Thirteen years.
That's how long they had stayed, grown, and carved themselves into living legends within the iron-walled sanctum of Dawn Academy. The institution had seen them at their lowest—brash, green and unsecure.
Now it bore witness to their departure—refined, fierce, and feared across the continent. The Juggernauts were no longer a team of misfit prodigies. They were monsters forged in trials and fire.
No fanfare remained. No lingering goodbyes.
Only the stillness before the storm that was the world beyond.
The morning sun was pale, casting a silvery sheen on the shimmering portal that stood like a wound torn open in reality.
There were five exits, five gates to five corners of the known world—each calibrated by the academy to lead its graduates wherever they intended to go.
Kaelen Maglor stood still in his traveling coat, his black hair brushing over his brow, eyes reflecting the portal's glow.
