Sunny and Silias stood before the massive red gates of the Awakened Academy, their shadows stretching long under the late morning sun.
A girl stood nearby.
She was tall, slender — around their age — with pale silver hair cropped short and tucked neatly to the side. Her grey eyes were calm, almost cold. Detached. On her head rested a pair of outdated, over-ear headphones. She was listening to music, silent and still.
Like them, she wore the standard tracksuit issued by the government. No bags. No insignia. Just another Aspirant, waiting to be let in.
She didn't glance at them. She didn't shift. She didn't care.
She was listening to music, and she was utterly unbothered by their presence — as though they were just dust caught in the wind.
But Silias… Silias knew her far too well.
He didn't need to see her move. Didn't need to hear her name. The chill in her aura, the silence of her presence — he had read about it all.
Changing Star.
The Star of Ruin.
One of the most terrifying humans to ever live.
She stared at the gates, unflinching.
Beside him, Sunny shifted slightly, eyes narrowed and cautious.
Silias turned his head, watching him out of the corner of his eye.
Lost from Light. The Lord of Shadows.
There was a moment — a faint tug somewhere behind Silias's ribs. A sharp, almost bitter thing. Not quite envy. Not quite admiration. Something in between.
But it passed.
He only breathed out, quiet and unreadable.
"...Much better than a star," he murmured under his breath.
No one heard him.
Except maybe Sunny.
And maybe that girl, too.
But none of them said a word.
It was… weird, to say the least.
Sunny glanced at Silias — a fleeting look, unreadable — then returned to his thoughts.
For a friendship so new it hadn't even taken root, Silias was oddly full of him. Familiar. Almost as if he had known Sunny for longer than Sunny had known himself.
The thought didn't sit right.
Still, as Sunny stood silently, pondering Silias and the strange girl near the gates, his curiosity shifted.
'I wonder what her Flaw is—'
A sound interrupted him. Footsteps behind.
Master Jet.
Still composed. Still distant. She approached, her eyes cool and sharp as always.
Without pausing, she offered her three pieces of advice. Simple. Heavy. Absolute.
Silias didn't need to listen. He already knew what she would say. Had read it somewhere… long ago. Or maybe not yet.
But he couldn't focus here. Not fully.
His eyes flickered past the red gates, toward the towering heart of the Academy beyond… then fell back to the girl.
Changing Star.
Nephis.
He frowned.
There were too many feelings pressed into one breath. A fracture between warmth and ice. A hollow ache.
She had loved Sunny, once. Twice in the same life.
And still, she betrayed him.
When he wasn't ready.
When he needed her most.
Silias wasn't sure what he felt — admiration, sorrow, envy, hate. All of it, and none.
Just a quiet weight pressing down on his chest.
As he looked at Sunny, standing still beside him, Silias thought:
'You don't know yet. But you will.'
And still, he said nothing. Not now.
he had loved Sunny, once. Twice in the same life.
But when it mattered, she hadn't let him stand by her side.
Not because she didn't care. No—because she cared too much.
She had too many ifs.
What if he died? What if he wasn't ready?
What if… she lost him?
For her, it was a reasonable choice. Strategic. Protective.
He wasn't the strongest yet, after all.
But for him?
It was betrayal.
Not loud, not cruel. Just quiet and final. His wings clipped in silence.
He had thought of her as a friend, back then.
Still did, maybe. But she wasn't willing to risk him.
So, in the end…
He lost his freedom.
And no matter how noble her reasons were, that was all that mattered.
Silias stood still, gaze flickering between Sunny and Changing Star, the storm of memory and future echoing in his mind.
The pain wasn't his.
But he carried it all the same.
At the very least, his flaw forced him to carry it all — that grief, that love, that twisted longing that didn't even belong to him. Questionable desires flickered at the edge of his thoughts, ones he couldn't claim as his own… yet felt, all the same.
He took a slow, deep breath and pressed his lips shut, sealing the confusion away behind a practiced stillness.
Sunny glanced at him. Jet did too.
Both wore the same faint expression — as if they were looking at someone barely holding it together.
They were wrong.
But… oh well.
Let them wonder.
"Remember: no one can survive in the Dream Realm alone. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. Try to get along with your peers, even if they don't treat you well. It might save your life."
That was the last thing Jet said.
Then she stepped into her PTV, and was gone.
The silver-haired girl didn't wait. Calm and composed, she walked forward and stepped onto the bridge — unbothered, unshaken.
Sunny sighed, shoulders tense, and followed.
Silias watched them go.
Then, without thinking too hard about it…
He walked, too.
He had to.
They passed through the red gates and into a place that didn't quite feel real.
The Academy. A city posing as a school, made of cold alloy and towering spires. A fortress meant to keep the horrors out — and maybe, the horrors in.
An Awakened named Rock gave a speech. The usual. Grand words about legacy, sacrifice, camaraderie, and death. Silias half-listened. He knew it already — most of it. His mind wandered.
Then came the moment people would remember.
Sunny's first performance.
To most, it looked like a disaster. He spoke of insane feats, spitting and killing an awakened tyrant— Blessed by the dead gods.
But Silias?
He knew better.
