The assembly hall was packed. Every final-year student stood in formation, seven teams of four clearly delineated by the colored bands distributed that morning. Silver's band was gray—Team 1.
Ann-Katrin stood on the raised platform, her presence commanding absolute silence.
"Gate Expedition," she began, her Russian accent cutting through the space. "This is not training exercise. This is evaluation of whether you are worthy to graduate from this academy."
She gestured, and seven holographic displays materialized behind her—each showing a swirling portal of unstable energy. The gates.
"Each team will enter different gate. These gates lead to worlds inhabited by Rohs—Essence beasts of various types and power levels. You will not know which Rohs you face until you enter."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Unknown variables were dangerous.
"Your mission is twofold," Ann-Katrin continued. "First: survive one week. Second: retrieve energy core from defeated Roh and return with it."
She paused, letting that sink in.
"One week. Seven days. No early exit. Once you enter, the gate seals behind you. You emerge when time expires, or you do not emerge at all."
Silver felt Iris tense beside him. Yuki's confident expression had faltered slightly. Marcus looked irritated but unconcerned—typical arrogance.
"Rules are simple," Ann-Katrin said. "Use everything at your disposal. Kill or be killed. Succeed or die. The academy does not retrieve bodies from failed expeditions."
She let that hang in the air.
"Servants, maids, butlers, bodyguards—none may accompany you. This is student evaluation only. You survive on your own merit, or you prove yourself unworthy of graduation."
Silver caught Ada's eye in the crowd of attending servants. Her expression was carefully neutral, but he saw the tension in her shoulders. For the first time in eight years, they'd be separated for a full week.
He'd be on his own.
Well. Not entirely on his own.
"Teams, approach your assigned gates," Ann-Katrin commanded.
The crowd shifted. Silver moved with his team toward Gate 1—a swirling vortex of violet and black energy that hummed with unstable power.
Iris walked beside him, her earth-affinity essence already subtly reinforcing her body. Preparing.
Yuki cracked her knuckles, ice forming and melting repeatedly around her fingers. Nervous energy.
Marcus strode ahead confidently, lightning crackling faintly around his shoulders. Showing off.
At Gate 2, Arthur stood with his team, red eyes calm and assessing. He glanced once at Silver—just a flicker of acknowledgment—then turned back to his gate.
At Gate 3, Mary was speaking quietly with her team, probably strategizing. Always prepared.
At Gate 4, Milim stood alone slightly apart from her team, eyes closed, already centered.
Prince at Gate 5 was barking orders at his Russian teammates, who looked annoyed but compliant.
Teams 6 and 7 clustered at their respective gates, final checks and quiet conversations.
Ann-Katrin raised her hand. "You have five minutes before gates activate. Use them wisely."
Silver turned to his team. "We should establish—"
"Listen, Pendragon," Marcus interrupted, stepping closer. "I don't care what special entry bullshit got you into this school. Inside that gate, you stay out of the way. Iris, Yuki, and I will handle the actual fighting. You just try not to die."
Yuki looked uncomfortable. "Marcus, that's—"
"Realistic," Marcus cut her off. "He has no essence signature. He's a liability. Better he knows it now than gets us killed trying to protect him."
Iris said nothing, but her eyes flicked to Silver with something like curiosity. She'd seen him dodge Prince's flames. She was thinking.
Silver kept his voice calm. "Understood. I'll stay out of your way."
Marcus nodded, satisfied, and turned to the gate.
"But," Silver added quietly, "if things go wrong, don't expect me to just stand there and die."
Marcus glanced back, irritated. "What are you going to do? Predict attack patterns?" His tone mocked Ann-Katrin's earlier questioning.
"Something like that," Silver said.
The five-minute warning ended.
Ann-Katrin's voice echoed across the hall. "Gates activate in thirty seconds. Enter when portals stabilize. Good luck. You will need it."
The violet-black energy of Gate 1 intensified, swirling faster, solidifying into a stable portal. Through it, Silver could see nothing but darkness and the faint outline of twisted terrain.
"Twenty seconds."
Silver took a breath. No Ada. No backup. Just him and three classmates who thought he was helpless.
And the five warriors he could manifest from his own darkness whenever he chose.
"Ten seconds."
Marcus stepped forward first, lightning crackling. Yuki followed, ice forming around her hands. Iris moved with measured steps, essence-reinforced and ready.
Silver walked last.
"Enter."
Marcus leaped through the portal. Yuki followed. Iris stepped through calmly.
Silver paused at the threshold, looking back one last time.
Ada stood in the servant section, her expression unreadable but her eyes intense. A silent message: Survive. No matter what.
He nodded once.
Then stepped into the darkness.
The gate sealed behind him with a sound like reality breaking.
