The sword clattered against the marble floor at Ryker Vale's feet.
The sound cracked through the Grand Evaluation Hall, silencing three hundred students mid-whisper. Mana lamps flickered overhead. In the arena below, Ryker stood alone unarmed, unarmored, and very publicly exposed.
Zayne Corvus laughed.
"Look at him." Zayne's voice carried to every tier of seats. "The academy's former pride, the so-called Sword master who crawled back from the grave with nothing but excuses."
Laughter rippled through the crowd, not all of it cruel but enough.Ryker didn't bend to retrieve the sword, he lifted his eyes.
Professor Yolanda's voice trembled. "This evaluation is meant to measure mana flow, not"
"Oh, come on, Professor." Zayne spread his arms toward the crowd. "Everyone's curious. Does the dead man still deserve his title?"
Someone whistled.
"He doesn't even have an aura anymore," another voice muttered.
Dead man. The words struck something deep in Ryker's mind a flash of darkness, of suffocating, of opening eyes that shouldn't have opened. Three months of fog, three months of nothing where memory should be.
Zayne stepped closer, boots clicking against stone. His mana surged deliberately bright, oppressive, forcing weaker students to flinch. "You vanished for three months. Your life tablet shattered and now you're back claiming amnesia?"
He leaned in. "If you're going to insult our intelligence, at least pretend to be strong."
Zayne raised his practice blade and pointed it at Ryker's chest.
"Activate your mana."
Silence.
Every eye locked onto Ryker.
"I can't."
The hall exploded, laughter, the word useless drifted through the air like poison.
Zayne threw his head back. "There it is! Did you all hear that? The Sword master can't even circulate mana anymore!"
The crowd surged with it mockery, disbelief, vindication. Students who'd once watched Ryker duel with awe now whispered behind raised hands. The elite section erupted in conversation. Someone shouted for him to be expelled.
Zayne circled him like a predator. "So what are you now? A mascot? A walking corpse? Or just a fraud who got lucky once?"
"Kick him out!"
"He doesn't belong here!"
Ryker's gaze swept the observation balcony.
Miss Calia Thorn stood with arms folded, violet eyes locked on him sharp, analytical not watching the spectacle instead watching him. Her hand rested near the communication crystal at her belt, fingers tapping an irregular rhythm.
For just a moment, the hair on the back of Ryker's neck prickled not from Calia's scrutiny but from something else. A presence he couldn't name or locate like being watched through a window he couldn't see. He scanned the hall instinctively, but found nothing, still, the feeling lingered.
Zayne stopped directly in front of Ryker. His smile widened. "I'll make this simple. Kneel, admit you're finished and maybe I'll convince the council to let you stay."
The hall went deathly quiet, Ryker looked at the outstretched hand.
Then he smiled, the kind of smile that didn't belong on someone being crushed in public.
"No."
Zayne's expression twitched.
"You still think you have a choice?" Zayne's mana flared. "Without mana, you're nothing."
"If mana is all you are…" Ryker tilted his head. "That explains a lot."
Sharp intakes of breath scattered through the crowd.
Zayne's hand clenched around his blade. "You arrogant "
The temperature dropped, the air in the hall turned cold enough that breath misted. Students shifted uncomfortably and few of the weaker ones wrapped their arms around themselves. Aurora Lysander, standing among the elite students, stiffened. Her silver eyes narrowed as frost began creeping across the edge of her sleeve.
"What… is that?"
On the balcony, Calia's fingers stopped their tapping. Her eyes widened fractionally, and her gaze darted briefly toward the eastern wall as if she sensed something there.
Zayne didn't notice. His focus remained fixed on Ryker, mana coiling around his blade in preparation for a strike that would leave Ryker humiliated beyond repair. Beneath Ryker's ribs, something stirred.
Cold, vast and hungry. His pulse didn't quicken. His expression didn't change but deep in his chest, a presence uncoiled like a serpent waking from a long sleep. The same presence that had been there when consciousness first returned to this body when he'd woken in darkness, gasping, with no memory of how he'd gotten there.
[System Notification: Host stability at 92%. External mana detected. Devourer Protocol standby mode active.]
The voice wasn't mechanical, it sounded pleased.
Zayne thrust his blade forward
"Enough."
Miss Calia's voice cut through the hall like a blade.
Zayne froze, teeth grinding. The cold receded as quickly as it had come.
"This is an evaluation," Calia said, descending the stairs from the balcony. "Not an execution. Ryker's condition falls under my authority."
Zayne's sneer returned. "Protecting him won't change the truth."
