew how to light candles in the dark.
"You're afraid, aren't you?" Kael hissed, his voice sounding like sand scraping on metal. "You feel the foundations of your little abbey trembling. You call it heresy, but it is simply evolution. You spent centuries building walls, while Solon learned to become the ground you walk on."
"Silence!" Valerius roared, activating a pain seal.
Kael contorted, his shadow body fraying under the impact of the purified energy, but he did not scream. He laughed, a dry, joyless laugh.
"You can dissect me, drain me of my memories, but you cannot erase what he has seen. He has the Demonium. He has the Codex. And above all... he has the hatred you cultivated by letting his world die. You wanted a monster to justify your prayers? You are going to have an Architect to design your tomb."
Patriarch Valerius turned to the other masks.
"The Archive is useless for now; its core is too unstable. Keep it in the deep sealing vat. Use the thought extractors day and night. I want every equation, every diagram of his tattoos."
He paused, adjusting his ceremonial robe.
"And as for Solon... activate the Blood Trackers. Clan Malakor's Hounds. If he survived the void of Sector 4, he will be weakened. Track him in the tunnels, in the reflections, in his own dreams if necessary. The monopoly on reality brooks no competition."
"And the people?" asked a younger voice at the end of the table. "They are starting to ask questions about the missing school."
"The people will receive what they have always received," Valerius concluded. "A beautiful story of heroic sacrifice against an occult terrorist named Solon. We will tell them we are protecting them from him. Fear is the cement of our church. And Solon will be the face of that fear."
As the clan leaders left the room, Kael's cage was taken to the lower levels, where the Order's machines began to growl, commencing the dissection of the monster's soul. Above them, in the school's corridors, hundreds of young Exorcists armed themselves, their minds formatted by centuries of tradition, ready to hunt a boy they did not understand, under the orders of masters who feared the daylight as much as the shadows of the glass.
The Order was ready. But in the shadows of the crypt, a tiny crack had just appeared on the obsidian table, a silver reflection that only asked to grow.