The sky above Arcane Dominion was unnaturally quiet.
No thunder. No wind. Just a strange… stillness.
Like the world itself was holding its breath.
---
Inside Classroom H-13 — nicknamed "The Heretic Cage" by students who never set foot in it — five desks sat crooked on cracked marble floors.
The Heretic Class: where all failures were dumped.
Dropouts. Rule-breakers. Curse-marked. F-ranks. Forgotten.
And now?
Ash, Kirito, and Seraphina.
---
Ash leaned back in a half-broken chair, tossing a coin in the air.
> "This feels more like a trap than a class."
Kirito stood beside the shattered window, silent. Watching.
Seraphina crossed her arms. "They called it a 'Special Ops Field Program'."
> "Translation: 'No one will miss you if you die,'" Kirito muttered.
Ash caught the coin mid-air and grinned. "Let's die interesting, then."
---
The door creaked open.
In walked Professor Marlowe — an old, one-eyed war mage who was legally dead in three kingdoms. He smelled of smoke, old spellbooks, and sarcasm.
> "Congratulations, disappointments," he said, slamming a scroll onto the desk.
"You've just been drafted."
---
The mission?
A ruined outpost just outside Dominion territory.
Abandoned ten years ago after a "summoning incident."
Classified threat level: E+.
> "You're to retrieve a relic and return. Try not to die ugly. Makes paperwork messy."
> "And if we don't?" Seraphina asked, tone cold.
Marlowe smiled.
> "Then you'll fit right in with the bones of the last squad."
---
The journey to the ruin took two hours.
But the silence between them was heavier than distance.
Ash didn't joke. Kirito didn't hum. Seraphina didn't lecture.
Because they all felt it — the wrongness in the air.
---
They reached the outpost by nightfall.
Ash stepped over a rusted chain gate, eyes scanning.
The place wasn't destroyed.
It was abandoned. Mid-meal. Mid-spell. Mid-breath.
> "Something erased time here," Kirito said quietly.
> "Not time," Ash muttered. "Memory."
---
Inside the outpost chapel, they found the relic.
Or what was left of it.
A sphere of frozen shadow — humming like a heartbeat.
Seraphina reached for it—
Ash grabbed her wrist.
> "Don't. Look at the symbols."
On the walls, written in blood:
"He still sleeps. And if he wakes, the Dominion falls."
---
Suddenly, the air trembled.
A pulse of mana. Then screaming.
Shadows burst from the relic, forming a creature that didn't belong to the world — neither beast nor spirit, but something caught in between.
A Phantom Shade — an entity that devoured soul threads.
Rank: A.
They were still officially F-ranks.
---
Seraphina drew her blade instantly.
Kirito's eyes narrowed.
Ash?
He smiled.
> "Let's make F-rank history."
---
The Shade lunged.
Ash moved — a blur of instinct.
No spells. No chants.
Just a shift in gravity — subtle, beautiful, terrifying.
Seraphina followed up with light magic — ineffective.
Kirito hurled blackened daggers, slowing it down.
Still — it shrieked, split into three copies, and rushed.
---
The battle wasn't perfect.
Ash took a slash across the ribs.
Kirito's leg was nearly shattered.
Seraphina's shield spell failed mid-cast.
But together?
They endured.
Not through raw power — through timing. Through trust.
Through something deeper.
> Sync.
---
Finally, as the Shade charged Ash one last time, Kirito whispered:
> "Now."
Ash bit down on his lip until blood trickled.
Then roared a word not spoken since the Dominion War:
> "Collapse."
His shadow bent — and the relic shattered, taking the Shade with it.
Silence fell.
And the outpost?
It began to rebuild itself. The curse lifted.
---
They stood in the ruins, panting, bloody, burned.
> "That wasn't E-rank," Seraphina muttered.
> "They wanted us dead," Ash replied.
> "Then we should return the favor," Kirito added.
---
As they limped back to the academy…
Far above, hidden from sight, the Council watched the footage.
Lysander stared at the screen.
> "That boy… he used a sealed word. That's illegal."
Seraphina's cousin — a sharp-eyed strategist — leaned forward.
> "He knew it. And survived the backlash."
> "We need to elevate the threat level," Lysander whispered.
> "No," said a new voice from the shadows.
> "We need to see what else they're hiding."