"Eyes in the sky... coming fast!"
"What?"
"Sir! Run... it is looking at you! Siiiiir!!!"
.
L... Le... Lev... Levan...
"Levan! Wake up, you lazy bum!"
The voice sliced through the dream like a cold knife, causing Levan's eyes to snap open all at once onto a low, grey ceiling filled with cracks.
He gasped deeply. His chest rose and fell rapidly, while cold sweat covered his forehead, as if he had just returned from a long run in another world.
The voice came from the opposite bed, mocking and heavy.
"you wake up every day as if you were fighting an army in your sleep... Was it those eyes again?"
Levan exhaled a rough breath, and wiped his face with a slightly trembling hand before he muttered.
"damn those eyes... and damn this ceiling... and damn the Third Realm too."
The echo of his curses faded into the stale air without an answer, replaced by a heavy silence that reminded him of the extent of his loneliness.
He leaned his back against the cold wall. Here, there is no point in screaming, and no one cares about nightmares.
This silence swept his memory far away, to the only person who had the patience to listen to his fears without mocking him.
Uncle Adam, the only one who used to listen to his dreams in the village of Lytha.
But those days were gone the moment Uncle Adam disappeared, and not much time passed after that until the men of the Third Realm came and snatched Levane and others from the children of the surrounding poor villages.
They were thrown here under the name "The Forgotten."
Cheap human fuel. Its only purpose is to be live targets for the training of The Chosen, the children of the Awakened Nobles who were born with golden spoons in their mouths and power in their veins.
He muttered internally with bitterness. Five years have ended in this hell.
His train of thought was cut off by the voice of Romo, the twenty-year-old young man with short brown hair, who was rubbing the back of his head. He spoke in a serious and rushed tone as he threw Levan's clothes toward him.
"come on, get up! Stop staring into the void. Have you forgotten? Today is the final assessment day for the chosen."
Romo hesitated for a moment, then his voice lowered as if he feared the answer.
"But... will they really allow us to return to the villages today?"
Levan ignored the naivety of the question, and picked up the grey shirt and trousers, the uniform of servants and slaves that distinguished them from the Nobles.
When he lifted his arm to put them on, a sharp tremor of pain ran through him, as if a hot nail was being driven into his joint.
He sat on the edge of his bed feeling his shoulder in distress, then muttered bitterly.
"Damn it... my shoulder is still burning from yesterday's training. You all only need one night for your wounds to heal, but me? I am without ZEN energy. I have to carry every hit with me for weeks."
Romo laughed as he threw a wet piece of cloth at him this time.
"Stop whining, you Zero-ZEN . You are alive, so ZEN energy exists inside you for sure. Maybe it is just too weak to show, or it is dormant in a weird way."
Levan smiled a pale smile, and revealed his left forearm slowly.
What appeared on it was not just ordinary scars. It was a web of faint black lines under his skin, as if the veins had been charred from the inside.
Those were the traces of the Black Water injections, that liquid extracted from the Abyss, which all the Forgotten in this dormitory were injected with for one single purpose.
To force their bodies to break the Dormant Level, which is the first level all humans are born with naturally, and raise them forcibly to the Second Level known as "Awakened," so their bodies would gain the abilities and hardness necessary to withstand the brutality of the Nobles' training.
The injection worked with Romo and the rest, and they ascended to the Second Level, but Levane's body swallowed the blackness silently and remained exactly as it was.
For Romo, the nickname "Zero-ZEN " was just a joke, for no one believes that a human can live without at least the Dormant Level.
But Levane himself was living a silent conflict of doubt. Every piece of evidence indicates that he is completely empty, for the Black Water found nothing to develop.
But how is that possible while he is still alive? It was an idea that contradicted logic and the laws of the world, so he buried his doubts and decided to play the role of weakness until the end, remaining a fragile human among half-monsters.
Romo sighed suddenly, and started speaking in the dreamy tone Levane was used to every morning, trying to escape with his thoughts from the narrow walls.
"We must survive today... then they might allow us to return home..."
Levane cut him off with boredom as he buttoned his worn-out shirt, cutting off his daydreams.
"Don't raise the ceiling of your hopes, Romo. Also, I don't have a place to return to. But if you ask me, I just want to sleep without being forced to wake up daily to serve them... or even live in the Abyss far away from this detestable Realm system."
***
The Abyss he talks about, which appeared two centuries ago, was not just an ordinary pit.
It is a dark depth, with no visible bottom. And from the belly of that blackness, a strange energy rushed into the continent of Gaia. "ZEN Energy."
In the early days, human bodies could not handle that heavy guest. People were falling and dying suddenly. Then their bodies would explode from the inside, as if something was pushed into their veins before they were ready to receive it.
But with the passing of time, everything changed. ZEN became an indivisible part of the fabric of the continent of Gaia. Just like air. It cannot be seen by the eye, but no one on this earth can live without it.
