The bell rang only once, but its echo rolled across the academy like thunder.
Aeron looked up from where he sat, the faint shimmer of his aura fading into the cold morning light. It wasn't the usual summons — this sound was deeper, older. A call meant for those who had already walked through death and returned changed.
He rose without a word and stepped into the corridor.
The academy grounds were eerily silent. The once-bustling walkways now carried only a handful of figures — less than fifty by his count. Survivors. Each one a reminder of how few remained.
They gathered before the obsidian gates of the Dusk Academy, the very same ones that had once welcomed them with promise. Now, they loomed like tombstones.
An instructor stood at the front, flanked by guards clad in sigil armor. His voice, amplified by magic, carried across the courtyard.
"Candidates," he began, his tone grave. "You have endured every trial the academy could offer. But the final stage — the true test — cannot be contained within these walls. You will fight beyond the barrier."
A ripple of murmurs moved through the crowd. Aeron remained still, though a quiet thrill stirred inside him.
"The outside world," the instructor continued, "is not bound by academy law. You will face wild spirits, beasts, and each other. Your essence will be tested against reality itself. The last ten standing will earn the right to ascend."
Aeron's eyes narrowed slightly. Ten left standing. That meant the rest wouldn't return.
The gates shuddered open, revealing the endless wilderness beyond — a horizon painted in mist and shadow.
---
They crossed the barrier at midday.
The moment Aeron stepped through, he felt it — the shift in air, the unrestrained pulse of natural law. The barrier's suppression was gone. The Death Law inside him stirred like a freed predator.
He inhaled slowly.
It was intoxicating.
Around him, the remaining students spread out, forming loose groups. He noted a few familiar faces — Kael with his gleaming gauntlet, Seris with her faintly glowing runes, and two others he didn't recognize:
Elias, a quiet swordsman with a black blindfold and an aura that felt unsettlingly empty.
Lira, a beastfolk girl whose golden eyes gleamed with restrained savagery.
"Begin," came the instructor's voice — distant, as though already withdrawing behind the barrier.
Then the world exploded into chaos.
---
The forest was alive with death.
Aeron moved through the shadows like a phantom, his steps light, the air thick with the scent of decay. His Plague of Decay spread in tendrils behind him — invisible to the eye but felt by everything living. Trees wilted where he passed. Insects dropped soundlessly to the ground.
He hadn't realized until now how liberating it was to hold back nothing.
"Let's test it," he murmured, raising a hand. The dark mist swirled, condensing into a sphere pulsing with sickly green light. He threw it forward.
The ground erupted.
A creature — a massive scaled wolf — burst from the undergrowth, only to be swallowed whole by the expanding cloud. Its roar twisted into a gurgling shriek as its flesh blackened, rotted, and sloughed from bone.
The book's voice coiled in his mind, calm and clinical.
"Fascinating. You're accelerating death and infection simultaneously. The fusion is stabilizing—no, it's growing."
Aeron felt the pulse of power and smiled faintly. "Let it."
But as he took a step forward, the air around him warped. The ground beneath his feet softened — not from poison, but something deeper. The Plague was feeding, not only on his surroundings, but on him.
Pain tore through his body.
His veins burned black. His breath caught. He staggered, clutching his side as the Death Law and Poison Law wrestled inside him — two hungering beasts fighting for dominance.
"Control it!" the book snapped.
He gritted his teeth, forcing his aura inward, drawing the corruption back. The pain dulled, but a thin line of blood traced down from his nose, dark and viscous.
For a brief moment, he saw inside the fusion — a mental glimpse of the law's structure. It wasn't merely merging death and poison; it was creating life through decay, mutating reality by reanimating what it consumed.
That was the horrifying truth of the Plague.
It didn't just destroy. It replaced.
---
He felt the presence behind him before he heard it — a rush of motion, steel cutting the air. Aeron pivoted, his hand snapping up. A blade struck the edge of his aura and corroded instantly, its wielder stumbling back.
Kael stood there, sweat slicking his forehead, his gauntlet humming with power. "You shouldn't turn your back out here."
"Neither should you," Aeron replied softly.
They didn't fight — not yet. A mutual recognition passed between them, a silent agreement. There were greater threats to worry about first.
All around them, battles raged. Magic split the air. The sound of clashing laws echoed through the forest.
Seris darted past, her runes flaring in rapid succession as she unleashed a cascade of alchemical fire on a group of shrieking beasts. Elias moved like a ghost, cutting down anything within reach without a word. Lira roared, her claws coated in molten gold as she tore through an ambush of shadow-creatures.
It wasn't just a competition anymore. It was war.
And Aeron — in the heart of it all — stood at the boundary of control.
His Plague pulsed, begging to be released again, whispering of power untapped. But he remembered the pain, the way it had eaten into his bones. The next time he lost control, he might not come back.
Still, the temptation gnawed at him.
He could feel it — that thin line between ascension and annihilation.
And something deep within him wanted to cross it.
---
As dusk fell, the battlefield quieted for a moment, smoke and ash drifting through the trees. The survivors were fewer now. Perhaps thirty left.
Aeron leaned against a shattered pillar, eyes half-lidded. His aura simmered faintly around him, quiet but volatile.
"Book," he whispered. "That fusion… what do you call it?"
The book's voice answered, low and steady.
"Plague Genesis. The birth of decay — and the death of creation."
Aeron's lips curved into a faint, dangerous smile.
He could feel the next step waiting for him in the shadows.
And the world beyond the barrier was only beginning to understand what it had unleashed.