The announcement of the Dungeon Trial spread through the Academy like wildfire.
Training grounds were suddenly full from dawn till midnight. Students sparred in the courtyards, ran drills along the walls, and tested relics and mana gear borrowed from the armory. Everyone wanted their team to survive—no one wanted to be remembered as the group that collapsed in the first hour.
Aria's team gathered in Training Hall Three, an underground chamber reinforced with mana inscriptions. Lyra was finishing a round with Cain, blades clashing against his fire-backed gauntlets. Nyssa sat cross-legged nearby, scribbling calculations on strategy notes while Liam observed quietly, arms folded, eyes tracking every movement like a tactician watching a warboard.
Aria finished adjusting her practice gear and stepped onto the mat just as the door slid open.
A figure walked in.
Silent. Light-footed. Masked.
The same girl who had been her roommate—the one who vanished before dawn the first day. The silver fox mask covered half her face, her long dark hair tied loosely behind her back. Her uniform was modified for movement, sleeved in black, trimmed in silver, and devoid of insignia.
Lyra raised a brow. "You again? You're finally joining a class?"
The masked girl didn't respond immediately. Her gaze shifted—past Lyra, past Cain—landing on Aria.
She spoke, voice calm and refined, as if she were used to commanding rooms without ever raising her tone.
"I was instructed to assist in your preparations."
Nyssa looked up from her notes. "…By who?"
The girl didn't blink. "By someone whose orders outrank every instructor in this Academy."
Cain scoffed. "What, the Headmaster?"
"No," she said simply. "Higher."
Liam's eyes narrowed slightly—calculating. Lyra crossed her arms, curious. Aria just stared, a strange unease and familiarity coiling in her chest.
The masked girl stepped closer, looking directly at Aria.
"I've reviewed your strategy. It lacks countermeasures for ambush shifts, mana suppression zones, and beast-type guardians. If you follow it as is, you'll lose two members before reaching the core chamber."
Lyra frowned. "You talk like you've cleared dungeons before."
"I have," she said. "Since I was eight."
Cain blinked. "…Eight?"
She ignored him and continued, tone flat and matter-of-fact.
"My role is simple. I'll refine your formation, train your weak points, and prevent you from dying like idiots. Whether you resent it or not doesn't matter."
Nyssa slowly closed her tome. "…And what should we call you?"
The masked girl tilted her head slightly, as if the question was optional.
"Seraphine."
Liam's gaze sharpened.
Aria's fingers twitched.
She didn't know why… but the name felt like it hid something more.
Seraphine glanced over the five of them.
"Form up," she said. "You have one month. I don't waste time."
Without waiting for permission, she stepped into the center of the training floor—and the air shifted, as though the shadows themselves straightened in her presence.
They had no idea she was Sajam's blood.
And Aria—without realizing it—was about to be trained by the sister of the man who saved her life.
The Dungeon Trial had not begun yet.
But their transformation had.
The doors to Training Hall Three slammed shut behind them.
Seraphine didn't speak at first. She simply stood there, mask reflecting the dim mana lights, arms crossed as if observing prey rather than students.
Then—
She moved.
A flick of her fingers, and the mana inscriptions on the walls blazed to life. The ground shifted, runes glowed, and the entire hall reconfigured into a battlefield simulation—without warning.
"Formation!" she said.
None of them had even drawn weapons yet.
Aria's eyes widened. Lyra cursed under her breath. Cain stumbled back, Nyssa dropped her tome, and even Liam's composure cracked for a split second.
Too slow.
Seraphine vanished.
The next second—Lyra's sword was on the ground, her wrist twisted behind her back.
Cain swung his staff—she swept his legs out before he finished the motion.
Nyssa raised a barrier—Seraphine shattered it with a single palm strike that didn't even look like magic.
Aria barely dodged her first strike, instincts kicking in. Sajam's training made her react before she thought—duck, roll, strike back.
Seraphine blocked it with two fingers.
Two. Fingers.
Even Liam, who rarely showed surprise, had to readjust his stance.
Seraphine released Lyra and spoke, voice flat:
"If this is how you fight, you'll die before the dungeon entrance fully seals behind you."
Lyra hissed. "You didn't even let us—"
"You won't get warnings in a dungeon."
Before anyone could recover, the mana inscriptions flared again.
Now the room spawned constructs—stone, mana-bound, shaped like beasts and soldiers. At least ten.
Seraphine didn't join the fight.
She folded her arms and watched.
"Survive three minutes," she said. "Without formation, without magic output limiters. I'll step in only if death is certain."
Cain's jaw clenched. "Death?!"
She tilted her head. "I said certain, not fatal."
Lyra grabbed her sword. "You're insane!"
"No," she said. "I'm realistic."
The constructs charged.
