The night wouldn't stay quiet.
No matter how tightly Coker shut his eyes, sleep wouldn't come. Not after what he saw. Not after hearing that voice. His name carved on the throne. That shadowy knight calling him heir. The chained cathedral, the beast-shaped flames, and the Vale that didn't feel like a dream. It felt like… memory. Like something long-buried clawing its way up.
The wind scratched against the window again. This time, it whispered.
Coker…
He sat up, heart pounding, soaked in sweat, breath short. His room inside the eastern dorm looked the same. Books. Scrolls. The broken blade he trained with. But his body didn't feel the same.
The beast mark on his chest had spread, black ink-like veins crawling up his shoulder. His fingertips had sharpened, and his reflection in the cracked mirror looked older, angrier… and not completely human.
"What's happening to me…?"
His voice cracked when he spoke aloud, but no one was there to hear. And yet he still felt watched. Not by someone, but by something ancient. That feeling hadn't left him since the throne dream. No, not a dream. A memory.
His instincts told him to move. Fast.
He needed answers. He needed to know what that chained knight meant, who that voice belonged to, and why his blood made the ground open like it remembered him. There was only one place in the academy where truth wasn't erased—the forbidden basement under the eastern tower.
The Black Archives.
He shouldn't even know about it. But he'd heard the whispers. Seen clues in old texts, things hidden behind illusions. He once saw a professor vanish behind a wall. He followed. And that's when he first learned about the Archive. A place where beast masters were unmade. A place they swore never existed.
But Coker couldn't wait anymore.
So, that night, when the bell chimed the thirteenth hour, when even the ghosts of the academy slumbered, he left.
He walked barefoot.
The stone was cold. Cold like the eyes of the judges who ranked him "E" his whole life. Cold like the stare his mother gave him when she thought he wasn't looking. Cold like death.
He reached the statue of the founder beast lord Arzelion, the one that never aged.
Behind it, there was a crack in the wall. A bloody print shaped like a claw.
He sliced his palm and pressed it to the stone.
It pulsed.
A voice whispered: "Only blood opens what blood sealed."
The wall dissolved.
Darkness welcomed him.
The Archives smelled like old fire and metal. Like memories burned too long and secrets kept too deep.
Rows of beast skulls lined the walls. Some were massive—three meters wide—some still had cursed symbols etched into their bone. Chains floated midair, glowing with beast scripture. Candles burned with blue flame, casting shifting shadows that danced like they remembered pain.
And in the center of the room: a silver pool.
It rippled as he approached.
His blood dripped from his palm—still fresh—and when it touched the pool, the entire chamber groaned.
Then the water screamed.
Yes, screamed. A thousand voices at once. Loud. Then silent.
And then it pulled him in.
Coker fell through light and flame.
He landed in a burning world.
Flames as far as the eye could see. Beast bones cracked under his feet. The sky bled.
And there, in the middle of the fire, stood a man.
Tall. Clad in dark armor with chains around his wrists. Holding a sword made of spine.
It was his father.
Younger. Wild-eyed. Covered in blood.
He turned slowly and stared right at Coker like he'd been waiting.
"You shouldn't be here, boy," his voice was thunder. "But now that you are… you'll see the truth they buried."
He raised his hand.
The world shifted again.
This time, Coker stood in a throne room—one not made by human hands. The walls were breathing. The pillars were bone. And above the throne sat the Beast God.
Not a man.
Not a creature.
But something that wore a thousand beast faces.
The Beast God looked at Coker.
"You carry my blood, little heir," it said, voice like growls and wind and grief. "But you are not ready."
It raised a hand.
Coker screamed.
His skin split open, shadows poured from him, and he saw—just for a second—the truth.
His father hadn't died.
He had been sacrificed.
Not by war. But by betrayal.
By the same people who now trained Coker.
The memory shattered.
Coker woke on the floor of the Archive, coughing blood. But his hand wasn't empty. Somehow, impossibly, he held a piece of armor. Burned. Black. With a crest carved into it—his family's. The cursed mark of the Hollow Fang.
That wasn't possible.
He stared at the piece. Then noticed something stranger.
There were footsteps in the dust.
He wasn't alone.
A low whistle echoed across the chamber.
From the shadows came three figures. Tall. Cloaked in stitched leather. Their faces masked by bone. Their eyes glowed red beneath the skulls.
"Didn't think we'd find him so soon," one of them rasped.
"The boy's blood sings with the old magic," another said. "The beast god's blood is awake."
They were beast hunters. But not academy ones. These were from the hidden order—the ones who hunted forbidden bloodlines.
"Your father's sins run deep, kid," said the third, unsheathing a jagged blade. "But yours run deeper."
Coker stood slowly.
His vision swam. His legs shook.
But his heart… it was steady now.
"I don't know what my father did," he said. "But if you think I'm afraid of you… you've never met the beast inside me."
The mark on his chest glowed.
And then it happened.
A wing—a real, shadowy wing—burst from his shoulder.
Then another.
They spread wide, covering the chamber in darkness.
The beast had awakened.
Not fully.
Not yet.
But enough.
The first hunter lunged.
Coker didn't move.
The shadow around him moved for him.
It grabbed the hunter, crushed him midair, and flung his body into a wall with a sound that echoed like thunder.
The other two stepped back.
But it was too late.
Coker's eyes glowed black now.
And the beast smiled through him.