The air stinks of steel, sweat, and scorched mana.
Dozens of recruits stand shoulder to shoulder inside the Rank Assessment Hall of the Fifth Hunter Division. Every breath hangs heavy, every glance sharp with tension. The room hums—not with life, but with power. Caged, crackling, waiting to bite.
Overhead, mana bulbs flicker inside rusted iron frames. They cast twitching shadows across the stained concrete floor. The ceiling towers above, braced by exposed beams and flaking panels of mana-insulated alloy. The place feels less like a testing site and more like a containment unit.
Nobody speaks.
Nobody dares.
At the very back of the line, one boy doesn't belong.
He stands still. Rigid. Eyes dull, yet too alert. Like he's studying everything and nothing. His hands twitch once, then still again. Controlled. Repressed. Something coils inside him like a spring wound too tight.
"What is this place? Why can't I remember anything?"
Not his name. Not how he got here. Not even where here is. Just a flash... waking up alone in a dorm room, staring into a mirror at a face that didn't feel like his.
Longish blonde hair. Blue eyes. A faint scar above the heart.
It throbbed. Not with pain, but pressure. Cold. Distant. Like something pulsing in the wrong rhythm, not a heartbeat.
A presence.
"It feels like something inside me… doesn't belong..." he thought.
The recruit ahead of him shifts, rubbing his arms like he's cold. His skin glows faintly under the mana-field's weight.
The boy mutters, voice cracking with nerves, "What is this place? Why does it feel like we're about to be executed?"
The words aren't meant for anyone, but they hit the recruit behind him like splinters—small, jagged, impossible to remove.
The recruit blinks, slow to answer. Words feel unfamiliar on his tongue.
"The Fifth Division," the other recruit says after a moment, trying to ground himself. "You passed the prelims, didn't you? We're getting Ranked."
Ranked…?
He doesn't remember any prelims. No test. No application. Just waking up, summoned by name to report here.
But a sigil burns on his wrist—dark, coiled, and alive. It glows faintly beneath his sleeve, reacting to the humming mana field like it's tethered to something unseen. Like it's… ancient. And watching.
He noticed the recruit in front had one on the back of his hand. Seemed like it was a choice where it went.
"Maybe I belong here…
Or maybe it's a mistake."
"Next!" the examiner barks.
The line shuffles forward.
His chest tightens and his breath catches. The cold inside him sharpens.
Then...
Nothing.
He stops.
A hand presses to his chest.
No beat.
No rhythm.
Just hollow silence, where life should echo.
The world wobbles. He staggers a step, vision dimming, before catching himself. No one notices. No one ever notices. It's like he's not fully here. Not anchored.
Another recruit steps forward. Mana flares. The screen above flickers:
B+
"No way…" someone whispers. "That's a rare B+! She'll get scouted for sure."
She stumbles off the platform in shock. The next boy walks away in shame, a crimson D burning behind him.
Then—
His turn.
The examiner scowls. "Name?"
He doesn't answer...
He doesn't have an answer...
"Step in," the man says, voice clipped.
He does.
The platform vibrates beneath his boots. Mana threads crawl across his skin—gentle, searching, tasting. Every hair stands on end.
The sigil on his wrist glows brighter.
Then the pressure in his chest ignites.
Not pain, but resistance. Something clawing upward towards the surge. A monster pressing against bone, demanding to be let out.
Still… he places his palm on the pedestal.
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then...
BOOM.
A pillar of violet and black mana erupts skyward. Wind blasts outward. Screams pierce the chaos as recruits dive for cover. Mana bulbs explode overhead. Glass rains like glittering ash.
And then... complete darkness.
The lights flicker. Smoke coils from the cracked pedestal.
The screen above glitches. Hisses static.
Flickers again.
Then finally… stabilises.
E
Just one letter.
Cold.
Dismissive.
Laughter breaks the silence.
"All that drama for an E-Rank?" someone snorts. "Thought he was about to ascend to godhood."
Mockery spreads like a wave. But he doesn't hear it.
He's staring at his hand.
The stone beneath it is still warm.
Still alive.
A soft tingling lingers in his fingertips. Too faint for anyone else to sense. But he feels it, like a whisper meant only for him.
He pulls his hand back slowly.
The lights above flicker again.
Only above him.
The examiner watches, silent now. Suspicious.
He feels it too.
Whatever is inside this boy… it isn't normal.
It isn't human.
And it's waking up.
Later that night…
He sits alone on the rooftop of the dorms.
Below, the city pulses with life—mana trams zip between towers, neon signs flicker in layered languages, drones hum past on invisible rails. Steam hisses from alley vents like sighs.
But up here, it's quiet.
Still.
Forgotten.
The wind bites at his skin. The stars above feel wrong, too bright or too close. They don't match any constellation he knows.
Do I even know any?
He opens his hand.
For a flicker, his veins turn black.
Thin streaks of lightning under the skin. Then it was gone.
A glitch?
A hallucination?
No. I saw it. I felt it.
Something inside him responded to the platform. Not afraid. Not injured.
Hungry.
Then... a vision.
It slams into him like a blade to the skull.
Not a memory.
Not his.
Fire.
Bone.
A black throne veiled in smoke.
Kneeling shadows whisper in tongues forgotten by time.
"My Lord."
The words echo, low and reverent. Heavy with dread.
He gasps, staggering back from the edge of the rooftop.
I'm not a lord.
I'm not even sure I'm human.
Just a boy with no name.
No memories.
And someone else's heart.
A heart that shouldn't beat.
A heart full of something old. Buried. Starving.
He clenches his fist.
E-Rank.
It's a lie.
The system couldn't identify him. Couldn't categorize him.
That rank wasn't a verdict.
It was a warning.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED…]
Welcome, User.
Synchronization: 7.4%
Title Unlocked: Unknown Entity
Rank Detected: Interference
Masked Output: E
Awaiting further integration…
Please survive.