The tranquility of Ukyo, the Capital of Gonaya, was a jarring contrast to the nightmare etched into the minds of its newest refugees. While the scent of jasmine and the sound of wind chimes filled the air, a violent commotion erupted at the Great Jade Gates.
"Identify yourselves! Stay back!" a Royal Guard captain shouted, his jade-scaled spear leveled at a blur of flickering blue and gold.
Kizumi, his Jet Drive armor scorched and venting black smoke, stumbled through the threshold. On his back, Kuraido was a ghost—his skin translucent, veins pulsing with a sickly, iridescent light.
"Help... please..." Kizumi rasped, his visor retracting to reveal a face caked in salt and soot. "Limana... the Academy... they're all gone."
From the crowd of onlookers, two figures pushed forward. Redhardt, his arm still in a sling, and Shinji, whose eyes widened with a shock that momentarily drowned out his grief.
"Kizumi?! Kuraido?!" Shinji's voice broke. He rushed forward, catching Kizumi as the boy's legs finally gave out.
THE MEDICAL WARD.
Hours later, the four survivors were gathered in a high-arched medical wing. Kuraido had been taken to a specialized isolation chamber. A Gonaya Rescue Squadron leader, a woman with keen eyes and a steady voice, stepped out to address them.
"Your friend, Kuraido... he is in a critical state," she began softly. "His body is attempting to heal itself—a rare property of his mana—but there is a complication. It is not just exhaustion. He has suffered severe internal mana-burns, and the energy signature doesn't match his own. It's as if another Arcane was forced into his system and then detonated."
She looked at the floor, her voice tinged with a mix of pity and frustration. "I feel for the citizens of Limana. We received the news of the SSS+ surge, but... without a Pact of Treaty, our Emperor could not deploy the army. Your leaders refused our help for decades. Now, only ash remains. The Emperor requests you recover here, but the world outside is changing."
The room went silent. The weight of politics felt small compared to the ghosts in the room.
Shinji sat on the edge of a chair, his hands clasped tightly. He looked at Kizumi, who was staring blankly at his scarred palms.
"I arrived too late," Shinji whispered, his voice a haunting echo. "I stood at the center of the Morning Star's blast. I saw the mark where Master Light Sabre fell. He was just... gone. And Vaderius was there, standing in the ashes, mocking his sacrifice."
As Shinji spoke, the room seemed to darken, the shadows stretching as he recounted his rage. He described the manifestation of the Abyss Realm, the terrifying power of the Abyssal Surge, and the arrival of the 8 Primordial Yokai Knights.
"They fought for me," Shinji said, a tear tracing a path through the dust on his cheek. "Shiragami, Walther, Akahime... they held back the entire Pact of Obsidian. But Vaderius... he didn't just beat me. He ignited the Obsidian Pyre inside my chest. He reached into my soul and extinguished the Abyss Dominion. He took them from me. He took my master, my power, and my family."
Kizumi looked up, his eyes bloodshot. "He didn't stop there, Shinji. He came for us at the Academy."
Kizumi began his own narration, his voice shaking. He described Class 0-E standing at the gates. He spoke of Syji's threads, Shioj's void beasts, and Mirei's lightning.
"They asked about you," Kizumi choked out. "In the middle of the fire, while the Maiju were tearing the walls down, Mirei asked if you were okay. They stayed behind, Shinji. Syji, Zarred, Tobari... they were captured. They gave Kuraido and me the path to escape because they believed you were still out there. They believed the 'Last Spark' couldn't be snuffed out."
Shinji buried his face in his hands. The realization that his classmates—his friends—were likely being tortured in the ruins of their home was a new kind of agony.
Redhardt stood by the window, his gaze fixed on the distant, peaceful mountains of Gonaya. He turned back to the two boys, his expression granite-hard.
"Your government was arrogant. They thought Limana was invincible, and they let you all pay the price for that pride," Redhardt said, his voice cutting through the grief. "And now, you think you're finished. Shinji, you have no Arcane. Kizumi, your armor is a wreck. Kuraido is fighting for his life."