INSIDE GATE 1
Silver's feet hit solid ground—dark stone, warm to the touch, slightly pulsing with ambient essence. The sky above was a deep crimson, no sun visible, just a pervasive red glow that cast everything in bloody light.
The air tasted metallic. Heavy. Wrong.
Marcus was already scanning the horizon, lightning crackling around his arms. "Rohs could be anywhere. Stay alert."
Yuki formed ice barriers around the group instinctively. "What kind of world is this?"
Iris knelt, touching the stone. "High essence concentration. The ground itself is saturated. Whatever Rohs live here, they're feeding on this constantly."
Silver extended his senses carefully, not letting essence flare visibly but feeling outward.
Darkness.
This world was drenched in darkness essence. Not just absence of light—primordial, hungry darkness that recognized something in him.
And in the distance, he felt movement.
A lot of movement.
"We're not alone," Silver said quietly.
Marcus scoffed. "Obviously. That's why we're—"
The first Roh emerged from the shadows fifty meters away.
It was massive—four meters tall, vaguely humanoid but wrong. Its body was composed of flowing darkness that constantly shifted and reformed. Eyes like burning red coals. Claws that looked sharp enough to cut space itself.
A Darkness Roh.
And behind it, more emerged. Five. Ten. Twenty.
They surrounded the team in a loose circle, moving with predatory patience.
Yuki's ice barriers thickened. "Oh shit."
Iris stood slowly, essence reinforcing her entire body. "Marcus, we need—"
"I know!" Marcus's lightning flared brighter. "Stay in formation. We take them one at a—"
The Darkness Rohs attacked.
All at once.
THE FIRST BATTLE
Twenty Darkness Rohs moved as one, flowing across the stone like liquid shadow given predatory intent.
Marcus didn't hesitate. Lightning erupted from his hands in a branching arc, striking three Rohs simultaneously. The electricity carved through their shadowy forms, dispersing parts of their bodies—
—but the darkness reformed instantly, flowing back together like water.
"They're regenerating!" Yuki shouted, launching ice spears at the nearest Roh. The frozen projectiles pierced through, creating holes that sealed shut in seconds.
Iris slammed her hands against the ground. Stone pillars erupted around the team, creating a temporary barrier. "Physical attacks won't work on pure essence constructs! We need to disrupt their cores!"
"Where are their cores?!" Marcus snarled, lightning crackling wildly as Rohs began climbing over Iris's stone walls.
"I don't know!" Iris reinforced the barriers, but cracks were already forming under the assault.
A Darkness Roh reached the top of the wall and leaped down, claws extended toward Yuki.
Silver moved.
Not with essence—that would give him away. Just speed, precision, timing.
He grabbed Yuki's shoulder and yanked her sideways. The Roh's claws missed by centimeters, gouging deep furrows in the stone where she'd been standing.
Yuki gasped. "How did you—"
"Pay attention!" Silver shoved her behind Iris's barrier.
Marcus blasted the Roh with concentrated lightning, forcing it back temporarily. "Pendragon! I told you to stay out of the way!"
"You're welcome," Silver said flatly.
Three more Rohs breached the barrier. The stone pillars shattered under coordinated strikes, and suddenly the defensive formation was gone.
The team scattered.
Marcus took to the air on lightning platforms, raining attacks down from above. Effective at creating distance, useless at actually damaging the regenerating Rohs.
Yuki created ice walls frantically, trying to section off enemies and control the battlefield. But there were too many, and they flowed around obstacles like water.
Iris fought with brutal efficiency—stone gauntlets around her fists, each punch reinforced with concentrated essence. She'd figured out that if you hit them hard enough in the center mass, they took longer to reform. But she was one person against twenty.
And Silver stood at the edge of the chaos, apparently helpless, watching everything fall apart.
Five minutes, he thought. They'll last maybe five more minutes at this rate.
A Darkness Roh flanked Iris while she was engaged with two others. Its claws came down toward her exposed back—
Silver's hand shot out, catching the Roh's wrist.
The creature's red eyes focused on him. It tried to pull free.
Silver's grip didn't budge.
For just a moment, confusion flickered across what passed for the Roh's face. This human had no essence signature. Should be weak. Defenseless.
Why couldn't it move?
Silver met its burning gaze. "Wrong target."
He twisted.
The Roh's arm tore free from its body—not dispersing like when hit by lightning or ice, but actually separated. Silver had reinforced his grip with essence so precisely controlled that nobody watching would notice the flare, making the Roh's darkness solid just long enough to damage it.
The creature stumbled back, its arm slowly reforming.
Iris spun around, eyes wide. "How did you—"
"BEHIND YOU!" Silver shouted.
She turned just in time to block another Roh's strike with a stone barrier.
Marcus descended on a lightning platform, breathing hard. "This isn't working! There are too many and they won't stay down!"
"We need to find their cores!" Yuki said, ice shields cracking under repeated assault. "Iris was right—physical attacks just buy time!"
