It was the next day yet the sky had not healed.
Above the Academy, a jagged fracture lingered in the atmosphere like a wound carved across heaven itself. Threads of residual mana bled faintly from the edges—glowing softly, dangerously, like veins of dying starlight.
The rift had not closed.
It should've closed.
Mages from the Academy worked tirelessly in the cordoned-off courtyard below, tracing containment glyphs and measuring magic density. A steady hum saturated the air, a low, vibrating presence that thrummed at the base of every skull.
"A tear this deep," someone muttered, "isn't natural."
"I heard it stretches past the cloudline."
"Riven said it's older magic—pre-Ascension, maybe."
"Do you think another beast is in there?"
The students' murmurs flitted through the charged air, nervous and half-whispered, like birds afraid to land.
Cael stood behind the barrier wards, hands in his coat pockets, watching silently.
The instructors called it an "anomaly." The senior summoners whispered about spell collapse. But Cael had seen this kind of magic before—on the frontlines, where the world bled real.
The mana was wrong. Warped. Patterned like language.
He recognized it—but couldn't quite remember what it was. Like a word on the tip of his tongue, it danced just beyond his grasp, maddening in its familiarity.
A distant horn echoed through the mountains.
Then came the shimmer of transport sigils—lines of light etching themselves into the skies above the Academy, followed by a thunderous boom as air displacement cracked like a storm. The clouds parted, revealing the descending fleet: sleek obsidian skiffs flanked by floating artillery platforms, each brimming with arcane energy.
Students gasped and rushed to the observation decks. Even the instructors paused, their conversations falling silent mid-chant.
The Imperial Arcane Division had arrived.
They did not travel lightly.
The landing was swift and disciplined. A regiment of elite mages disembarked onto the training fields, instantly securing the perimeter of the rift with practiced precision. Their armor bore the Empire's crest—an eagle entwined with flame—and shimmered with protective wards. They moved with synchronized confidence, each formation a spell waiting to be cast.
And among them walked a man unlike the rest.
Tall. Composed. Draped in a long black coat lined with crimson trim. His hair was steel-gray, pulled back in a soldier's knot. His eyes—silver, quiet, and grave—cut through the crowd like blades.
Commander Elric Vane.
Cael's breath caught.
He knew that face.
From another life, another battlefield. Commander Vane, the man who held the final wall at Dareth Keep. The one who defied fate with a roar. The one who died dragging an enemy warbeast into the abyss—buying the heroes time to flee.
A true martyr of the coming war.
And now he was here. Years early.
As the commander stepped past the academy gates, his eyes swept across the students… and stopped.
On Cael.
Just for a moment. Just long enough.
Their eyes met.
There was no recognition, of course. Not on his end.
But Cael felt it anyway—that pull in the threads of fate, that twisting pressure deep in his chest.
Commander Vane didn't hesitate. He raised a hand, and his officers spread out with immediate precision.
"Secure the breach perimeter. I want sky-readings from three altitudes. Trace the rift's decay pattern. Cross-reference with temporal markers from yesterday's surge." His voice was quiet, but it carried—calm, exact, immovable.
He turned to an aide. "Casualty reports. Damage assessments. I want to know exactly what killed the creature, and how far it got before it fell."
Another command snapped out. "Split the Second Circle mages. Half with me for analysis. The rest—interview the staff, students, anyone who saw the beast up close."
Mages scattered like coalescing spells, slipping through barriers and phasing into the Academy's heart. Observation arrays ignited. The air grew thick with scanning glyphs and spell-chatter.
The courtyard had become a war room.
Cael looked up again at the rift.
And for the first time in weeks, a chill ran down his spine—not from fear…
…but from knowing.
Some time later—after the questioning ended, after the army's probing voices had quieted for the moment but not ceased—Cael walked the Academy halls in silence.
Investigators still moved through the wings. Students were pulled aside, instructors cornered for testimonies. The Empire's presence was a constant hum behind every door, a pressure that hadn't left since the rift tore through the sky.
The walls seemed to echo more now. As if something was missing—or as if he was walking slightly out of sync with the world around him.
He reached his dormitory, shut the door, and sat at his desk. His diary—a leather-bound relic he kept hidden beneath the false drawer panel—waited for him like a ghost.
He opened it with cold fingers.
Page after page. Carefully recorded notes of each rewrite. Names. Costs. Feelings he could barely remember.
He scanned the recent entry:
Rewrite #19: [Trajectory Collapse – Beast-Class Anomaly]Civilian: LiraCost: Empathy Cluster: KindnessSide Effect: Subtle disassociationEmotion Index: -5%
He turned the page.
Tried to add something—anything—about his mother.
Nothing came.
He stood and faced the mirror.
The boy reflected there had dark circles under his eyes. Pale. Too still.
He tried to conjure her face. Her voice. Her laugh.
Nothing.
He blinked once.Twice.Still nothing.
What did she look like?
Panic didn't rise. That worried him more than anything.