Then came the greatest discovery.
This energy can "Awaken." A moment where the body intensifies, and abilities are born in it that humans never had before. Some have their speed multiplied like the blink of an eye, and some have their muscles become like steel... all according to the type of ZEN flowing in their blood.
In the end, ZEN was no longer just a scary phenomenon. It became the foundation upon which everything stood behind the Great Wall that surrounds the continent of Gaia. Work, status, classes, and the absolute power that rules the Ten Realms.
Those Realms were not just regions, but great independent kingdoms bearing numbers. The Third Realm, for example, is in reality the Kingdom of Grymar.
***
Romo retreated backward as if Levan had spoken explicit blasphemy, and whispered with a trembling voice.
"Idiot! The Abyss and the Sea are the enemy of humanity. Do you love living with mutated creatures? You have lost your mind completely!"
Then a cold voice came from behind.
On the third bed near the door, Ina, the eighteen-year-old girl, had finished tying her red hair back tightly. She looked at them with rigid and sharp features.
"Save your energy for something else. Today the batch of Chosen graduates, and of course, something different will happen."
She tightened her torn leather gloves, and looked at Levane seriously.
"You and a rare few are all that remain from the first batch that started five years ago. You have seen hundreds die and get replaced by us, the substitutes. We have been here for only one year, but you have seen everything."
She turned toward Romo, then returned her gaze to Levane and asked with a coldness that hid deep anxiety.
"Tell this idiot, Levane... when the tool breaks or its purpose ends with the graduation of its masters, do they honor it and set it free?"
A heavy silence prevailed. Romo swallowed his saliva with difficulty, while Levane got up from his bed and headed with heavy steps toward the small sink in the corner of the room, avoiding the crowd of the shared bathrooms at the end of the corridor.
The Forgotten Wing consisted of twenty-two rooms, and each room formed a combat group, and here in Room Seven, they were considered one team.
Levane scooped a handful of cold water and splashed his face with it to chase away the remnants of the nightmare.
He raised his head, water dripping from his chin, and looked at the reflection of his pale face in the broken mirror. His long black hair falling over his tired grey eyes.
Five years... he is now twenty years old. He entered this dormitory as a child, and here he is now, one of the few who survived from his original batch.
How did he survive? A question that baffled everyone. How could a Zero-ZEN survive five whole years while the strong fell around him?
Levan smiled to himself sarcastically in the mirror.
"I survived because I was too cowardly to fight seriously, and too smart to die like a hero."
He mastered the art of defeat. He knew how to take the hit in the least damaging spot, and how to fall before his bones broke, and how to scream to satisfy the Noble's ego so he would stop hitting. He turned cowardice into a shield, and submission into a survival strategy.
But Ina's question remained hanging in the air.
Levan answered in a faint but audible voice, his eyes never leaving his reflection.
"They don't keep trash, Romo... and today, after the course ends, we are just extra waste. I honestly don't know our fate."
And before Romo could comprehend the words...
WOO—
The sound of the siren cut off his thoughts, but it was different this time. Long... sharp... and continuous, like an omen of doom.
Romo jumped from his place, his face pale, muttering with distress.
"Even breakfast is forbidden today. The orders are to head to the arena at seven sharp."
Levan sat on the edge of the bed and began tying his shoes calmly, and commented with a cold smile.
"Of course... hungry dogs are fiercer in the ring, Romo. They are preparing the graduation show."
From the adjacent room, a familiar voice came screaming through the thin wall in a terrified tone.
"Levan! Please don't do your usual stupidities today! I heard the guards whispering... don't make them punish the entire Forgotten Wing because of your long tongue!"
Levan smiled coldly and muttered in a low voice that Romo heard.
"Isn't that Jared the whiner? He still fears his own shadow even though he possesses ZEN stronger than all of us."
Levan replied to him in a slightly raised voice so the neighbor could hear.
"Save your advice for yourself, Jared, and try not to piss on yourself when you see their looks."
Jared replied with a voice choking with terror.
"You don't understand! The arena is full of the audience! And the Chosen are carrying real swords! They don't intend to train... they intend to purge!"
Levan felt a coldness running through his stomach. For five years, he was just a training dummy dodging and surviving. But if today is an exhibition fight in front of an audience... then the tricks of fake falling might not work. The audience wants blood, not acting.
Levan looked at his bare hands. No ZEN energy. Just a human body used to pain and deception, and the memory of an old man who believed in him once.
Levan turned to Romo and Ina, and painted on his face that provoking smile they hated, to hide a real terror gnawing at his heart.
"Alright... it seems we will perform one final theatrical show."
He opened the iron door with a heavy creak, letting the bright morning light flood them all at once, and the roar of the raging audience in the arena slapped their ears.
Levan narrowed his eyes against the light, and stepped toward the outside without uttering a word...