The morning sun bled cold light over Vaelith Academy.
Where hundreds had died, there was no blood. No ruin. The Obsidian Plaza stood pristine once more, silent and waiting, as if the massacre of the Reaping had never happened.
But the survivors knew. The air itself seemed to watch.
Eryndor stood at the edge of the assembly, arms crossed, crimson eyes scanning the scattered students who dared to remain.
Hollow gazes. Bloodstained uniforms. Some had survived by luck. Most by betrayal.
The Thrones ignited.
Ten obsidian monoliths surrounding the Plaza flared to life, ancient sigils burning cold above them. The sky rippled like torn fabric as the System's voice fell like a blade.
[Academy Directive: Initiate First-Year Faction Formation.]
[New Academy Law: No student may remain unaffiliated.]
[All candidates must assemble under a recognized faction by dusk or forfeit Seat protection.]
[Survive. Or be erased.]
The words sent immediate panic through the crowd.
Students turned on each other with whispered schemes. Alliances were formed and broken in the same breath. Old House loyalties surged like poison through veins. The powerful began circling the weak like predators over wounded prey.
Eryndor did not move.
A hush fell as the Thrones pulsed again.
Figures descended.
Ten beings clad in cloaks woven from the darkness between stars, faces hidden, walked slowly toward the center of the Plaza. The Academy's eternal arbiters. Those who held the Seats.
The Warden of Chains stepped forward.
Chains coiled like living serpents around their silhouette, dragging heavy iron links that scraped across the stone with a sound that silenced all breath.
"You stand at the threshold," the Warden intoned. "The Academy does not nurture. It does not protect. It tests. It culls."
The Warden raised a skeletal hand.
"The First Faction Trial begins now."
The ground rumbled.
The center of the Plaza cracked open, ancient iron doors grinding apart to reveal a stairwell spiraling down into infinite blackness. The air that escaped from below stank of rust, ash, and something worse.
"The Severance Grounds await," the Warden declared. "Retrieve the Oathbrand Sigil. Return. Only those who claim the relic earn the right to exist. Six hours. No exceptions."
Eryndor's lips curled into the faintest smile.
So it began.
The iron doors of the Severance Grounds stood open like the gaping maw of a beast ready to devour.
Around the Plaza, factions began forming at a feverish pace. House banners materialized with arrogant flair. Varyn's crimson lion sigil roared above a disciplined line of sword-bearers. Dawnspire's radiant phoenix burned golden, Eldric Dawnspire standing tall at its center, flanked by chosen elites.
The self-declared protagonists.
Eryndor watched from the shadows.
He counted them. Measured them. Watched the hierarchy reassert itself. The privileged drew in allies with promises of protection, glory, and power. The weak and cursed were ignored, left adrift in a sea of shifting alliances.
Just as he had planned.
A soft scuff of footsteps.
The first came hesitantly.
A girl with fractured silver irises and pale, trembling hands that crackled with unstable mana. Her House had cast her out. A living mana hazard. Eryndor knew her from the novel. She had died early, unnoticed.
Not this time.
Eryndor nodded once. "You're with me."
Then came another: a boy whose aura flickered uncontrollably between ice and fire. A bloodline anomaly. Doomed by imbalance.
And another: a hulking figure wrapped in chains, his face hidden by a cracked iron mask. Rumored to be a failed experiment of forbidden alchemy, whispered as The Unborn.
One by one, they came.
The castaways. The unwanted. The outcasts who had no place beneath the arrogant banners of the Houses.
Eryndor stood among them, cloak billowing faintly as the cold morning wind swept the Plaza.
No oaths. No speeches. Only survival.
The whispers began.
The Lost Ones.
Snickers and sneers spread through the elite factions.
"Trash heap."
"They won't last ten minutes."
"Vaelith is building a graveyard."
Eldric Dawnspire's cold gaze swept toward them. Arrogant. Dismissive. Eryndor met it with calm, burning indifference.
The Warden of Chains raised its hand.
"All factions enter."
The ground shook violently. The black staircase yawned wider, swallowing light.
Eryndor turned to his ragged, mismatched group. His voice, cold and absolute, cut through the noise.
"Stay close. Don't die. Follow only my orders."
The cursed girl hesitated. "What if we fail?"
Eryndor stepped forward, the first into the dark, never looking back.
"Then we weren't meant to exist."
The iron doors groaned as The Lost Ones vanished into the Severance Grounds.
The darkness closed around them.