The execution was scheduled for Tuesday, though the Academy administration insisted on calling it an assessment.
Standing among three hundred students in the Great Hall of Saint Aethelgard's Academy, Kael felt the air grow heavy with the scent of ozone and old, dry paper. The hall was a monument to the very system that was slowly erasing them; black marble pillars rose like the ribs of a gargantuan beast toward a ceiling traced in intricate gold filigree. The murals above depicted the ancient victories of Sovereigns long dead—and long reborn. It was a visual reminder that in Aethelgard, no one truly died; they were simply archived until a new, younger vessel was ready to be overwritten.
At the center of the hall sat the Resonance Stone. It was a massive, jagged slab of obsidian, its surface so dark it seemed to pull the light from the room. Faint veins of blue energy pulsed deep within the rock, a rhythmic thrumming that matched the heartbeat of the Mnemosyne Network itself.
Professor Veyne stood beside the Stone, a heavy leather-bound ledger in his hand. He inspected the line of teenagers with the cold, detached eye of a butcher assessing a herd.
"When your name is called," Veyne announced, his voice carrying without the need for amplification, "you will step forward. You will place your palm upon the Stone. Your Lineage will be verified. Your Rank will be assigned. Your future will begin."
Future. Kael's jaw tightened. He knew exactly what that word meant in this hall. It was a measure of how much of your original soul would survive the week. It was the moment the System decided how much "Data" could be shoved into your skull before you stopped being a person and started being a record.
"Abbott, Thomas."
A thin boy three rows ahead stepped forward. His hand trembled so violently he had to steady his wrist with his other hand as he reached for the obsidian. The moment his skin touched the stone, a sharp, white light flared. A high-pitched whine, like a tuning fork struck against glass, echoed through the rafters.
[Subject: Thomas Abbott]
[Lineage: Minor Scribe of the Fourth Era]
[Rank: D-Class]
[Synchronization: 6%]
The crowd offered a polite, practiced ripple of applause. D-Class was a mercy. It was the rank of the commoner—a life of ledger-keeping and slow, manageable overwrite. Thomas looked relieved, his shoulders slumping as he retreated. He would lose his personality slowly, over decades, rather than months.
One by one, the others followed. Kael watched the percentages climb like a rising tide. 8%, 12%, 21%. Every number was a countdown disguised as a blessing. He saw a girl from his math class, Sarah, break into tears when her rank came back as B-Class. She wasn't crying because she was powerful; she was crying because at 24% synchronization, she could already feel the "Court Dancer" of the Second Era starting to dictate how she moved her feet.
"Arden, Lira."
The atmosphere in the hall didn't just shift; it solidified. A profound, unnatural silence fell over the students as Lira walked down the center aisle. In her standard-issue academy uniform, she should have looked like any other student, but the way she moved—the absolute, frictionless grace of her stride—made her look like a figure of myth stepping out of a tapestry.
She did not look at the other students. She did not look at Kael. She kept her eyes fixed on the Stone, her face a mask of such perfect calm that it was chilling.
She placed her palm on the obsidian.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, the Stone didn't just glow; it screamed.
A pillar of crimson light erupted from the obsidian, lashing out with such force that the marble floor beneath it cracked. The stained-glass windows in the high rafters rattled in their lead frames, and even Professor Veyne was forced to stagger back, shielding his eyes from the brilliance.
The interface didn't just shimmer; it burned into the air, the letters etched in the color of fresh arterial blood:
[Subject: Lira Arden]
[Lineage: The Crimson Empress]
[Rank: S-Class - Sovereign]
[Synchronization: 12%]
A suffocating silence followed. "Sovereign?" a voice whispered from the back, thick with terror. "Impossible. Not in our district."
Lira removed her hand. The crimson light retreated, but the air around her remained distorted, shimmering with the heat of her presence. She turned her head slightly, her gaze catching Kael's for a single, agonizing heartbeat. Behind the red glow of her irises, Kael looked for his sister. He looked for the girl who liked burnt toast and messy braids. He found nothing but a chilling, ancient calculation.
"Magnificent," Veyne breathed, his voice trembling with a rare, naked hunger. He gestured toward an elevated stone platform. "Stand there, Miss Arden. You will observe the rest of the culling."
Lira ascended the steps, her synchronization ticking upward to 13% just from the effort of the display. She looked down at the hall not as a student, but as a ruler.
"Arden, Kael."