He watched as Sunny deliberately folded his strength into a neat little box and hid it behind a wall of mediocrity. An act. A farce for the fools.
He made them believe he was harmless.
The sovereign of death, the Lost from Light, stumbling like a nervous rookie.
It was brilliant. Cruel. Painful to watch… because it worked.
Afterward, they sat together in the mess hall — two ghosts at a table meant for three.
The Corpse Corner, as people liked to call it.
It was a strange nickname, but not inaccurate. Most believed that Silias, Sunny, and Cassie were already dead. Not in any medical sense. Just… existentially.
Like the world had moved on from them.
Irony was, two of them were going to outlive almost everyone else in this room.
Silias smiled faintly and bit into a bright pink dessert. He liked the Corpse Corner. No one bothered them here.
And he already knew how this play would end.
Cassie was quiet. Blind, yes — but never lost. She had this stillness about her that made people uneasy, like she was always listening to something they couldn't hear. Most thought she was kind, even noble. But Silias wasn't so sure.
To him, Cassie wasn't some sainted oracle. She was just… another player in a game too large. One who made her choices and carried them quietly. Sometimes, those choices hurt more than helped.
He didn't hate her — not really. But he hadn't forgiven her either. Not yet.
He watched her for a moment. She didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just sat there, her hands folded neatly, like she already knew where the pieces would fall.
Maybe she did. But Silias wasn't playing by prophecy anymore.
He had seen her — Cassie — at her best.
Smartest in the room, cunning in a way only Sunny or maybe even Nephis could match. She didn't need eyes to see. That was the problem.
Silias had no illusions. No matter how soft-spoken she seemed, Cassie was not harmless. She was sharp. Strategic. Always three moves ahead, and rarely wrong.
And he? He wasn't going to fall for it.
No way he'd let her get to him — not like she did with the others. No warmth, no trust, not until it was absolutely necessary. Until then, he'd keep his distance.
Silias didn't know when the perfect, soft-spoken friend had turned into a cunning oracle — one who kept secrets like knives under her tongue.
But oh well.
He knew that version of her better than the former anyway. The silent schemer. The girl who saw too much and said too little.
So, as fate would have it, he wouldn't change his decisions.
Not now. Not yet.
And so, the choices were made.
Sunny took one course — deliberate, precise. Just enough to grow, not enough to stand out.
Silias took two. Not because he had something to prove, but because he couldn't afford not to. He had seen too much to do otherwise.
Most of the other Sleepers picked one. Safe, simple. Silias didn't blame them — they didn't know what was coming.
Cassie? He didn't look. Didn't care. Once, maybe, she'd mattered. But now? She was secrets and riddles. A sealed door. He wouldn't trust her — not yet.
And so began the thirty-one days before Winter Solstice. Days filled with silence and shadows, and nights where sleep dared not find him.
In the mornings, he bled. Combat training pushed him until the world blurred — fist, blade, and pain. A dance of violence in the name of survival.
And in the evenings, he sat with Sunny under the dim glow of lamps, studying wilderness survival. Charts, tactics, maps of old battlefields, pages full of Dream Realm beasts. They didn't speak much, but learned together. Quiet understanding.
Others slept. He endured.
Because when winter came, so would the storm.
Fifteen days passed.
Half a month of bruises, cuts, and breathless nights. Half a month of silence and sweat.
Silias had a good footing now — in combat, at least. He moved sharper, struck cleaner. Every hit carried weight. He'd argue he was the second best in the group, maybe. But it was only that — an argument. Not a fact. Not yet.
He wasn't chasing the top. He was just making sure he survived the fall.
Fifteen days in, and his footing was steady. Silias had grown sharper — faster. He wouldn't call himself the best, not when that guy was around, but second? He'd argue for that. Maybe even win.
That day, after combat drills left him bruised and breathless, he sat alone in the shade behind the sparring grounds. The Training Yard had cleared out — only the ghosts of footsteps and the dry stench of sweat lingered.
He rolled his shoulder once, exhaled, and brought up his runes.
Name: [Thornpiercer]
Rank: Ascended
Tier: III
Nothing new... except—
A new line, tucked subtly beneath the rest. He squinted. It hadn't been there before.
[12/500]
"Only through five hundred foes shall the throne's true shape be known."
Silias stared at it for a long moment.
A task? A test? Or maybe just another burden.
Either way, he wasn't going to stop now.
Fifteen days in, and four hundred eighty-eight wins still seemed impossible. But twenty foes had already fallen, and fifteen days remained. He could aim for three hundred. That much, at least, felt real.
The problem wasn't numbers.
It was them.
Changing Star — a combat genius whose presence seemed to carve silence from the noise.
And Caster — the speedster, as Silias liked to call him, all nerve and instinct, fast enough to vanish between heartbeats.
They hadn't fought yet.
But they would.
Silias wasn't afraid. No, not that. He just… calculated. Like he always did.
And right now? He calculated pain.
But tomorrow, they would fall to the forgotten Nullborn.
He had to make a king among the weak kneel—
just to be a commoner among legends.
That was the measure of worth in this world:
to crawl just high enough
to vanish in the shadow of giants.