"Then WHERE are the cores?!" Marcus demanded.
Silver watched the Rohs circle, reform, attack. He knew exactly where their cores were. Knowledge from somewhere he couldn't explain—wouldn't explain.
Center mass, slightly left of what would be a heart. A concentrated knot of essence that powered the entire construct.
But telling them that would raise questions. How would a powerless transfer student know Roh anatomy?
Another Roh lunged at Yuki. She blocked with ice, but the creature's claws shattered through and raked across her shoulder. She cried out, blood spraying.
"YUKI!" Iris abandoned her position to reach her.
The defensive formation collapsed completely.
Rohs poured in from all sides.
Marcus's lightning was running low—essence depleting fast from constant attacks that accomplished nothing.
Iris was trying to protect Yuki while fighting off multiple Rohs.
And they'd been in the gate for less than ten minutes.
One week, Silver thought. They'll be dead in an hour.
He could keep playing helpless. Let nature take its course. Survive on his own once they fell.
But they didn't deserve to die just because they didn't know what they were facing.
Silver made his decision.
"Iris!" he called out. "Center mass! Slightly left! Concentrate your strikes there!"
"What?!" Iris blocked another attack, stone gauntlets cracking.
"The cores are in their center mass, offset left! Stop spreading your attacks—focus everything on that point!"
Iris hesitated for half a second, then committed. She dodged a Roh's claws, stepped inside its guard, and drove her fist into exactly where Silver indicated.
Her essence-reinforced punch hit something solid.
The Roh shrieked—the first sound any of them had made—and exploded into dissipating darkness. No regeneration. Just gone.
A glowing essence core dropped to the ground where it had stood.
Iris stared at it, then at Silver. "It worked."
"Yeah," Silver said. "Now do it nineteen more times."
Marcus landed beside them, lightning flickering weakly. "How did you know that?"
"Does it matter?" Silver shot back. "You want to survive or interrogate me?"
Marcus's jaw tightened, but he turned to the Rohs. "Fine. Iris, you're on core-breaking duty. Yuki, create openings with ice. I'll—"
A Roh materialized behind him, claws already swinging.
Silver moved again, this time not hiding his speed. He yanked Marcus backward by his collar. The claws missed.
"Pay attention," Silver said.
Marcus stumbled, caught his balance, stared at Silver with dawning realization. "You're not—"
"FOCUS!" Iris shouted, smashing another core. Two down.
The battle shifted.
With a clear target, the team started working efficiently. Yuki froze Rohs in place, slowing their regeneration. Marcus's lightning kept them off-balance. Iris systematically shattered cores.
Silver stayed back, calling out positions, warning about flanking attacks, moving only when absolutely necessary to keep someone from dying.
Ten minutes later, fifteen Rohs were destroyed.
Fifteen glowing cores lay scattered across the dark stone.
Five Rohs remained, circling warily now. They'd learned. These humans were dangerous.
Marcus gathered lightning for one final assault—
And collapsed.
Essence depletion. He'd burned through his reserves too fast.
"Marcus!" Yuki started toward him, but a Roh intercepted her. She barely got an ice wall up in time.
Iris was engaged with two Rohs, systematically destroying them but unable to help.
The fifth Roh saw the opening. Saw Marcus on the ground, defenseless.
It lunged.
Silver sighed.
So much for staying hidden.
He stepped forward and reached into the darkness within himself.
"Rehila."
Shadow erupted from the ground beside Silver—not dispersing like the Rohs, but condensing into solid form. A figure materialized in less than a second: tall, armored in darkness that looked like polished obsidian, eyes glowing silver like Silver's own.
Rehila stood between Marcus and the lunging Roh.
He raised one hand.
The Roh's claws struck Rehila's palm and stopped completely. The creature thrashed, trying to break free.
Rehila's other hand punched through the Roh's center mass with surgical precision, crushed its core, and tossed the dissolving body aside.
Four Rohs left.
They all turned toward Rehila. Recognizing a threat.
"Clean up," Silver said quietly.
Rehila moved.
Darkness blurred. Four Rohs tried to scatter, to attack from different angles, to use their numbers.
It didn't matter.
Rehila moved through them like they were standing still. Four precise strikes. Four shattered cores. Four dissipating bodies.
Fifteen seconds.
Silence fell over the battlefield.
Iris stood frozen, stone gauntlets still raised, staring at the armored figure made of living darkness.
Yuki had stopped maintaining her ice walls, jaw hanging open.
Marcus pushed himself up on one elbow, eyes wide with disbelief.
Rehila turned to Silver and knelt. "Master."
His voice was deep, resonant, absolutely loyal.
Silver looked at his three teammates. At their shocked expressions. At the moment his carefully maintained cover shattered completely.
"Well," Silver said. "I guess we need to talk."