Shinji looked up, his eyes hollow. "What am I supposed to do, Redhardt? I'm a commoner now. I can't even summon a shadow."
Redhardt walked over and stood over Shinji. "The Arcane is a gift, but the heart is a weapon. In my lost kingdom of Zaiglep, we didn't just rely on mana. We relied on the Flowstate—not as a magic, but as a martial discipline. A way to move when the world stops, and a way to strike when the spirit is broken."
Redhardt's eyes burned with a fierce, kingly intensity. "Vaderius thinks he won because he took your magic. He's wrong. Magic is just the flame; you are the wood. I'm going to teach you a variant of the Flowstate meant for those who have lost everything. A martial art of absolute adaptability. We will find your friends. We will reclaim the Abyss. But first, you will learn to fight as a man."
Shinji looked at Kizumi. Kizumi nodded slowly, a spark of vengeful fire returning to his gaze.
Shinji stood up, his legs shaking but his back straight. He didn't have the 8 Yokai. He didn't have the Abyss. But he had the memory of Light Sabre's sacrifice and the weight of Class 0-E's trust.
"Teach me," Shinji said, his voice cold and resolute. "I don't care what it takes. I'll break every bone in my body if it means I can wrap my hands around Vaderius's throat."
In the heart of the wealthy, silent kingdom of Gonaya, the counter-revolution began. The light of Limana had been extinguished, but in the darkness of Ukyo, a new, more dangerous kind of power was being forged.
IN THE OTHER SIDE...
Limana was no longer a city of light; it was a sprawling, silent graveyard where the wind whistled through the hollowed-out ribs of fallen skyscrapers. At the center of this desolation sat the Central Academy, once a beacon of hope, now converted into a laboratory of nightmares. The air here was heavy, saturated with the metallic tang of dried blood and the cloying, sweet rot of corrupted mana.
In the depths of the Academy's subterranean training halls—areas once used for sparring and laughter—the seven captured members of Class 0-E were suspended in mid-air. They were bound not by ropes, but by Obsidian Suture-Chains, jagged links of dark crystal that pulsed with a rhythmic, parasitic light, draining their remaining mana and replacing it with something foul.
Kaelthorn, the Soul Butcher, walked between the rows of hanging students, his chains dragging across the stone floor with a sound like sharpening knives. Beside him stood Graven, the Bonewright, a man whose very skin seemed to be made of stitched parchment and whose eyes glowed with a clinical, detached cruelty.
"Look at them," Kaelthorn whispered, his voice a jagged rasp. "The pride of the Exiles. They still have hope in their eyes. Can you smell it, Graven? It smells like... sunshine before a storm."
He stopped in front of Syji Schmitz. The boy was barely conscious, his once-vibrant mana threads now gray and limp, hanging from his fingertips like dead cobwebs. Kaelthorn reached out, his clawed hand gripping Syji's chin.
"Where is he, little weaver?" Kaelthorn asked. "Where did your golden king and the shadow-boy run to?"
Syji spat a mouthful of blood onto Kaelthorn's mask. "They're... coming for you. And when they do... I hope they leave enough of you for me to sew back together."
Kaelthorn laughed, a sound that echoed unpleasantly off the damp walls. He yanked on the obsidian chains, and Syji let out a strangled cry as the shackles began to vibrate, sending pulses of dark energy directly into his nervous system.
"Hope is a heavy burden, boy. Let me lighten it for you."
The torture was not merely physical. The Pact of Obsidian specialized in the erosion of the self. For hours, Veynar Umbros stood in the shadows, his voice a constant, psychic drone that bypassed their ears and spoke directly to their souls. He showed them images of Limana's fall. He showed them the "death" of Shinji, twisted and fabricated to look as though their leader had abandoned them to save himself.
Mirei Hanekage screamed until her throat was raw, her Voltgeist arcane flickering in desperate, erratic bursts. But every time she tried to summon her lightning, the chains absorbed it, feeding it back into her as a numbing, agonizing cold.
"He isn't coming, Mirei," Veynar's voice drifted through her mind. "He is in the south, drinking wine in the gardens of Gonaya while you rot in the dark. Why stay human for a world that has forgotten you?"
