Underground chamber pressed down, as if the earth wanted to swallow them whole. Torch smoke thick enough to taste, mixing with scent of damp stone and centuries of accumulated terror. Nalla stood among the other fifteen-year-olds, watching the black lake writhe with its carpet of living darkness.
Another fucking trial. Another test where they bled you to see what you were worth.
The centipedes moved like oil given hunger and a thousand legs. Their clicking filled the chamber, rhythmic as breathing, patient as death.
The academy elder stood at the lake's edge, robes hanging off his frame like burial shrouds, face carved from disappointment and low expectations.
"Favilo Barto."
Barto stumbled forward, color draining from his face. At the lake's edge, he hesitated, staring down at the living darkness.
"Enter, boy." The command left no room for cowardice.
Barto closed his eyes and stepped into the writhing mass.
Reaction was immediate. Centipedes surged upward, covering him from feet to neck in seconds. His scream echoed off stalactites as thousands of needle legs found flesh, piercing through cloth and skin with mechanical precision.
His body convulsed. Face contorting with agony that went beyond mere physical pain. This was existential terror, the body's absolute certainty that death was claiming it cell by cell.
Barto lasted thirty seconds before his knees buckled.
The academy elder gestured sharply. Invisible force lifted the boy from the lake, centipedes falling away like water. He gasped on stone floor, alive but unchanged, blood seeping from countless tiny punctures.
"No awakening." The elder's voice carried no judgment. "Next."
Pattern repeated through the first dozen candidates. Enter the lake. Scream as centipedes covered them. Collapse as mock death overwhelmed whatever will they thought they had. Rescue before true harm occurred.
Each emerged bloodied. Skin a canvas of needle marks. But unchanged.
Until the thirteenth candidate.
Favilo Yara, sturdy girl with calloused hands, lasted longer. Her screams turned to grunts of determination. When she finally emerged, twenty-three centipedes clung to her arms and shoulders like living jewelry, blood trickling from hundreds of puncture wounds.
"Awakened." The elder's voice carried first hint of approval. "Twenty-three grains. D grade."
More candidates followed. Boy named Renzo managed twelve, emerging bloodied but awakened. Another girl achieved eighteen. Successes scattered among continued failures, each awakening drawing murmurs, each failure leaving another youth marked by blood and disappointment.
Then came Favilo Kade.
Horse-faced youth approached with steady steps, expression grim but determined. When the centipedes covered him, his scream cut off almost immediately. His body shook, but he remained standing.
Fighting.
When he emerged, thirty-six centipedes clung to his skin like living constellation, blood streaming from countless wounds. Expression triumphant.
"Thirty-six grains." The elder nodded. "B grade. Exceptional."
Murmurs rippled through the watching youths.
"What do you think? My grandson isn't bad, huh, Favilo Lian," said Kade's grandfather from the shadows, voice carrying smug satisfaction.
Then came Favilo Torin.
The pockmarked youth stepped forward with obvious terror trembling through every limb. His grandfather Lian watched from the alcoves, face carved from barely concealed anxiety.
Torin entered the lake with trembling legs. His screams were immediate and piercing.
But something was off.
Screams hit every note terror should hit. Raw, desperate, convincing as fuck. Except his body told different story. Convulsions too rhythmic. Falls too controlled. Reactions too coordinated.
Nalla watched Lian in his alcove. The old bastard sweated more than his grandson drowning in centipedes.
When Torin emerged, exactly thirty-six centipedes clung to his skin. Same number as Kade. Blood masked whatever deception lay beneath.
The elder nodded approval, but Nalla caught the microscopic hesitation.
Lian was helping his grandson fake results. B grade talent appearing where C grade lived. Resources and attention following, clan's investment pouring in based on lies.
Information to file away. Knowledge was weight until you figured how to turn it into weapon. Nalla had learned that lesson across five centuries. Patience with leverage always paid better than rushed accusations. Let the chain settle into place so you can grab it when the moment requires teeth.
The ceremonies continued, rhythm of screams and silence, success and failure, blood and transformation, until the elder's voice cut through the air like blade finding throat.
"Favilo Nalla."
Every eye turned toward him. Watching elders leaned forward in their alcoves. Allen's breathing stopped entirely.
Fantastic. An audience.
Nalla stepped toward the lake with calm deliberation. Centipedes sensed his approach, their movements becoming more agitated.
At the lake's edge, he paused. Not from fear.
From anticipation.
In his previous life, this moment had been a time of terror and confusion. Now it felt like coming home.
He stepped into the living darkness.
The centipedes surged upward like black tide, covering him completely. Their needle legs found every inch of exposed skin, piercing through cloth and flesh with thousand simultaneous stings.
Pain exploded across his body.
His body screamed. His nerves shrieked. Every cell in his flesh became convinced that dissolution was seconds away.
The venom flooded his system.
This ceremony wasn't magic. Magic came from outside, from cultivation, from Intentions, from the fundamental forces that Assemblers learned to channel.
This was the opposite. The question posed to the deepest core of what you were. Not can you survive pain? but do you know the difference between the body's lies and the mind's truth?
One of the oldest legends spoke about this moment. An ancient truth whispered in archives and old texts, the kind of knowledge that only mattered if you survived long enough to use it.
Before there was anything, there was Gael.
He lived in the Comfort, where nothing ever changed. The food was always the same. The air was always still. His feelings were always mild, like tea left too long to cool.
Then Gael began to dream.
