The lecture hall buzzed with low chatter as students settled into their seats, illuminated by the soft glow of floating Nous orbs overhead. The air smelled faintly of parchment and ancient stone, the kind of scent that clung to old knowledge like dust.
An instructor stepped forward, her voice steady but warm.
"Today we will explore Blessings: their nature, their origins, and why they matter."
She gestured to the large crystalline panel behind her, where glowing runes shifted and twisted into patterns.
"A Blessing is different from a Wish," she explained. "Wishes are powerful, singular desires granted through divine contracts. They are often life-changing, but rare. Blessings, by contrast, are natural endowments latent gifts tied to your Nous essence and lineage. They manifest as unique affinities, abilities, or traits that enhance your connection to Nous."
The instructor paused and raised a hand.
"Please, scan your Academy IDs."
The students obeyed, holding their cards beneath suspended scanners. One by one, holographic sigils and text hovered above each card, revealing Blessings or "None" if absent.
Amari's ID shimmered with a silver sigil: Natural.
A quiet nod passed among a few classmates. The Natural Blessing was well known for easing spellcasting and Wish formation.
Hari's ID flickered briefly, then simply displayed None.
Andre's card, however, sparked with a glitch: a swirling void of static and corrupted data.
Murmurs rippled through the hall. A few students exchanged uneasy looks.
One boy, eyes narrowed and voice dripping with disdain, muttered loud enough for the nearby circle to hear,
"That's what you get from the Sika. Born with nothing."
Before the tension could escalate, Hari's voice cut through sharply.
"Enough," he said, stepping toward Andre and placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "Don't listen to them."
Amari leaned closer, his voice low and serious.
"People like us," he muttered, "we're either miracles or mistakes."
The instructor's gaze swept the room.
"Blessings are neither curse nor guarantee. They are but one thread in the tapestry of power. What you do with what you have is what defines you."
The hall fell quiet, the lesson sinking deeper than any rune or spell.
Elsewhere.
The night air was cool and still atop the crumbling rooftop just beyond the Academy's stone walls. Sparse stars flickered above, their light struggling to pierce the haze of the city's ever-present smog.
Makoto sat cross-legged on the ledge, a cigarette smoldering between his fingers. The smoke curled upward, twisting and dissipating like ghostly brushstrokes on a dark canvas.
"Your students aren't bad," he said, exhaling slowly. "That Cruz kid… he bleeds like an actor. So dramatic, it's almost impressive."
Before he could take another drag, a familiar voice sliced through the quiet.
"You always did have a flair for understatement."
Anya stepped out from the shadows, her voice smooth as paint sliding over canvas.
Makoto's sharp eyes flicked to her, a grin tugging at his lips.
"And you vanish like a ghost, only to pop up mid-sentence like you never left."
Anya chuckled, settling beside him.
"You know I never really left."
They watched the distant Academy lights flicker below.
"So what's your read on the trio?" Makoto asked, his tone more serious now.
Anya's eyes softened with worry.
"Andre's delusions might save him or get him killed. Hari's strength is real, but he's still untethered. And Amari… well, Amari carries too much weight already."
Makoto flicked ash over the edge.
"Miras is getting louder. That shadow won't stay quiet much longer."
Anya's gaze darkened.
"They're too young to be dragged into Liv's old games."
"Survival will force their hand," Makoto replied quietly. "Pandora is watching, waiting. They'll have to pick a side soon enough."
The two friends shared a long look, one painted with history, rivalry, and an unspoken hope that the next generation might paint a different future.
The sky fractured like a broken fresco, violet and obsidian shards painting a heaven that could never be whole. Gravity was a lie here. Waterfalls streamed sideways, stones spun in slow spirals mid-air, and glyphs older than speech floated like constellations, murmuring truths no mind could hold.
Amari stood at the center, his body still, his mind anything but.
A phantom of pure Nous lunged at him, a construct of his own making. He sidestepped, blinking across space in a single instant. His palm shimmered with a glyph of sharp light. The phantom shattered on impact, dissolving into harmless dust.
He didn't celebrate.
Instead, he stared at his hands.
They were shaking.
Claws again. Just for a moment. Barely there, but growing more frequent. His reflection in a jagged obsidian stone showed something with elongated limbs, glowing eyes, a face that wasn't his.
"Not yet," he whispered. "Not now."
A mirror appeared, as it always did when he stayed too long. It hovered on a slab of floating granite, the surface rippling like water.
In it, he saw himself, not the young noble in clean Academy robes, not the golden child of House Abara. No, something feral stared back. Crowned in twisted horns that hadn't yet grown. A prince, maybe. But not of humans.
Then came the voice. Not the mirror's, not the realm's, but one embedded in his bones.
"How far are you willing to go to protect them?"
His fists clenched.
Images flared across his vision:
His father's voice, polished and cruel: "We raised you to rule. Not to run."
His mother's cold smile as she passed judgment on his failures: "You were chosen. That is not the same as being loved."
His siblings, lined up like a painting, perfect, distant, proud but their eyes held knives. The kind that never needed sharpening.
They hated him. Hated that he had the Blessing. Hated the way elders bowed to him while they were ignored. Hated the whispers that he would be King, not just heir.
He had begged them to train with him. They refused.
He had begged them to speak with him. They mocked him.
They thought his mutation was a curse.
He was starting to agree.
Amari turned away from the mirror. Its whispers didn't fade.
The monoliths around him began shifting, inching closer. A sign. Time was running out. The longer he stayed in Abara, the more real the realm became.
The more he lost of himself.
He pressed a hand to his chest. The glyph for Jump shimmered once.
"Just one more."
And then he vanished, leaving the mirror behind, where his reflection still stood, unmoving.
Watching.
