Sezel blinked, crimson eyes locked on the grand screen, its cold light flickering with a near-impossible announcement.
Around him, the low murmur of the reception hall had died. A sudden, tomb-like silence fell over the crowd, a hundred pairs of eyes locked on the same soul-freezing announcement.
A RANK-A GATE HAS MANIFESTED NEAR THE FACILITY.
'Rank - A.' Sezel's breath caught in his throat. A Rank-A gate had just opened near the facility of Blood Born Corporation, a chill coiling in his gut. As the nearest Slayer corporation, Blood Bound bore the duty to confront the Gate.
Rank-S are the highest classification of the gates, and Rank-A was just below it. A Rank-S gate had the potential to destroy a whole continent, while the Rank-A can turn multiple cities to ash if not handled carefully.
Humanity had survived a A-Rank Gate only eleven times. They had survived an S-Rank only once.
Sezel's mind churned; if this thing is so close, there was a high probability he would also be sent with the expedition, and if not that, there was always the vanguard team which looked out for potential beasts coming out of the gate.
'This is a mess..' Sezel scowled under his breath, but it didn't take long for all his expectations to go down the well. Just the next minute, almost everyone standing at the reception got a notification on their devices, faces paled, eyes wide with terror, as Slayers read their devices.
Pretty obvious they were chosen to be a part of the expedition. Sezel stared at his own, heart thundering. Nothing came. A strange, almost shameful wave of relief washed over him, loosening his tense limbs.
He exhaled, slowly. 'So I am not chosen this time too.' It was logical. He was a Rank 0, as fragile as any baseline human. To send him inside that hell would be an execution. The captain too knew that and wouldn't let him walk in like a meat shield.
'Well that settles it.' He slipped the inert device back into his pocket and turned, moving towards the stairs, the quiet thump of his own footsteps a stark contrast to the silence. 'I do really hope that most of you live and come back.' A fleeting, hollow thought whispered.
But that was a lie he told himself to feel human. Most of his classmates were rookies, and with just two months of training, surviving inside a Rank-A gate was impossible.
He pushed the thought away, letting it slide off his consciousness and quietly walked to his room. He was not included, and as long as Sezel cared, it was all that mattered. Why would he care about some strangers? Did they care when he was drowning in the Spirit Realm, being pierced and cut? Their fate was not his concern.
Back in his room, he shut the door, plunging the space into darkness. He lay on his bed, eyes wide open, staring at the blank, gray canvas of the ceiling. But sleep would not come, lost in his distant thoughts. That was when he remembered that he hadn't checked his Spirit Meridian today.
'How could I forget such a thing.' He sat up, chuckling. It was his daily routine. Sezel used to go inside his Spirit Meridian once daily before sleeping, a desperate search for any clue about the Golden Fable. Every attempt had been a failure, but the ritual remained.
Sezel closed his eyes, focusing, drifting through the same darkness, opening inside the vast, silent plane of his Spirit Meridian. Impossible peaks tore at a sky of dead black, and a few skeletal trees dotted the barren ground. The black mass still hung at the same place, his Spirit Core, and only one Spirit Channel arched inside it from beyond the mountains.
'This place is as creepy as it always was.'
The card, his Fable, slowly revolved around his Spirit Core. He raised one hand and the card floated to him. It had become natural. It's not like he had to always come inside his Spirit Meridian to see his card. Slayers had restrictions in the real world, and all those restrictions were lifted when they stepped inside the Spirit Realm.
As such, Slayers become five times more powerful when they are inside the Spirit Realm and can summon the card physically, as it held all their belongings. It was like a vault.
"Show," he murmured. The card dissolved, reforming into a translucent silver window filled with text. He scanned it from top to bottom. Nothing new. Nothing had changed. With a sigh that carried no real disappointment, only resignation, he dismissed it.
Reading it a thousand times won't change anything. He stared up at the lifeless sky, a void of absolute nothingness.
Then he saw it.
His eyes widened. A single butterfly, pristine and perfect, its wings leaving shimmering particles behind. The same one. The one from the Spirit Realm. The one which turned into the girl who had saved him.
His blood turned to ice. The air solidified in his lungs. He stumbled back, a gasp tearing from his throat.
Ho… How? Impossible. This place is my soul. No one—
"What is impossible, my dear?"
A soft breath whispered against his ear. His heart hammered once, then stopped. His mind went blank, wiped clean by a cold, paralyzing shock.
He felt a hand, as cold as ice, gently brush through his hair. The same impossible chill he'd felt in the Spirit Realm. It was her.
Sezel jumped away, skidding on the ground and spun around, landing in a crouch with his fists raised.
There she stood, her long purple hair, as majestic as ever, flowing down like a waterfall, her purple eyes mirroring his crimson ones.
"How… how are you here?" Sezel's voice was a trembling rasp.
"What do you mean how? Weren't you the one who allowed me to have half of your soul?"
Sezel froze, his mind churning into chaos. "What?"
The girl raised a slender hand, pointing not at him, but at his Spirit Core. "There. I gave you one of my Spirit Channels."
Sezel followed, and the realization hit him like a rock on a naked body. The Spirit Channels a Slayer has are equal to his Rank and vice versa. He was a Rank 0. He should have none. But he had one. That single, lonely arc of light.
The mystery of how he used Spirit Energy back in the Spirit Realm unfolded before him. It was a piece of her inside of him.
The world seemed to tilt. Suddenly, she was beside him. Her cold hands cupped his face, forcing their eyes to lock. He was lost in her gaze, adrift in a sea of despair and confusion. The weight of it all was too much.
"You will find your answers in the Spirit Realm. Go inside the Gate."
The words struck Sezel back to reality. Before he could form a question, before he could even breathe, her form began to dissipate, her edges blurring, and then she was gone just like mist.