He dreamed of minds that could touch across the dark, of thoughts that took shape like smoke.
He dreamed of words that could lock doors or break them open.
He dreamed of fire that painted impossible colors, water that sang old songs.
He dreamed of forces that could bend time, fold space, make gravity forget its purpose.
He dreamed of life and death dancing together, of healing that hurt, of growing and withering as one thing.
When he woke, he was hungry for things that didn't exist.
He tried to leave the Comfort, but his purpose grew dim. His strength faded. Each step toward the edge made him forget why he wanted to go.
So Gael began to give shape to his dreams.
He carved details into his wants. The minds that touched, he imagined how their thoughts would feel, warm and electric. The words that opened doors, he felt their weight on his tongue. The impossible colors, he saw how they would move across the sky.
Each detail made his dreams more vivid. Each vivid dream made his wanting stronger.
The more he detailed his intentions, the more real they became. The more real they became, the more powerful his will grew.
His wanting carved out a space the Comfort could not touch.
Standing in that space he had carved from pure want, Gael watched the Comfort press against its edges. He felt it trying to soften his intentions, blur the details, make his dreams fade back to pleasant nothing.
Around him, in the mist between wanting and having, he saw the others who had tried to leave. Their shapes were dim now, their purposes forgotten. They had turned back when their dreams grew thin, when the effort became too much, when comfort called them home to safety.
But Gael's wanting had grown too detailed to dissolve. Too real to forget.
His heart cracked open like an egg.
Behind his eyes, in the darkness, his desires took shape: five hungers with no names, only the promise of what they could become. His want had given them light.
And then, something ancient and primal wrapped itself around him like a second skin.
Will. Pure, undiluted Will.
It flowed over his flesh like liquid starlight, settling into every pore, every curve of muscle and bone. Not burning, becoming.
His skin shimmered with the essence of absolute determination, translucent layers of hardened resolve that made him more real than the reality around him. Each breath drew the Will deeper, until it fused with sinew and blood, until there was no distinction between Gael and the concept that had claimed him.
The Comfort recoiled as if it had touched molten iron. Its whispers of surrender died against this armor of crystallized refusal, this second skin that pulsed with the heartbeat of someone who would rather cease to exist than accept limitations.
Will, not carved but woven into his very essence, a living membrane between his soul and the universe's attempts to contain it. It made him terrible to look upon and impossible to ignore.
The Comfort screamed and let him go.
Now Gael walks between safety and desire, his body sheathed in the living concept of Will itself. Where his feet touch the ground, others feel something stir in their chests, a whisper that says their hearts can break open too, if they're brave enough to let Will become their second skin.
The universe, it turns out, listens most carefully to those who wear their determination like armor and refuse to be anything less than inevitable.
Here it is, Nalla's consciousness whispered as the legend ended and reality crashed back. The moment. The answer. Not the centipedes creating power, just revealing who already had it.
For Gael, it was refusal to accept limitations. For others, it might be ambition, revenge, love, or any desire powerful enough to carve space from comfort itself.
For me? It's simple. Life keeps offering, and I keep taking. Existence is the only addiction worth dying for.
Every breath is theft from death. I'm a chronic thief.
The world's still full of things I haven't tasted. Can't leave yet.
The mock death, the venom's lies, the centipedes' manufactured terror, crashed against his will like waves against stone fortress.
Found no purchase. No weakness to exploit.
He had stared into the true abyss and climbed back out. This manufactured terror?
Fucking adorable.
Five hundred years of dying, condensed to heartbeat. Every death. Every failure. Every...
Gone.
Present reasserted itself. Centipedes falling away like they'd touched something that burned.
The creatures began to fall away, repelled by something they couldn't understand. But not all of them. As the lake released him, as his vision cleared and the venom's lies faded, he felt them. The ones that remained, burrowing into his flesh, marking the limits of what his body could endure.
In that moment his surroundings went quiet. Countless eyes were on him.
At this moment his own will, his absolute refusal to surrender, his burning desire for immortality, his hunger to taste every flavor existence offered, blazed within his core. The energy gathered three inches below his navel, forming something that had never existed before.
Only those with will strong enough awaken, he realized. The centipedes don't create power. They reveal it. Show who truly refuses to yield.
The awakening ceremony. Gateway to power or confirmation of irrelevance.
One more chain clicking into place. He could feel them accumulating. Expectations, obligations, clan politics, survival needs. Each breakthrough just meant heavier iron.
Someone had to carry the weight, as his father used to say.
Might as well be him.
Twenty-seven centipedes clung to his skin when the lake released him.
The elder's voice carried across the chamber, flat as stone. "Twenty-seven grains. C grade."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Disappointment clear. Not failure, but not exceptional either. Firmly, definitively average.
Nalla caught Allen's face in the crowd. Little brother's shock was poorly hidden and quickly smoothed over to concerned relief.
Good performance, Nalla thought, rubbing his chin despite the blood trickling from hundreds of puncture wounds. Almost believed it myself.
C grade. Exactly what Lian's grandson faked having.
How fucking convenient.
At least this gave him room to work with. Average was invisible. Average could plan while exceptional drew all the attention. Average could move through shadows while B grades and A grades basked in spotlight's burn.
He'd worked with worse odds. Though usually those odds hadn't involved quite so much blood.
The awakening ceremony complete, Nalla stepped away from the lake. Fresh centipede marks already beginning to scar. Another layer of history written on his skin.
Another chain added to the collection.
But this one? This one he'd chosen.
Made it almost bearable.