Aria inhaled sharply and moved without thinking—cutting, gliding, redirecting like Sajam drilled her. Lyra regrouped and covered her flank. Nyssa cast fast-binding barriers. Cain ignited his fists and smashed forward. Liam called positioning changes like a war strategist.
Seraphine watched silently.
No praise. No reaction.
When Cain overextended, she didn't warn him.
When Lyra's footwork slipped, she didn't call it out.
When Nyssa over-channeled a spell, she let the backlash shake her arms numb.
Only when a construct nearly took Aria's head off did she flick a pebble into its core and shatter it like glass.
Three minutes felt like thirty.
When the last construct fell, all five collapsed, panting and bruised.
Seraphine's voice cut through the air:
"Again."
Aria stared at her. "We just—"
"You think the dungeon waits for your stamina?"
The floor lit up again.
Hardest training had only begun.
And she wasn't slowing down.
Dungeon Trial
Training Hall Three looked like a war zone.
Cain's knuckles were bruised raw. Lyra's shoulders were covered in wraps. Nyssa's fingers trembled every time she flexed them from mana strain. Liam had bandages laced across his ribs. Aria's body was covered in faint chakra burns and elemental recoil.
And Seraphine?
Not a scratch. Not a breath out of place. Not even a wrinkle in her sleeve.
She ended their final session with her usual mercy:
None.
"Your stamina is still lacking," she said, expression unreadable behind the mask. "In a real dungeon, this level of fatigue would end in corpses."
"Yeah," Lyra muttered under her breath, "mostly yours after I stab you in your sleep."
Seraphine ignored that.
Liam approached her, calm but sharp. "Your methods… feel military. Not academic."
Seraphine didn't respond.
But Aria noticed something for the first time—Liam wasn't just observing her fighting. He was profiling her origins.
Before anyone could say more, a horn blared through the Academy halls.
A warhorn—not ceremonial.
Students paused in corridors. Instructors exchanged glances.
Then a voice echoed through an amplification spell:
> "All dungeon trial participants — report to the Gate Hall at dawn. Final briefing will begin. Teams must be complete. No delays."
Lyra grinned despite the pain.
"It begins."
Aria exhaled, heart pounding again.
She had fought undead armies in illusions. Faced shadows wearing Sajam's form. Trained under someone who hit harder than fear itself.
And yet — this felt different.
Because something was coming with them.
---
Elsewhere — In the Capital
While the Academy prepared, the city beneath its shadow turned restless.
Deep in the slums, music drifted where there should have been silence.
No lute. No flute. No singing voice.
Just a thin, eerie vibration—like strings plucked along bone.
The alleys emptied. Children sleepwalked. Dogs whimpered. Rats lay still.
A figure strolled past a broken fountain, cloak brushing the cobblestone.
A mask of pale porcelain.
Eyes completely white.
On their back… a stringed instrument made of spine and wood.
The Pied Piper.
Seventh Commander of the Demon Army.
Master of mind, sound, and control.
He paused, gaze lifting—not to the streets, but upward.
Toward the Academy.
Toward the dungeon gate.
Toward Cain.
A smile—soft and unnatural—formed on his lips.
> "A trial of fear, blood, and mana? How nostalgic.
Let them enter. I'll play my part."
His fingers traced one string of the instrument.
A low note reverberated through the air.
Faint. Unnoticed.
But Cain, asleep in his dorm, twitched. His breath hitched. His eyelids flickered.
The puppeteer had tugged the string—just once.
And the dungeon had not even opened yet.
Twelve Teams. One Gate. No Exits Until Completion.
At dawn, the Gate Hall of Aurelius Academy was unrecognizable.
Instructors stood elevated on stone platforms. The floor had shifted, runes glowing and pulsing like a heartbeat. Giant murals of dungeons past lined the walls—some victorious, some stained with names of the dead.
Students filled the arena in groups of five—eleven teams gathered at the front, armored, cloaked, and tense.
Aria's team was last to arrive.
Not late—just silent.
Lyra rolled her wrist, stretching. Nyssa checked the vials and talismans strapped to her belt. Cain cracked his neck, fire flickering faintly in his breath. Liam wore his expression of controlled readiness, calculating everything.
And Seraphine? She stood among them like a ghost nobody registered… except Instructor Ryneth, who glanced her way for a heartbeat too long.
Aria's eyes lifted to the massive obsidian gate etched with dragon sigils. Each rune pulsed with mana—the entrance to the dungeon.
Headmaster Astaroth Drakenwald stepped forward, silver hair catching the torchlight, dragonblood burning faintly beneath his skin.
His voice echoed like a war drum:
> "Twelve teams. Sixty students. You will enter in intervals.