Beside her, Zarred tried to use his Chronoscroll to rewind their pain, but Graven had pinned his hands with silver spikes. The scrolls were shredded, and Zarred was forced to experience every second of the torture in a loop, unable to escape the temporal agony Kaelthorn inflicted.
One by one, their spirits began to flicker. The isolation, the pain, and the overwhelming sense of betrayal—carefully cultivated by Veynar's lies—began to crack the foundations of Class 0-E.
THE ART OF THE GHOSTS
"They are ready," Graven announced, his voice devoid of emotion. "The resonance is perfect. Their humanity is a thin veil now. We shall begin the Grafting."
This was the ultimate horror. The Pact did not wish to kill the students; they wished to repurpose them. Graven brought forward the Maiju Catalysts—pulsing, organic hearts harvested from SSS-Rank Maiju, preserved in vats of black bile.
"Shinji Saitou will need a welcoming committee when he returns," Veynar said, stepping into the light. "And who better to greet him than the friends he left to die?"
The transformation was a visceral, agonizing symphony. Graven began with Daigo Kurogane. Because his Ironhowl arcane already dealt with density, Graven fused his skeleton with the obsidian armor of a Fallen Titan. Daigo's screams shook the room as his skin split apart, replaced by jagged, hyper-dense bone plates. His hands fused into massive, spiked clubs, and his eyes were replaced by glowing red orbs of pure malice. He was no longer a boy; he was The Iron Juggernaut of the Abyss, a mountain of meat and metal.
Next was Shioj. His Void Shepherd arcane was turned inward. Graven didn't just give him a Maiju heart; he carved open Shioj's chest and replaced his lungs with a miniature spatial rift. Shioj's body began to glitch and tear, his limbs stretching into long, spindly shadows. He became The Rift Stalker, a creature that existed between dimensions, its very presence causing reality to fracture and bleed.
Syji's transformation was perhaps the most poetic. His mana threads were replaced by parasitic, living tendons harvested from a Weaver-Maiju. The threads no longer came from his fingers; they erupted from his spine, burrowing into the walls and floor, turning him into a living hub of a web that drained the life out of anything it touched. He was dubbed The Silk Widow.
Mirei and Rin were merged into a dual-threat of terror. Mirei's electricity was corrupted into Black Lightning, while Rin's reflections were used to create a creature that was never where it appeared to be. They became The Storm-Mirage, a flicker of dark energy that could wipe out a battalion before a single shadow was cast.
Zarred and Tobari were the final pieces. Zarred's time manipulation was fused with Tobari's silence. They became The Still-Clock, a sentinel of the dark that could freeze an entire battlefield in a pocket of silent, stagnant time, leaving enemies helpless as the other Maiju-students tore them apart.
THE VANGUARD OF THE NIGHT
As the sun rose over the ruins of Limana, seven monstrous silhouettes stood atop the Academy's roof. They no longer wore the uniforms of the Exiles. They were encased in armor of obsidian and bone, their auras a suffocating weight of corrupted mana.
They were the Specialized Modified Grotesque Maijus—the new vanguard of the Pact of Obsidian.
Veynar Umbros stood behind them, a cold smile on his face. He had taken the best of the next generation and turned them into the very monsters they had sworn to fight.
"Look toward the south, my pets," Veynar whispered. "Can you smell him? Can you smell the heart that beats in Ukyo?"
The creatures let out a collective, distorted roar—a sound that contained the faint, ghostly echoes of the children they used to be. Deep inside the husks of bone and shadow, a flicker of their original selves remained, trapped in an endless cycle of agony and forced obedience.
"When the time comes," Veynar continued, "you will show Shinji Saitou the price of his survival. You will show him that in this world, even the stars must eventually turn into black holes."
The monsters vanished into the shadows of the city, moving with a speed and ferocity that no human could match. They were the ultimate trap, a psychological weapon designed to break Shinji's heart before Vaderius ever had to swing his blade.
The "Last Lesson" of Class 0-E was over. The era of the Obsidian Vanguard had begun.
[TO BE CONTINUED]