Then—
[System Notification:][Memory Sacrifice Confirmed: Parental Bond Fragment – Rewritten.][Emotional Decay Level: 41%]
He stared at the mirror.
"Forty-one percent."
"How much more could be stripped away before there was nothing left but the system?"
The next day, between lectures, he found himself beside Seris.
They sat beneath the arching stone columns of the western garden, overlooking the spell-forged lily pools. Students passed by in clusters, gossiping about the rift and the Empire's arrival.
She nudged him gently. "Do you remember the first time we sneaked out to the old observatory tower? You were so scared of the faculty catching us, you nearly fell down the staircase."
Cael blinked.
A moment too long.
Then—he smiled. "Right. I had a twisted ankle the next morning."
She tilted her head. Frowned. "Cael… no. That was me. You carried me the whole way back."
His smile didn't falter, but behind his eyes something snapped.
"…Right. Sorry. Must've gotten it mixed up."
She didn't press.
But he heard the gap between them widen.
"That memory wasn't mine. Or was it lost? Or… was it from another life? i can't recall."
Later that day, when the academy halls fell quiet again, Cael walked alone past the Archive corridors.
He heard voices.
His own voice. But not his.
Distorted. Distant. Echoing through the stone.
"You promised to be better next time—"
His head snapped around.
Nothing there.
Only flickering torchlight and long, silent shadows.
She appeared where the shadows were deepest—beneath the arches of the broken bell tower.
Kaelith stepped out of the dark like a whisper of violence and moonlight. Her silver hair glinted. Her expression was colder than usual.
"Your threads are unraveling," she said simply.
Cael turned slowly. "You're watching me again."
"Always," she said, too softly.
Her crimson eyes narrowed as she stepped closer, scanning him not with affection, but alarm. Her gloved fingers twitched as if resisting the urge to reach for him.
"Your aura used to hum—clear, sharp. But now it's flickering. Fading in places. There are holes. Tangled loops. Fractures."
Cael said nothing.
Kaelith's voice dropped, almost a whisper. "You're hollowing out, darling. I see it in your fate-lines. The system is eating you alive."
A long pause.
"I don't care if you're a monster," she added, quieter still. "But don't become a ghost."
For a brief moment, something flickered in Cael's eyes.
Regret? Remorse?
No. Just silence.
He looked away.
Just then, the Academy grounds buzzed with restless silence. Tension slithered in the air like a rising storm, coiling around each tower spire. The rift in the sky—jagged and pulsating—had not closed.
Commander Elric stood at the center of the training fields, surrounded by a projection circle flickering with reconstructed memory threads. Images of the beast twisted in shifting arcs of magic—glimpses of scale, claw, and raw, unfiltered rage.
He listened as the instructors recounted the battle: the spells they cast, the glyphs that cracked, the way the thing emerged—not summoned, but teleported to here.
One of the archmages gasped. "We scanned the magical lattice three times—same signature. It's them."
A beat of silence.
"And the portal, it's still active," she added, voice low. "It could reopen at any moment."
Elric's jaw tightened.
"Kingdom of Veyruun," he muttered.
His voice rang like steel on bone. He didn't need to raise it. Authority laced every word, heavy with war-forged certainty.
"Seal the Academy perimeter. Evacuate civilians. Prepare warding arrays and summon battalions. Everyone—now."
Runes surged to life across the Academy's ancient stone walls. The bell towers rang—not for class, but for battle. Their toll was deep and urgent, a cry of warning across the sky.
Cael was with Kaelith in one of the upper halls, leaning against a railing overlooking the courtyard below when the alarm flared. Magic surged through the air, buzzing across his skin.
Kaelith's grip tightened on his arm. "Darling… what's happening?"
"I—I don't know," Cael said, voice hollow.
That's when the system pinged.
[WARNING: Catastrophic Temporal Divergence Detected.][Timeline Distortion: Accelerated Invasion – Kingdom of Veyruun.][Cael Ardyn: Proximity to Nexus Event – 00:02:19]
Cael's heart dropped. He stumbled back from the stone railing, breath caught in his throat.
"No… no, this isn't supposed to happen yet," he whispered. "This shouldn't be for months—after the frontier skirmish, after the fall of Eltheren Outpost."
The rift churned, faintly glowing at the edges.
That tear in the heavens—it wasn't just magic.
It was the beginning.
The place where the war always started.The portal that always led to his death.
And like a wound tearing across the world's canvas, the rift flared open.
Light burst from its edges in crooked spears, jagged and blinding. The sky screamed—no thunder, just pressure and sound, as if reality itself was being ripped in two. Heat and howling wind poured from the breach, flattening the upper banners of the Academy's towers. A violet pulse rippled outward like a shockwave, knocking birds from the sky in silent arcs.
Then—
They appeared.
From the heart of the rift, they descended like living nightmares.
Creatures. Hulking, twisted beasts whose flesh shimmered with arcane alloy—skin grafted with plate, eyes burning from within. Their armor bore the unmistakable mark of Veyruun: spiral sigils of domination and conquest, glowing with forbidden fire.