Siege woke to the tolling of bells that sounded more like chains being dragged across stone.
Morning light spilled through the window in pale ribbons—less like sunlight and more like the calm before a storm.
He sat up, heart pounding. Dreams had haunted him, shifting fragments of old memories wrapped in the voices of people he had never met. One of them—a man with silver eyes—kept whispering his name through a forest of corpses.
He pushed the dream aside and got dressed. Nightmares were now commonplace for him.
The uniform of Class Leviathan was a sleek suit-like, navy blue weave of fibersteel and myth-thread, its texture somewhere between silk and chainmail. It shimmered faintly when he moved—though it did little to reassure him.
As he stepped into the hallway, dozens of other students were filing toward the central spire, all clad in colors that matched their assigned classes:
Gorgon green for the average students, Chimera black and bronze for the more talented ones, and Leviathan blue for the prodigies
Some whispered. Some levitated. One student passed him on all fours, wearing a smiling mask and giggling like a lunatic.
Albion was nowhere in sight. Siege wasn't even sure if he wanted to see him.
The boy had the presence of a riddle that solved itself only when you bled on it.
---
The classrooms were held in the Oculus, a massive dome suspended between the towers of Anatheon by invisible forces and churning gears.
It rotated slowly in the sky, the inside ringed with hundreds of floating stone platforms—each a different classroom, each hovering in impossible defiance of physics.
Siege's schedule glowed in red script across the card in his left hand.
Period One: Monster Theory (All Classes)
> Location: Platform 7 | Instructor: Prof. Nysa Vahl
He stepped onto a glyph-lift, which launched him through the air with a whispering wind and placed him gently on a moss-covered disc floating high above the rest.
*Why are they using magic for this? They could just use an elevator...* Siege said internally.
Around him, twenty other students stood in a loose semi-circle. Most looked bored. A few looked hungover.
Their instructor arrived not by lift, but by smoke.
A coil of black mist twisted in midair and took the shape of a tall woman in a shawl of feathers and bone fragments. Her skin was a deep blue-gray, and her eyes were entirely white, like pearls scraped hollow.
"I am Professor Vahl," she said, her voice flat and echoing. "Former Leviathan. Slayer of two Profane Colossus. Today, you will learn the ten primal truths of sentient monsters."
She held up a long, curved blade with runes etched along the flat.
"First truth: All monsters lie."
The platform dimmed, and illusions burst to life around them—images of beasts Siege couldn't begin to describe.
Limbs that bent wrong. Jaws that split into fractals. Some wore human faces. Others whispered promises in Siege's own voice.
Professor Vahl walked through them, untouched.
"They mimic humanity. They reflect fear. They feast on memory and echo. You cannot fight what you do not understand—and if you understand them, you are already losing."
She paused, and one of the illusions broke from its display, rushing a student at full speed.
The boy panicked, trying to shield himself.
Siege flinched.
The monster stopped inches from the boy's face—and dissolved.
"Second truth: Fear is their leash and their lure."
---
Over an hour later, Siege found himself in his next class, unsure of when he had even arrived.
Period 2: Ascendant Metaphysics I (All Classes)
> Location: Blacksteel Amphitheater, Tier VII | Professor Thales of the Ossuary Hall
"Sit. Listen. Leave your childish notions of power at the door. Today, you will learn what it truly means to ascend. And if you are wise, you will pray you never rise too high."
Quite murmurs broke out in the classroom.
"Ranks are the measure by which divinity fractures the soul."
"Let that sentence root itself in your mind like a parasite. You are here because something within you has awakened, yes? A flicker of divinity? A gift?"
"Each rank is not a pedestal, but a threshold-- a gateway into madness, reshaped by fire no mortal kindled."
"Warrior, Hero, Demi-God, False God, True God, God King, and the yet to be acquired Primordial God. Each a life and soul altering step,"
"But rank alone does not define the battlefield."
"Each of you bears an Aspect—a mythic force etched into your soul at Ascension. Forgotten, Valiant, Epic, Legendary, Mythical, Titanic, Exalted, and Primeval… archetypes older than gods."
"A Titanic False God might level a continent with a breath. An Epic one may struggle demolishing an island. Your rarity and Aspect determine your reach—but never your safety."
"Because let me be clear:
In this world, strength is not glory. It is a burden."
---
After two more classes—Ritual Physics and Aspect Ethics—Siege's mind was a fractured mirror.
He'd learned how not to look a changeling in the eyes, how to cleanse a cursed wound with salt and celestial ink, and how certain mathematical constants could be used to detect monster movements between realms.
Lunch was a relief. Sort of.
He found Albion sitting beneath a bronze statue of Prometheus choking a serpent.
The mysterious boy had an untouched meal and was reading something bound in scales.
"Survive your first classes?" Albion asked without looking up.
"Barely."
"Then you're ahead of the curve."
Siege sat beside him, drained.
"You ever wonder if we're supposed to be doing this?" he muttered. "Fighting corruption, killing monsters, trying to save a world that already seems half-dead?"
Albion finally looked at him. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because wondering that is how you lose. This place doesn't care about your soul. Only your score."
Siege stared down at his hands.
"I don't have a score."
Albion closed the book. "You will."
---
That night, Siege returned to his room, the weight of the day pressing on his back like a second spine.
He lay on the soft bed, staring into the dim ceiling lights, unsure whether he was more afraid of dying here...
...or surviving long enough to see what came after.