"No." Calia stopped at the arena's edge, her gaze cutting through him. "But humiliating him will cost you."
Murmurs spread through the crowd again. Zayne stepped back, jaw tight. He pointed his blade at Ryker one final time. "One month. Arena duel. Public match. If you refuse, I'll crush you today."
The crowd waited, Ryker met his gaze without blinking.
Something in his gut told him to accept. Not pride, nor defiance, something deeper an instinct that didn't feel entirely his own.
"One month," Ryker replied.
Shock rippled through the hall.
Zayne blinked. "You'll accept?"
"Yes."
Zayne's laugh echoed off the vaulted ceiling loud and disbelieving. "Good. I'll enjoy breaking what's left of you."
Students began filing out, voices rising in speculation. Bets were already being placed. Most gave Ryker less than ten seconds in the ring.
Ryker bent down and picked up the fallen sword.
For just a moment so brief that most missed it qthe steel beneath his fingers darkened, not tarnished or stained but consumed.
A hairline web of black veins spread from his grip into the metal before fading. The blade looked normal again, but something about its weight felt... lighter. Hollower.
Aurora's breath caught in her throat. On the balcony, Calia's hand moved to the communication crystal at her belt. She squeezed it once, twice a signal. Ryker straightened. He set the sword aside and turned toward the exit, expression unchanged.
Inside him, the presence whispered again but clearer this time, almost affectionate.
[Trigger registered. Devourer System awakening protocol: pending final authorization.]
[WARNING: Multiple observers detected. Recommendation: maintain cover.]
Cover? Ryker thought. Cover for what?
No answer came.
He walked through the dispersing crowd. Students parted instinctively, though none seemed to know why.
That crawling sensation of being watched followed him all the way to the doors.
As he passed through the main doors into the torch-lit corridor beyond, a folded piece of parchment fell from his academy coat pocket.
He hadn't put anything there.
Ryker stopped, glanced around, then bent to retrieve it.
The parchment was sealed with black wax no insignia, no mark. Just smooth, dark wax that seemed to absorb the torchlight.
He broke the seal. Inside, in elegant script:
"The original Ryker Vale is dead. You wear his flesh but not his soul. We are watching. The Conclave sees all."
Ryker's hands went still his jaw tightened, behind him, Aurora whispered to her companion, "Did you see his hand?"
"See what?"
"The sword. It" She stopped herself, frowning. "Never mind."
High above the Grand Evaluation Hall, on an exterior walkway concealed by layers of enchanted shadows, two cloaked figures stood in perfect stillness.
The shadows weren't natural darkness they bent light, muffled sound, and masked presence so completely that even master-level mages would sense nothing. Only another member of the Conclave could detect them.
"The anomaly is confirmed," the first said, voice barely above a whisper. "His mana signature is inverted. Corrupted."
"Or replaced," the second corrected. "Did you see the blade? The decay pattern?"
"I saw." The first figure's hood turned toward where Ryker had vanished below. "The question remains was this a summoning, or something else?"
"The life tablet shattered completely. Three months of absolute silence. Then he returns with no memory and no mana flow." The second figure's hands moved in a complex pattern, and a small orb of crystallized light appeared, capturing the image of Ryker holding the darkened sword. "This isn't natural resurrection."
"Then we report to the Conclave?"
"We observe. If someone performed a forbidden summoning ritual, they'll make contact with their vessel eventually." The second figure dissolved the crystal orb. "And when they do, we'll know who dared to break the oldest laws."
"And if what inhabits that body isn't what they intended to summon?"
A long pause.
"Then may the gods have mercy on us all."
The two figures melted back into deeper shadows. Their forms dissolved completely, leaving behind only the faint scent of ozone and old magic that dissipated within seconds.
In the empty corridor, Ryker stared at the parchment then, slowly, his lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
Not his soul.
He didn't know why, but something about those words felt... accurate. Like a truth he'd been avoiding he crumpled the parchment and let it fall to the stone floor.
As he walked away, he didn't see the black wax seal begin to smoke and dissolve, leaving no trace it had ever existed.
But that feeling of being watched never quite left, it followed him through empty corridors, past torch-lit alcoves, all the way to his dormitory door.
And deep in his chest, the hunger stirred again.
[New objective registered: Survive 30 days. Gather strength. Discover truth.]
Ryker's hand drifted to his chest, pressing against the cold that pulsed there like a second heartbeat.
Thirty days.
Whatever he was becomingwhatever had happened in those three lost months he would have his answers.
Even if he had to devour the truth from the world itself.