The air in his quarters had gone still, thick with the weight of the recent revelations. Orion's eyes stayed locked on the locket for several long seconds. It looked so small. So harmless. But he had felt it react in that vision.
His fingers hovered above it, then closed slowly, deliberately around the tiny object. He held it to his ear, waiting for a flicker.
Nothing.
The locket.
He had never thought much of it before. It had always been there—a simple gift from his mother on his fifth birthday. A keepsake. A reminder.
But now?
Now he wasn't so sure.
His mind replayed the moment from the vision—the way it had vibrated against his chest, as if something inside it had… responded.
It had to be tied to the Zey'rans.
His mother's family. A family built on genetic research, on evolution itself.
The family that had worked alongside his own to create the Pythia Trials.
Perhaps it was tied to Pythia?
He should ask her.
"Just what are you?" he whispered.
He tucked it into his drawer, shutting it gently. Whatever secrets it held, they were not meant for tonight.
Instead, he turned to the data logs compiled by the Ares Combat Simulator. Frame by frame, the holographic feed of his performance glimmered before him. He slowed the footage, isolating every frame of Wraith's Wrath—the lunge, the rotational torque of his hips, the point of contact. He paused at the impact moment.
"Too inefficient." he muttered.
Again.
He reset the sequence. Rewatched it. He analyzed the kinetic outputs, recalculated the center of mass, adjusted timing in his mind.
Then again.
And again.
The hours bled together, unnoticed. The outside world shrank until it was only him, the spear, and the ghostly echo of a future that might already be set in stone.
If that vision was the future, then it was a warning.
And warnings were not meant to be ignored.
He stood again, stretching out tight muscles. The fatigue in his limbs became dull, manageable—nothing compared to what the vision had burned into his nerves. Still gripping his training Wraith spear, he reactivated the immersive mode in the simulation once more.
The world outside the training floor remained silent. The hall's glow was faint, washed in early twilight now. But within him, the rhythm stirred again. The memory of the fight—the terror and awe it inspired—pulled him forward.
He took position at the center of the arena.
And he moved.
Each strike, each sweep, each step was a masterpiece.
Orion shut his eyes, exhaling slowly. He could still see it. Every movement, every sequence, burned into the back of his mind. His body still remembered the pain—the brutal efficiency of his opponent, the raw hopelessness of trying to fight a predator who was leagues beyond him. He had been crushed, torn apart, humiliated.
He had moved differently. Fought differently. His own style had evolved just by remembering that battle. Techniques he had never used before had emerged from him, as if drawn forth from some untapped reservoir of instinct. The way his feet had shifted, the precision in his strikes—he had never learned those movements.
A ripple of awareness coursed through him as his weight adjusted on instinct. His posture changed—lower, more fluid. His footing, which had once been the foundation of his technique, morphed into something sharper, more elusive. It was still Wraith Style, but… different. More refined. More dangerous.
His body adjusted without thought. His balance was lighter, more reactive. His stances weren't static anymore, but a flowing rhythm. It was as if he had spent years perfecting this dance.
Orion exhaled, shifting forward. The spear spun through his hands, tracing an arc in the air as he moved.
~ Dance of the Wraith. ~
It was no longer just a style—it was an unfolding rhythm, a constant motion. His spear became a phantom, flickering in and out of space, unpredictable and untouchable. Each step flowed into the next seamlessly, almost as if he were responding to an opponent that wasn't there.
He struck forward—aggression surging through his core.
~ Wraith's Wrath. ~
His hands trembled slightly as he lowered his spear.
How could he explain this? How could he walk up to Varun and say, "I developed two new techniques in my sleep."
The room became still, illuminated only by the dim glow of his datapad as he deactivated the ACS.
If there was any way to dissect and master the movements he had witnessed, it would be through this system.
Orion exhaled slowly as the neural interface relayed the image feed to his retina. Fighters used this system to refine techniques, perfect strategies.
But this wasn't where he needed to be right now.
This was the future if he did nothing. If he didn't grow fast enough. Strong enough.
A prompt flickered in his vision.
[Do you wish to initiate deep movement patterns analysis?]
Then his jaw tightened.
[Yes.]
The simulator pulsed as his movements were broken down into data—footwork patterns, strike angles, evasive maneuvers. Every minute detail dissected, translated into something Orion could learn.
Orion forced himself to watch, to memorize. Every movement, every shift in weight, every slight nuance. The way he flowed with impossible grace, weaving destruction into a dance of inevitability.
His fingers twitched as he disconnected from the simulator, the data lingering in his mind like an echo. He needed space to think, to analyze every movement with precision. The moment the sequence started, the world around him shifted. His own holographic form appeared, moving with the familiar grace of his Wraith Style. And then—
Orion exhaled sharply, the simulator's interface fading from his vision as he closed the simulation.
He would not lose again.
Not to that predator. Not to fate.
Orion's mind raced as he considered his next move. The academy was strict—cadets had limited access to records, and he had no direct way to search for the two figures from his vision. But that didn't mean he was out of options.
The chubby boy. The petite girl.
They had been there, in his vision. They had died there.
He had never met them.
Orion's fingers tapped against the console as he scrolled through file after file. The system filtered names by age, physical build, combat aptitude—anything that could match what he had seen.
Nothing.
His jaw tightened.
No matches.
If they were meant to be here, then they had to be commoners who enrolled in the academy, or they would be soon.
Hours passed. Orion barely noticed. His mind burned through possibility after possibility.
Finally, Orion leaned back in his chair, exhaling through clenched teeth.
If Orion had to guess, this was the first-year mission, it was designed as an initial proving ground, a controlled battlefield meant to test cadets at their most unrefined state.
Since he was enrolling in the first trial earlier than his age group, his second trial would be in two years. That put him on an accelerated track, meaning his second and final trial would be sooner than most. By his calculations, that left him anywhere from three to three and a half years to prepare. Time that would either make or break him. And from what he had seen in his vision, that time was already running out.
He had seen his own techniques—his Wraith Style—elevated beyond what he thought was possible.
Because if his vision had shown him anything, it was that he wasn't strong enough. Not yet.