Your objectives are simple: survive, retrieve the core crystal, and return as a unit. Abandon your team, and you fail. Die… and you remain."
A murmur of unease swept through the gathered students.
Astaroth's gaze passed over the teams slowly—and when his eyes reached Aria, something in his expression sharpened, as though recognizing an echo he couldn't name.
Instructor Seren Liora (Wind & Light) called out:
> "TEAM ONE — STEP FORWARD!"
Five students moved to the gate. The symbols lit beneath them.
The floor opened—and they vanished into the teleportation circle below.
A ripple of energy. The first offering to the trial was made.
"TEAM TWO!"
Another group stepped in.
"TEAM THREE!"
"TEAM FOUR!"
The rhythm was relentless.
By the time TEAM EIGHT vanished, the scent of nerves filled the air.
When TEAM ELEVEN descended, only Aria's group remained on the platform.
Seraphine glanced sideways at them, voice low as a whisper and sharp as a blade:
> "Walk in as five.
Come out as five.
Anything less, and you're failures, not survivors."
Cain snorted. "Tch. Like we needed the pep talk."
But he moved forward with the others.
Astaroth lifted his hand.
The obsidian gate flared a deep crimson.
> "TEAM TWELVE — ENTER!"
Aria stepped through the light, heart pounding—
one foot in the Academy, the other in the unknown.
The world warped—stone, fire, shadow, pressure.
They were gone.
---
Outside the Dungeon — Hidden View
High above the Gate Hall, unseen by instructor or student,
a figure perched on the Academy's spire.
The Pied Piper tilted his head, porcelain mask gleaming.
His voice slid like a note across glass.
> "The last team goes in last…
which makes them the perfect place to start."
His fingers touched the strings of the cursed instrument.
One silent note escaped.
Deep in the dungeon—
Cain's pulse stuttered.
Something ancient stirred.
The game had begun.
The moment Aria's boots touched the glowing circle, she felt it—
a shiver, a wrongness in the air.
The other teams had been swallowed cleanly by the teleportation light.
A smooth descent. A clean transference.
But theirs… hissed.
The runes beneath them flickered in erratic pulses, the colors flicking from gold to red to black. The air grew colder—no, heavier—like something tugged from the other side.
Liam's eyes narrowed immediately. "This formation's output is fluctuating."
Nyssa's voice tensed. "Teleportation arrays don't fluctuate."
Cain scoffed. "Then it's just reacting to our mana—"
The floor lurched.
Aria grabbed the closest thing to her—Lyra's forearm—as the circle split with a crack of black lightning.
Students nearby gasped. Instructors snapped their attention to the gate.
Instructor Ryneth snarled, lightning wreathing his arm. "What's wrong with the array?!"
Seren Liora summoned wind sigils. "It wasn't unstable for the previous teams!"
Astaroth didn't move—but his red dragon eyes narrowed dangerously.
The teleportation circle flared violently.
Liam's voice cut clean through the chaos:
"STAY CLOSE. If the jump fractures, we scatter and die in separate zones."
Lyra stepped nearer to Aria. Nyssa gripped her necklace. Cain readied a flame-ward.
Seraphine didn't flinch—but her gaze sharpened behind the mask.
And then—
FWOOOOOM—!!!
The circle erupted.
Not with blinding white light like the other teams—
but with jagged, chaotic black-red energy that screamed like tearing metal.
The floor vanished.
Gravity failed.
Sound muted.
Space twisted.
Aria felt her stomach wrench as the world blurred into shadow and mana.
Her vision darkened—her breath caught—
—then—
THUD.
Cold stone. Damp air. Darkness and smoke.
Aria coughed once, pushing herself up—
But the moment she glanced around, her pulse froze.
They were not together.
Only three figures were near her.
One was Nyssa.
One was Liam.
And the third—
Not Cain.
Not Lyra.
Not Seraphine.
The teleport had split them.
And somewhere in the unseen dark—
something else had come through with them.
---
Elsewhere in the Dungeon
Lyra hit the ground rolling, blade half-drawn before she even stopped moving.
Cain slammed into a mossy wall, coughing and cursing.
He looked around, fury overtaking reason—
"Where the hell are the others?!"
Only two presences were near them.
Lyra.
Cain.
And Seraphine—
standing perfectly still, head tilted upward, listening.
Not to them.
But to footsteps that weren't theirs.
---
Very Far Above Them All
The Pied Piper stood at the edge of the obsidian spire, fingers idly gliding across the strings of his instrument.
One eye—white and pupil-less—focused downward.
> "The teleportation gate diverted like a broken note.
How… delightfully fragile humans are."
His grin widened.
> "The dungeon has twelve teams…
but only one will dance to my tune."
His next pluck of the strings was silent to the world.
But far below—
Cain heard it.
And something in him answered.