The murmur that traveled through the hall was different this time. It was the sound of pity mixed with mockery. The brother of a Sovereign. Kael felt his heart hammering against his ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. His steps felt heavier with every inch he moved toward the Stone.
If the Stone scanned him fully, it would find the truth. It would find the Hollow. It would find the "Vacuum" that had already swallowed the Desperate Father. He would be flagged as a glitch, an "External Variable." And in Aethelgard, variables were deleted.
Kael reached the Stone. He could see the veins of blue light crawling beneath the obsidian's surface like trapped lightning. He felt the pull of the Mnemosyne Network, an invisible hand reaching into his mind, demanding to see his history.
Give them something, the Legionnaire hissed in the back of his mind.
Kael closed his eyes and reached into the "Black Box" of his consciousness. He found the Desperate Father echo, the fragment he had absorbed in the alley. The echo was a mess of grief, fear, and common, unremarkable memories.
Lend me your face, Kael thought. He loosened the lid of the box just enough to let the Father's essence leak out to the surface of his palm.
He pressed his hand to the cold obsidian.
The Stone pulsed, then hesitated. The blue veins flickered erratically, turning purple, then a sickly grey. The high-pitched whine of the Stone became a jagged, grinding sound.
[Lineage: ERROR...]
[Recalculating...]
[Fragmented Identity Detected...]
Kael's pulse thundered in his ears. The stone was struggling to categorize the "Void" he was presenting. He pushed more of the Father's commonality into the connection, masking his emptiness with the ghost's boring, civilian life.
Finally, the interface stabilized.
[Lineage: The Broken Commoner]
[Rank: F-Class]
[Synchronization: <1%]
A wave of sharp, cruel laughter erupted from the students. "F-Class?" someone jeered. "The Empress's brother is a Broken Commoner? What a waste of blood."
Kael withdrew his hand, his skin feeling oily and cold. He kept his head down, playing the part of the humiliated failure. He was safe. An F-Class "Broken" wasn't worth the Inquisition's time. They were the background noise of the city, the chaff of the system.
But as he turned to leave the circle, he felt a weight on the back of his neck. He looked up. Lira was staring at him from her high platform. She wasn't laughing. Her crimson eyes were fixed on him with an unsettling, surgical focus. She knew the Stone had failed. She knew her brother was a lie.
Professor Veyne cleared his throat, his disappointment in Kael visible in the tight set of his jaw. "The ranks are set. But a rank is only potential. Now, we measure utility. Practical assessment begins immediately. Sector Four. Retrieve a Memory Shard. Survive until sunset."
Sector Four was the Undercity—the "Basement" of Aethelgard. It was a labyrinth of flooded tunnels, rusted brass pipes, and the crumbling remains of the "Previous Iterations." Here, the Mnemosyne signal was weak, distorted by the layers of stone and ancient, discarded technology.
Kael was assigned to Group Fourteen, a "Trash Squad" composed of the lowest-ranked students. Beside him stood Elara Vane, a girl with a D-Class Linen-Weaver lineage, and Silas Tor, an E-Class Stable-Hand. They were the disposable fodder, sent in to flush out the dangers for the higher ranks.
They descended through heavy iron doors, the hum of the city above fading into a damp, oppressive silence. The only light came from the flickering aether-lanterns they carried, which cast long, jerking shadows against the mold-slicked walls.
"I can hear it," Elara whispered, her voice trembling. "The walls... they're crying."
"It's just residual memory echoes," Silas muttered, though his hand was white-knuckled on his rusted spear. "The Undercity is full of 'Ghost Data' that didn't get archived properly. Just ignore it."
Kael didn't say anything. He took the lead, holding the lantern high. To his "Hollow" senses, the Undercity didn't just feel old; it felt hungry. The "Vacuum" in his chest was acting like a compass, pulling him toward the areas where the reality was the thinnest.
They waded through ankle-deep water in a flooded station chamber. Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream echoed from a connecting tunnel. Kael instinctively blew out the lantern.
"What are you doing?" Silas hissed in the dark.
"Quiet," Kael breathed.
He didn't need the light. His Vacuum ability was providing a different kind of sight. He could feel the "Static" of a nearby predator. Group Seven—a mid-rank squad—was pinned against a wall fifty yards away. They were being hunted by a Grade I Hollow.
The creature was a nightmare of failed synchronization. It looked vaguely human, but its limbs were twice as long as they should be, and its head was split vertically down the middle, revealing rows of needle-like teeth where a face should have been. It moved with a jerky, stop-motion gait, clicking its teeth in a rhythmic pattern.
