The rain tasted like rust.
It slid down Kieran's face in thin, stinging lines, carrying the scent of burned metal and dust. The city was a skeleton—hollow towers leaning like broken teeth against a bruised sky. Not even the scavenger birds came here anymore.
Above him, the swarm of crimson glyphs pulsed in slow, deliberate patterns. They weren't natural clouds or stars. They were marks—old, hateful marks—that had been there for months now, carved into the air like someone had burned the sky itself.
A hollow ding rattled through his skull, as if someone had struck a bell inside his brain.
[Status: Null]
Magic Affinity: —
Combat Rank: —
Survivability: 0%
Same message. Same mockery.
The word Null wasn't just a classification—it was a sentence. It meant no magic core, no class, no chance of survival. In a world where magic wasn't a gift but the only currency that mattered, it meant he was worth less than the dirt under someone's boots.
He hadn't been born Null. No one was. It happened after the Choosing.
Kieran could still see the day as clearly as if the rain had etched it into his skull. Standing in the grand atrium of the Magus Academy, the air trembling with energy as dozens of initiates stepped forward, one by one, to receive their Class. The boy before him—nervous, sweaty—had touched the crystal and emerged with glowing runes swirling in his palm. A [Stormcaller]. The crowd cheered.
Then Kieran's turn came. He pressed his hands to the crystal, bracing for the warmth, for the surge of power everyone promised would feel like breathing for the first time.
Instead—cold. Silence.
And then that damned word.
[Status: Null]
The laughter that followed had been worse than the verdict. Even his instructors, men and women who preached about destiny and potential, had looked at him with the same empty pity you give a dying animal.
"Nulls don't survive the first year," one had said.
"Don't waste resources on him," another had whispered.
They hadn't been wrong.
Lightning flared above, dragging him back to the present. But it wasn't lightning—not really. Too straight, too deliberate. A fracture in the clouds, glowing white-hot, stretched wider with every pulse. The air beneath it shimmered, and beyond the tear, something vast and shifting moved.
The Eternal Gate.
It had been sealed for over a century, after the last Magus War nearly ripped the continents apart. The day it cracked open again, everything had changed. Beasts poured into the world like water through a burst dam. Magic surged to life in the blood of the living. Cities fell. Kingdoms burned.
And here he was—Null. Watching it all happen with no way to fight back.
A sound rolled down the street—a wet, dragging scrape.
Kieran froze.
Through the haze of rain, a figure limped into view. Its arms were too long, its fingers tipped with shards of bone. Its head twitched toward him, jaw distending with a low, insect-like buzz. One of the beasts. Smaller than the ones he'd seen tear through entire patrols, but still deadly enough to split him in two.
His mind screamed to run. His body didn't move.
The thing lunged.
Instinct finally took over. Kieran dove sideways, the beast's claws ripping into the concrete where he'd stood a moment ago. He scrambled to his feet and bolted down the ruined street, weaving between piles of collapsed stone and twisted steel. His lungs burned, his legs shook, but the sound of claws scraping after him kept him moving.
Then, ahead—a faint glow.
Half-buried under the collapsed archway of what had once been a gatehouse lay a sphere of glass, its surface crawling with runes he didn't recognize. It pulsed faintly, humming like a heartbeat.
The beast hissed behind him, closing in.
He didn't think. He reached for the sphere.
It burned cold against his skin, the runes flaring brighter. Words—not his—slammed into his mind.
[Ascension Protocol Detected]
Authorization Level: Locked
Override? Y/N
He didn't know what it was. Didn't care. He was out of options.
"…Yes."
The sphere shattered like ice in his hands.
The world lurched. The rain stopped falling midair, frozen around him like crystal. The beast halted mid-leap, jaws open.
A voice—calm, mechanical, ancient—spoke inside his skull.
[Override Accepted]
[First Directive: Survive]
The rain resumed.
The beast fell on him.