Morning broke slowly.
Not with brilliance, but a dull, colorless glow that slid across the stone walls of Vael's room like mist. The light that seeped through the frost-edged window was thin and cold, painting the floor in soft gray. The kind of morning that made everything feel older than it was.
Vael sat on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, unmoving. His coat rested across his knees, perfectly folded, untouched since last night. His boots were laced, his blade hung on the wall beside the door, polished and waiting.
He hadn't slept.
He hadn't even tried.
His mind had been too quiet.
Too ready.
And then—it stirred.
The presence. Not with sound. Not with sensation. But with gravity.
The Voice.
It came not like a whisper, but like the echo of a truth already waiting for him to accept it.
"You're awake."
Vael didn't respond at first. His eyes remained fixed on the floor, where light edged over ancient stone.
"I leave tomorrow," he said finally. "Orin said the report would arrive this morning."
"It has."
Of course it had. Vael hadn't noticed, but the sealed folder now lay at the foot of his door—thin, black, unmarked.
He didn't move to grab it yet.
"You know what I'm going to say," the Voice continued.
A pause stretched between them. Thick. Uneasy.
Vael didn't want to say it.
But he knew.
"You don't want me to use it," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"No."
"Not a spark. Not a flicker. Not one drop of the crimson."
The words weren't cruel. Just... final.
Vael turned his head slightly toward the window. Watched the morning frost melt into slow beads of water across the glass.
"It's a Lord-class entity," he said. "Comparable to the goblin lord. That thing nearly tore apart my team."
"And you tore it apart."
"That was different."
"Yes. Because you cheated."
The accusation came without heat. Just quiet certainty.
"You drew on something you didn't understand. Something not yours. You know it. I know it."
"I wasn't trained."
"And yet you still killed a god."
Vael didn't reply.
The Voice continued, softer now. Not gentle, but... invested.
"That's the problem. You're already dangerous. Already powerful. But not sharp."
"Not yet."
"This mission will test what you are without it. What remains when you strip away the power."
Vael stood abruptly.
Walked to the small mirror mounted on the back wall. Stared at his reflection—the calm in his eyes didn't match the weight he carried. His shoulders tensed even at rest, like he was always bracing for a blow that hadn't come yet. There was still something unrefined in his posture. Raw. Like a blade that had only ever tasted flesh, not been shaped by fire.
"I'm not strong enough," he said, low.
Not afraid. Not panicking.
Just honest.
"That's why you need to do this," the Voice said.
"You think power is what made you survive that day."
"But power is a storm. It passes. What you build in its absence is what makes it yours."
The words cut deeper than the silence ever could.
Vael looked at himself for a long time.
At the calm face of someone who had killed gods... but still didn't know what kind of man that made him.
"I could die out there," he said.
The Voice answered, calm and certain. "No. You won't."
A pause.
"I've seen you bleed, Vael. And I've seen the wounds vanish before the blade even finishes its cut. You don't die easily."
Vael stayed silent.
Then the Voice continued—colder now, more deliberate.
"But that's exactly the problem."
"So I'm taking that away."
"Your regeneration will stop. Until a wound becomes truly fatal, you will feel every break, every burn, every mistake."
"Because pain teaches what power cannot."
"This is where the real training begins. No crimson. No divine rage. Just you. Your will. Your skill. Your limits."
"And how far you can push them before they break."
A beat of silence.
"Everything else... is noise."
Vael clenched his jaw, looked away from the mirror, and picked up the coat from his bed. The weight of it was familiar—thick with reinforced lining, made for combat, for travel. It carried the scent of cold steel and faint smoke. The scent of survival.
He fastened it in one smooth motion.
Then crossed the room and picked up the black folder.
His name wasn't on it.
No seal. No crest.
Just a single word on the inside:
"Objective: Cull.
Target Class: LORD.
Codename: Hollow Fang.
Location: Sector Twelve. Unclaimed land. Status: Active.
Intel: Moderate regeneration. Unstable mana core. Aberrant biology. Rogue adaptation.
Estimated time to breach containment radius: Five days.
Collateral risk: High."
He read it twice. Then folded it shut.
The Voice didn't speak again.
Not for a while.
It had said what it needed to.
Vael grabbed his pack from the wall and slung it over his shoulder. It didn't feel like reassurance. It felt like a dare.
He stood there a moment longer in the silence, gloved fingers flexing once.
Then, without turning back, he said:
"I'll do it."
Not to impress.
Not to win.
