The damp, earthy smell of the Verdant Catacombs filled Aiden's nose. It was supposed to smell like wet stone and moss. Now it just smelled like fear.
His back pressed against cold, rough rock. The glow-moss on the walls pulsed gently, casting long, dancing shadows. From somewhere far away, down the twisting dungeon corridors, a scream echoed. Then another. It was followed by the harsh, guttural snarls of dungeon wolves. The mandatory trial had gone wrong. Very wrong.
Aiden's hands were shaking. He clenched them into fists. Useless.
"Group up! Fall back to the entrance!" a teacher's voice shouted, distorted and distant. It was cut off by a roar.
Aiden was alone. His group—Kyle, Maya, the others—were gone. Scattered when the first wolf pack ambushed them. He'd run, taken a wrong turn, and ended up here. In a dead-end chamber.
A low growl rumbled from the tunnel ahead.
His breath hitched. He fumbled with the air before him, pulling up his status screen. The pale blue hologram shimmered.
Aiden Ward
Class: Creation - F Rank
Skill: [Minor Object Replication]
Status: Terrified.
He focused on his skill. He pictured the training dagger at his belt. He willed a copy into existence. The air shimmered where a second dagger should have appeared. Instead, a flickering, transparent copy of his own dagger sputtered into view for half a second before dissolving into motes of blue light.
F-rank. Useless. The laughingstock of Nexus High.
The growl deepened. Two points of amber light appeared in the darkness of the tunnel. They advanced.
The dungeon wolf stepped into the glow-moss light. It was huge, its shoulders level with Aiden's chest. Matted grey fur, muscles coiled like springs under its skin. Saliva dripped from its exposed fangs, hitting the stone floor with a soft tap. Its eyes held no animal cunning. Only a system-programmed hunger.
It paced forward, one slow step at a time, cornering its prey.
Aiden's mind went blank. The lectures on dungeon ecology, the combat drills, the sneering advice from higher-ranked students—it all vanished. There was only the wolf, the wall at his back, and the hammering of his own heart against his ribs.
Move. Do something.
But his legs were stone.
The wolf's hindquarters tensed. It was going to pounce.
Aiden threw his hands up, a pathetic, instinctive gesture. He squeezed his eyes shut.
The pounce was a blur of grey and a blast of hot, rancid breath. The sound was a snap of jaws meant for his throat.
It never connected.
A sudden, unbearable heat exploded in the space between them. It wasn't the heat of fire. It was the heat of a sun being born in a confined space.
Aiden's eyes flew open.
Light. Blinding, white-gold light.
A figure stood between him and the wolf. Translucent, like smoke and stained glass. A girl. Her form was wreathed in dancing, violent flames that had no source. Her hair was a wild cascade of fire, her features blurred by the heat haze. Her mouth was stretched wide open in a soundless, endless scream.
The wolf, mid-air, met the wave of force that radiated from her.
There was no roar of fire. Just a sudden, profound whoomph of air being superheated and expelled. The wolf didn't burn. It unmade. Its form dissolved into black ash and glowing embers that scattered across the chamber.
The heatwave hit Aiden next. It was a physical wall. It slammed him back into the stone wall. The breath was punched from his lungs. His clothes smoked. He could smell his own singed hair.
The flaming girl turned her head. Just slightly. For a fraction of a second, her eyes—pools of molten gold—met his.
In them, he saw no recognition. No ally. Only a bottomless, echoing anguish. And rage.
Then, his vision was overwritten. Not in front of his eyes, but directly inside his mind. Glitching, harsh white text on a black field.
[SYSTEM ANOMALY DETECTED]
[FORCED PROTOCOL INITIATION...]
[GHOST PROTOCOL: ACTIVATED]
[ANCHOR DETECTED: LYRA]
[SYNCHRONIZATION: 1%]
[WARNING: REALITY INTEGRITY UNSTABLE]
The text flickered, pixelated, and vanished.
The girl—Lyra—flickered too. Her silent scream seemed to intensify. The flames around her lashed out, not as an attack, but in a spasm of pain. A whip of fire cracked against the chamber wall, searing a black scar into the stone. Another tongue of flame licked the ceiling, setting the dry, ancient roots there alight.
Aiden tried to speak. His mouth was dust-dry. "Wh… who…?"
Lyra looked at her own burning hands. A tremor went through her spectral form. The flames pulsed brighter, hotter. The air in the chamber became an oven. Aiden's skin blistered.
She was going to burn everything. Him. The chamber. Herself.
He reached a hand out, not knowing why. "Stop…"
His vision swam. The world tilted. The last thing he saw was Lyra's form collapsing in on itself, dissolving into a shower of fading embers. The heat vanished, replaced by a sudden, chilling cold.
The chamber was scarred, blackened, smoldering. The ashes of the dungeon wolf settled on the floor.
Darkness rushed in from the edges of his sight, soft and deep. He slid down the wall, consciousness slipping away.
The last sensation was the cold stone against his cheek, and the faint, acrid smell of a fire that should not exist, in a place where magic only came in approved, systematic grades.
Silence returned to the dead-end chamber.
[SYNCHRONIZATION: 1%]
[STATUS: ANCHORED]
[PROTOCOL: RUNNING...]