When the world ended, it didn't go quietly.
It screamed — in fire, in silence, and in prayers that no god bothered to answer.
No one knew when the apocalypse truly began. Some said it started with the Collapse, when the sky fractured and bled black rain. Others blamed the emergence of the Wraithstorms, ghostly tempests that turned living minds into echoes. But the scholars of the old world agreed on one thing:
Humanity didn't die overnight.
It studied its extinction, published papers about it, and graded the results.
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The Era of Sins
The survivors discovered that when the world cracked, something deep within human nature awakened. Emotions that once guided hearts became forces that could reshape reality. They called them Sins — primal, uncontrollable essences that manifested differently in each person.
Wrath burned cities to ash with a glance.
Envy mimicked any power it saw, until its wielder forgot their own name.
Pride bent others to its will, until the user became a god in their own eyes.
Greed, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust — each with a power and a curse.
These "gifts" could defend humanity… or destroy it faster than any monster ever could.
To control them, humanity created Erebus Institute — the last academy on Earth.
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Erebus Institute: Fortress of the End
Built on the ruins of an ancient megacity, Erebus rose like a dark cathedral amidst the wastelands. Its purpose was clear: educate the gifted, weaponize the damned.
Every student entered at 16 and graduated — if they survived — at 20.
The Institute was divided into 10 Classes, ranked by potential.
Class 1: Prodigies of Virtue — the shining elite, heirs of old power.
Class 9: The Damned — expendables, failures, rejects of their own Sins.
Above them stood the Faculty, instructors selected for both mastery and moral decay. The logic was simple: only the corrupt could guide the corrupted.
They were called the Apostles of the End.
Each one had faced their Sin and learned to wield it without losing their humanity. Mostly.
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Lucien Crowe
Once a war scholar, Lucien was infamous for his calm — unnaturally calm — during the Siege of Shatterveil. When his entire unit perished, he was found sitting amid their corpses, scribbling notes on "behavioral consistency of the undead."
He called it a productive afternoon.
No one knew what Sin he bore. Some whispered Sloth, others Pride.
He simply called it "management."
After his last class disintegrated (literally), Lucien was reassigned — demoted — to the abandoned eastern annex, a decaying wing of Erebus where light barely reached and hope had long since resigned.
There, he was given Class 9.
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Class 9: The Forgotten Cohort
Officially, Class 9 didn't exist on the records anymore.
Its students were considered statistically deceased.
Each one was a reject — failed awakening, uncontrollable mutation, or disciplinary exile. The Institute couldn't afford to waste them, nor could it safely release them into the wasteland. So, they were confined to the annex — a classroom for the doomed.
They were taught not to win, but to die usefully.
Until Lucien Crowe walked in, wearing his immaculate black coat, carrying a half-broken pocket watch and a lesson plan titled:
> "On the Efficient Utilization of Failure."
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The World Beyond the Walls
Outside Erebus, the world belonged to the Wraithborn — echoes of humanity twisted by Sins unbound.
They formed Sin Domains, regions ruled by corrupted Lords, each embodying their emotion to monstrous extremes.
Entire continents pulsed with sentient landscapes — forests that devoured memories, seas that mourned aloud.
The only safe zones were the Academies, shielded by ancient technology and divine relics.
But even they were crumbling. The walls hummed weaker each year. The sky grew dimmer.
And the Faculty whispered that the next apocalypse would not come from outside —
but from within the classrooms.
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The Faculty Creed
Every instructor at Erebus was bound by the Faculty Creed:
> "We do not teach for survival.
We teach for transcendence.
Those who fear their Sin are victims.
Those who master it… will rule the next world."
Lucien Crowe believed in that creed.
He believed in it more than he believed in mercy.
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And Thus, the Class Begins
The bells of Erebus no longer rang. The chime was replaced by the deep groan of the old annex doors as Lucien entered his new post.
The classroom was full of the condemned — students with eyes that had seen too much or nothing at all.
Dust hung in the air like old secrets.
Lucien placed his briefcase on the teacher's desk, opened it, and pulled out a roll of attendance sheets yellowed with time.
> "Good morning," he said pleasantly.
"I'm your new instructor. Please try not to die before the end of the week."
Someone laughed. Someone wept.
Someone started bleeding from the nose and didn't stop.
Lucien didn't look up. He simply adjusted his cuffs and wrote the first words of the semester on the board:
> 'LESSON ONE: YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD.'
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Preview of Chapter 1: Welcome to Class 9
By the second hour of his first lecture, one of his students will convulse, scream, and drop dead.
The others will panic, as anyone would.
Lucien Crowe will not.
He will smile — faintly, almost fondly — as if grading an experiment that finally produced results.
Because for him, death is just the first test.