Just to find out.
"Good," the Voice murmured, fading like smoke into the deep recesses of his mind.
"Then I'll be silent. Until you no longer need me."
The Voice's presence began to pull away, like mist evaporating from the corners of his mind. But Vael didn't let it leave just yet.
He stood in the stillness for another breath, then asked quietly, "What do I do with the time I have left?"
A pause followed.
Long enough to make him wonder if the Voice had already gone.
But then—
"Pack rations. Enough for a month."
Vael blinked. He turned slightly, eyes narrowing at the empty air as if it could give him more than words.
"A month?" he asked. "The report said five days. Maximum."
Another pause.
This one shorter.
Sharper.
"You'll understand when the time comes."
It didn't offer more. It never did.
Vael exhaled through his nose and reached for the small sealed folder Orin had left for him — the one that had arrived silently at his door before dawn. It was thin, stamped only with the Order's arc symbol in black wax.
He opened it carefully.
Inside, beneath the mission briefing, lay a compact object wrapped in layered black cloth. When he unwrapped it, something cold and heavy slid into his hand.
A metallic icon — dark steel with a red-etched insignia glowing faintly across its face: the mark of Orin's personal clearance.
It hummed softly with dormant power, like a key that could unlock places no one else was allowed to see.
Not a student token.
Not even a Sigil seal.
This was higher. Older.
The kind of thing people noticed—and didn't dare question.
No note accompanied it.
It didn't need one.
This was Orin's way of saying: whatever you need, take it.
Vael made his way through the Academy's inner halls in silence, cloak drawn over his shoulder, the icon tucked into a cloth-wrapped bundle in his inner coat pocket. The corridors hummed with low activity — drills, lectures, sparring echoes from the outer courtyards.
But he wasn't headed to training.
He descended into the lower levels of the compound — past the last known stairwells, into a place where the walls grew colder and the enchantments hum quieter. The air changed here — less maintained, less ceremonial. This place wasn't built for show.
It was built for readiness.
Sub-Level Three.
Two guards stood posted near a nondescript stone door, their armor rune-inscribed and their weapons not decorative. These weren't students. Not instructors, either.
They watched Vael approach.
He didn't speak. Just reached into his coat and pulled out the icon, letting it catch the light.
A faint glow pulsed from the center.
Recognition was instant.
The guards stepped aside without hesitation and tapped a sigil on the wall. The stone door slid open with a hiss, revealing a broad chamber lit with ambient crystals and lined with supply racks. Cool air swept out, laced with metal and preservation magic.
He entered.
Behind the supply counter stood the quartermaster — old, gray-bearded, and half-machine. His left arm was sleeved in runic brass, and one eye flickered faintly with an artificial red hue. He glanced up as Vael approached, then froze when the icon landed on the counter.
His expression shifted.
Not to surprise.
To respect.
"...That's Orin's," the man said, voice low. "Didn't know he still issued these."
"He does," Vael said, "when it matters."
The man gave a slow nod and tapped the counter twice. A dull rune flickered to life.
"Request?"
Vael pulled out a slip of parchment and set it down. The list was precise.
"One month's ration blocks — compressed, high-nutrient
Hydration capsules and purification tabs
Thermal lining sheets
Field tent cylinder
Basic first-aid kit — manual application only
Climbing rope, arc-sealed
Fire-start resin
No weapons"
The quartermaster glanced at the last line and raised a brow.
"No weapons?" he asked. "Mission clearance says Lord-tier threat."
"I know."
He didn't explain further.
But the man didn't press.
He simply gave another nod and turned, pulling gear from the shelves with practiced speed. He set each item down on the reinforced counter, one after another. Every piece high-grade. Quiet. Durable.
When he was done, the pack was dense but balanced — a survivalist's build, not a soldier's.
The man finally spoke again, quieter this time.
"Most kids come down here asking for blades too big to carry, charms they don't know how to use. You come asking for silence and starvation."
"I'm not most," Vael said, strapping the final buckle.
The quartermaster gave a faint smirk.
"No. You're not."
Vael left without another word.
The corridor behind him sealed shut.
He climbed the stone steps back toward the surface, pack slung tight to his back, icon back in his pocket, humming gently like a distant heartbeat.
He had no power.
No weapons.
No backup.
And apparently, a month's worth of walking to do for a five-day mission.
The Voice was gone again.
But its words burned steady behind his eyes.
"Survive it without your gift. Kill it without a blade. Understand what you are without either."