The Awakening Sanctuary of Slagtown was a miracle born of brute adaptation: a relic of the Old Age's forging workshops, violently repurposed for arcane rites. Under the soaring dome, massive steam pipes snaked alongside colossal gears embedded within the walls, their grinding rotations a cold, industrial heartbeat that powered the sanctuary's mystical core.
At the center of the steel floor lay a vast circular glyph, its intricate lines etched in mithril and now glowing with a faint, eerie blue pulse. The air was thick with the scent of machine oil, dust, and alchemical reagents used to stabilize the energies—a faint ozone tang that made breathing heavy, almost suffocating.
On the dais, a group of inspectors sat like statues, silver-blue uniforms of the Silver Star Academy contrasting sharply with the deep-gray robes of the Magic Association. Their eyes were calibrated probes, scanning every youth who would step into adulthood. At the forefront sat Inspector Walker, a third-tier Mindwhisperer whose rigid features and knife-sharp gaze could pierce thought itself.
The ceremony had begun. One by one, the youths stepped into the glyph.
A broad-shouldered boy entered. The glyph flared to life, burning a fierce crimson. He let out a low roar; his muscles tensed visibly beneath metallic sheen skin.
"Sequence: Vigil. Initial Tier: Perceiver One. Success!" Walker's voice was cold, yet carried a faint undertone of satisfaction. The boy threw his fists in triumph and stepped down.
Next came a pale-faced girl. The glyph glowed a soft, milky white, ripples radiating faintly through the surrounding air. Her eyes closed; emotions of those nearby seemed drawn along with her, trembling like gentle waves.
"Sequence: Weaver. Initial Tier: Empath One. Success!"
Elara Thorne waited in the antechamber, heart hammering against the rhythm of grinding gears. She clutched the small glass vial hidden in her sleeve—the Cloaking Elixir already swallowed. A strange warmth spread through her, simulating psionic waves. Almost immediately, however, her alien soul instinctively recoiled from this foreign, imposed energy, sending subtle tremors through her body and a faint nausea up her throat. Suppressing it required every ounce of her focus, just to maintain a veneer of stability.
Her gaze darted through the crowd, settling on a thin, hunched figure. Lionel Evans—a boy from the far reaches of the slums, always clad in faded clothes, silent as a shadow. Elara sensed the faint, gloomy aura that clung to him, the residue of Slagtown's filth, but did not dwell on it. Now he stood rigid, lips pressed tight, hands clenched until knuckles whitened, eyes fixed on the glyph with a desperate, all-or-nothing intensity. For youths like them, Awakening was the only chance to escape their fates.
"Next: Lionel Evans."
The boy inhaled sharply and stepped into the glyph, stiff-legged. Light wrapped around him, but the surge of energy never came. The glyph flickered weakly at his feet, colors unstable, failing to settle into any hue representative of psionic power. He clenched his eyes shut, veins standing out on his forehead, trembling as if summoning the unreachable stars themselves—yet nothing answered. Minutes passed in suffocating silence.
Walker's brow creased. "Energy detection below threshold. No Stellar Core resonance detected. Awakening failed. Next." His words struck like a cold verdict.
Lionel's face drained of color, his body staggering back from the glyph. His eyes were hollow, the weight of the world pressing on his frail shoulders. He retreated into a corner, swallowed by shadows, humiliation and despair threatening to consume him.
"Next: Elara Thorne."
Elara's chest tightened. She stepped forward, feeling the steel floor beneath her boots soften and warp, as if the glyph itself were rebelling against her presence. In the center of the array she closed her eyes, struggling to cage the potion's raw, alien force that clawed and tore at her soul.
The sigil flared violently. Light whiplashed between the milky white of a Weaver's resonance and a hollow, near-transparent void.
"Focus! Feel the guidance of the stars!" Walker's voice, laced with psychic authority, hammered against her crumbling defenses.
Inside, Elara felt herself splitting apart—the potion's invasive surge colliding with the chaos of her fractured spirit. She was seconds from shattering.
Then—Kaelan's brass gear pendant burned against her chest. The charm was more than a trinket; it was a hidden psionic beacon. A line of thought—razor-pure, impossibly vivid—speared across space and anchored into her mind.
"Elara. Hold steady," Kaelan's voice rang inside her consciousness, calm yet inexorable. From the distant towers of Silver Star Academy, he poured the immense weight of his Sage-tier power into her Awakening, trying to shape a Stellar Core she did not possess.
The intervention hit like a hammer blow. Potion and psionic force collided, a disaster of clashing tides. She screamed silently: No! Get out—leave my mind!
The glyph spasmed, brilliance breaking into shards of erratic color, sparks leaping like snapping wires.
Gasps tore through the chamber. Candidates stumbled back. Inspectors rose to their feet, hands half-raised with alarm. Sanctuary guards leveled their steam-forged crossbows, barrels glowing faintly with charge—all aimed at the red-haired girl writhing at the center.
Walker's face twisted, issuing orders through clenched teeth: "Priority override—maximum alert! Target designation: aberration. Guards, suppress immediately! Evacuate all candidates!"
But before the command could solidify—
A scream split the hall. It was not Elara's voice, but a sound born of agony and malice, something no human throat should ever produce.
From the waiting tier, Leon convulsed. The boy who had failed his Awakening only moments ago arched back unnaturally, eyes rolling white, mouth dragging in guttural gasps. The pure astral energy of the glyph that should have soothed him instead acted like a fuse to old corruption buried deep within. Black ichor gushed from his pores, tracing his body in crawling, wormlike glyphs of blight.
The stench of rot and despair flooded the sanctuary. Shadows thickened, heavy and wet, drowning every breath. The Abyss had arrived—using Leon as its vessel.
All suspicion, all commands to restrain Elara, crumbled before the greater horror unfurling at the chamber's edge.
Walker's voice cut like iron: "New priority! Maximum defense! Target: Aberration! Guards—contain it! Evacuate the hall!"
Elara stood frozen, pale in the flickering remnants of the glyph's light, staring at the boy being devoured by a force beyond human reckoning. Relief at her own survival hollowed into dread. The curtain had been ripped aside—and behind it waited a darkness far crueler than her worst fears.