The training chamber pulsed with heat.
Lucian stepped through the door, the faint hiss of the steel closing behind him. The room was built for violence—reinforced walls, arrays woven into the floor, runes glowing faintly to absorb energy. But even with all that, the chamber felt stretched thin, like it was already struggling to contain what was inside.
Lucy floated in the center.
Her hair, usually silver-white, burned black. Not dyed. Not cloaked. Flames. Each strand flickered like a coal left too long in the fire, smoke curling faintly from the ends. Her eyes blazed, fire dancing in the depths as if they weren't eyes at all but living embers.
Lucian stopped.
The aura spilling from her wasn't what he had expected. The crystal he gave her—those cores—should have pushed her to XXX rank. Exactly that. Nothing more. He had calculated it himself. But what was in front of him wasn't XXX.
It was beyond.
Epsilon.