Jonas Hale was there. He was holding the line with his shield, the blue light of the Ironclad Vanguard flickering as the Hollow's claws tore through his leather sleeve. "I can't hold it! It's too fast!" Jonas shouted.
Kael's mind began to move with a cold, tactical speed that terrified him. It was the Legionnaire echo, leaking through the walls of the box.
The beast is a scavenger, the voice whispered. Weak joints. Blind to anything that doesn't move. Kill it.
Kael didn't think; he acted. He picked up a rusted iron bolt from the floor and hurled it against a metal sign on the opposite side of the chamber. Clang.
The Hollow spun, its split head snapping toward the sound.
Kael moved—low, fast, and silent. He slid across the wet floor, the water splashing around his boots. As he passed the creature, he didn't use a sword; he used a jagged piece of scrap metal he'd found. He slashed the tendon behind the creature's primary knee with the precision of a surgeon.
"The neck, Jonas! Now!" Kael barked.
Jonas didn't hesitate. He brought the edge of his heavy shield down like an executioner's axe. The Hollow's neck snapped, and its body dissolved into a cloud of grey ash and bitter-smelling smoke.
The members of Group Seven stared at Kael in stunned silence. An F-Class "Broken" had just coordinated a Grade I kill. Marcus Vane, a B-Class student with a Merchant-Prince lineage, stepped forward and snatched the glowing Memory Shard from the pile of ash.
"Good distraction, Arden," Marcus sneered, though his eyes were wide with lingering fear. "Go back to the rear where you belong."
Kael didn't argue. He felt the Betrayed Legionnaire roaring in his mind, a red tide of fury at the injustice of the theft. They take the spoils while we take the scars, the echo hissed. Kael clamped down on the box, forcing the rage back. Not yet. He couldn't reveal his hand yet.
They pushed deeper into the ossuary, toward the "Dead Zones" where the strongest echoes were buried. The air grew colder, and the "Static" became a physical weight on Kael's skin. At the bottom of a collapsed stone chamber, they found it: a Memory Shard that wasn't blue or white, but a deep, corrupted black.
"Don't touch it," Kael warned, but it was too late.
Silas, desperate to prove his worth, reached for the shard. Before his fingers could graze the glass, the ceiling exploded. A Grade II Grave Stalker—a creature made of shadow and bone—dropped into the center of the group.
Its claws tore through Kael's coat, carving shallow grooves into his shoulder. Pain flared, hot and sharp. As Kael fell back, his hand instinctively closed around the black Shard.
The world vanished.
Kael was no longer in the Undercity. He was standing on a plain of ash beneath a black, dying sun. Thousands of soldiers lay dead around him, their armor rusted, their banners torn. He felt a crushing weight of abandonment. He saw a man kneeling in the ash, a broken sword in his hand, whispering a single, haunting phrase: "They left us to rot in the silence."
Rage, pure and concentrated, poured into Kael's soul. It wasn't the wild heat of a tantrum; it was the cold, focused resentment of men who had been sacrificed for a lie.
[Echo Acquired: Betrayed Legionnaire]
[Effect: Pain Converts to Stamina]
[Current Mental Stability: 71%]
Kael opened his eyes just as the Grave Stalker lunged for his throat. He didn't dodge. He didn't feel the fear that should have paralyzed him. Instead, he felt the pain in his shoulder turn into a surge of raw, explosive power.
He stepped into the creature's strike. He grabbed a bone-shard from the floor and drove it through the Stalker's central eye with a guttural roar. The creature shrieked and dissolved into a whirlwind of dark energy.
Kael stood in the center of the chamber, his breathing heavy, his pupils narrowed into vertical slits. He looked at his hands, which were stained with black ichor.
For a moment, he wasn't Kael Arden. He was the end of a line. He was the vengeance of the forgotten.
Then, the "Static" in his head cleared. He forced the Legionnaire back into the box, locking the lid with a mental scream. His stability had dropped to 71%. He was no longer just an empty space; he was a vessel for the dead, and the dead were starting to like the room he provided.
As the heavy bells of the Academy rang above, signaling the end of the trial, Kael began the long climb back to the surface. He looked up at the distant, grey sky of Aethelgard. He understood now that his journey wouldn't be about becoming a Sovereign. It would be about surviving the funeral he was hosting inside his own mind.