The war room beneath the Crown Spire was quiet, always quiet, as if sound itself feared her authority.
Scrolls and crystal projections floated in concentric circles, surrounding Queen Sophia Doyle, seated at the head of a crescent-shaped obsidian table. The walls flickered with living maps of Liv, its fractures, strongholds, and fault lines rendered in burning Nous lines.
A commander in gray armor stepped forward and bowed low.
"Another site scorched in the eastern perimeter," he reported, voice tight. "No survivors. The glyphwork matches the incident near the Academy." He hesitated. "Initial readings place it at… high Obsidian. Possibly more."
Sophia's fingers steepled beneath her chin. Her robes, stitched with threads of daylight itself, shimmered faintly in the gloom.
"Did it speak?"
A flicker of unease crossed the commander's face.
"We think… it whispered. One word. 'Miras.'"
Silence.
Not shock. Not fear. Just calculation.
Sophia rose, and the table shifted. A projection of the Academy grounds bloomed in midair. Three silhouettes hovered above it: Andre, Amari, and Hari.
"Potential assets," she murmured. "All unrefined. All watched."
She tapped her ringed finger against Hari's image.
"This one is raw. Loyal, if properly guided."
Her gaze flicked to Amari.
"He's better trained. Dangerous. But still fears himself."
And then Andre. The projection faltered slightly. An anomaly blinked across his silhouette. Null tag detected. A red dot flickered where a Blessing or Wish should have been.
Sophia smiled thinly.
"And this one… is chaos wearing charm."
The council exchanged uneasy glances.
"Are you suggesting we involve students?"
Sophia didn't answer. She walked to the far end of the room, where a glass wall overlooked the throne city, a thousand banners fluttering in the wind like a storm waiting to bloom.
"The Arkan Scale served us well," she said at last. "But it was born in a simpler time. When gods still feared one another, and mortals knew their place."
A new projection opened beside her: a rough sketch of a proposed reclassification system, with unfamiliar symbols, spirals, and terms not yet standardized. Some weren't even in the common tongue.
"We need a new measure for gods," she said. "Because one walks again."
The room stirred. One of the older advisors, a man with a Nous-crafted arm, cleared his throat.
"And what of Pandora?" he asked cautiously. "Makoto's movements have grown more erratic. His proximity to the Academy can't be ignored."
Sophia turned slightly. Her eyes narrowed, not with anger, but with memory.
"Makoto once believed in peace," she said. "Even traitors start as idealists."
She let that hang in the air, like a sword dangling by a hair.
"If he still lingers near our children, we'll treat him like any other storm. Not with panic."
Her voice lowered, razor-sharp.
"With thunder."
She faced the council fully now, her voice rising.
"If Miras wants war, then let's show them Liv remembers how to fight."
The room bowed as one.
The trio called to Cohort Zero's class.
The air smelled like pressure.
Not the kind you feel before a storm. The kind that settles in your bones and tells you: something wants you to break.
Hari, Amari, and Andre stood side by side in front of a wide obsidian table. Their uniforms were crisp, freshly assigned for official duties, but they all wore them like different men:
Hari's was too tight at the shoulders. He shifted like the fabric didn't belong on his frame.
Amari's robe fell perfectly, his family crest glowing faintly on the back, but he refused to meet anyone's eyes.
Andre had untucked half of his shirt and tied a red cloth around one wrist. His grin was wide, but hollow.
They didn't speak. They were waiting.
A faint static snapped through the room, and then John Takahara emerged from the corridor. No footsteps. Just… presence.
The moment he entered, the walls seemed to stand straighter. The light dimmed out of respect. His coat, laced with black tags that pulsed with restrained Nouson energy, trailed slightly behind him like the breath of something watching.
He stood before them and said nothing for a moment.
Then:
"You three will be deployed tomorrow."
No warmup. No encouragement. Just fact.
A flick of his hand activated the central panel. A map unfolded above it, spinning slowly to reveal a forest on the Academy outskirts, near where the Nouson glyphs had been found.
"We've lost contact with a patrol team here. Four enforcers. No trace. You'll investigate. Extract survivors if possible."
Andre raised a hand halfway.
"Uh….sir? Isn't that a little… advanced?"
John didn't blink.
"Correct."
He turned his gaze to Hari.
"Your strength. Amari's control. Cruz's unpredictability. If something is nesting out there, I need proof. If it's nothing…" He paused. "Then I need to know you won't die chasing ghosts."
Amari's mouth opened slightly, but no sound came.
Hari said, "Why us?"
John's pale blue eyes flickered faintly; subtle, tired.
"Because you're Cohort Zero."
He stepped forward and placed three small tokens on the table. Each glowed with a different Nous signature.
"These are emergency tags. Break them if you encounter anything above Argent-Class."
Andre looked at his nervously.
"So… you'll come running if we break it?"
John looked at him with a tired softness that almost passed for warmth.
"If you're still alive."
He turned to leave, then paused, his back to them.
"The queen is watching. So is the void."
A tremor. A flicker. Just for a second, his voice lost focus.
"Don't trust anyone who smiles too easily."
They all looked at Andre, who awkwardly hid his grin.
Then John straightened again.
"I'll be nearby. But I won't save you unless it matters." He faced the door again.
"Don't make me regret that."
And then he was gone, like the pressure had followed him out.
The trio stood there, absorbing everything:
The forest. The mission. The fact that they had just been called out by a man who tamed monsters like bedtime stories.
Amari broke the silence.
"If we find what I think is out there… we run."
Hari didn't answer.
Andre cracked his knuckles, still smiling, but his voice was quieter than usual.
"No main character arc yet, huh?" Then he looked at the other two.
"…Then let's try not to die in the next chapter."