Night fell upon the Academy of Resonance with a heavy, suffocating slowness.
The white towers that appeared majestic by day now looked like giant, ghostly monoliths amidst the black fog.
Blue Aura lights stretched across the stone corridors like glowing veins within a corpse.
Yet, despite the Academy’s outward calm, a tension spread through it like a sickness.
Sami Kō’s test had become the talk of the entire campus—in the hallways, inside the dorms, and even among the professors.
“I heard the crystal completely malfunctioned.”
“No, they say it melted.”
“Impossible… the Resonance Core is made of Eclipse Stone.”
“Then what was that?”
Inside the High Council Chamber, the atmosphere was even more suffocating.
Seven people sat around a circular black table.
All were high-ranking professors of the Academy, each possessing enough Aura to level entire cities.
But now?
Fear was palpable in their eyes.
A bald man slammed his fist on the table in fury.
“That boy is a threat. He must be expelled immediately.”
A woman with a mechanical eye replied coldly, “On what grounds? There is no law against possessing an unknown Aura.”
The man shouted, “That wasn’t even Aura!”
At the end of the table, Selene Arctis sat in silence, staring at a crystal screen displaying the recording of Sami’s test.
She had replayed it ten times, but nothing changed.
The results remained an impossibility.
Creation.
And decay.
At the exact same moment.
“It’s as if the laws of physics themselves are contradicting each other inside him,” Selene whispered.
A professor raised an eyebrow.
“Do you think he’s from the Veil Territories? Or perhaps an experiment from Veyr Mechanica?”
Selene didn’t answer.
There was something she hadn’t told them.
That shadow.
The shadow of the black throne.
For just one second, she felt as if something ancient had peered at her from the other side of reality.
Something that should not exist.
Suddenly, an old man entered the room.
Everyone stood instantly.
Even the most arrogant professors lowered their heads.
Headmaster Aurelius Vane.
The Academy’s director.
One of the last living Sovereigns.
He was a tall man wearing a white coat embroidered with gold thread.
His grey eyes seemed calm… but behind that calm lay a terrifying weight.
He sat down slowly and said, “I want the report.”
Silence reigned for a moment before Selene spoke.
She explained everything in detail: the crystal, the erasure, the destruction of the War Puppet, the drop in existence stability.
Everything.
The Headmaster listened without interrupting.
But when she finished, he asked only one question:
“Did you see the throne?”
Selene’s body froze.
Her eyes widened in shock.
The other professors looked at her, confused.
“…How did you know?”
Silence followed.
The Headmaster closed his eyes slowly, as if he had finally heard something he had been dreading for years.
“Watch him,” he said quietly.
“But do not get too close. If what I suspect is true…” He opened his eyes slowly.
“…then the world is about to change.”
Most students were asleep, but in one of the long, winding corridors, Sami was walking alone.
Hands in his pockets, small earbuds around his neck, his eyes half-closed with fatigue.
He sighed quietly.
“I hate the first day.”
But suddenly, Sami stopped in the middle of the hallway.
A strange sensation passed through his body.
The air felt suddenly heavy.
The lights above him flickered slowly.
Once… twice… then went out for a short second.
Sami frowned.
“What now…?”
A faint sound reached his ears.
Distant whispers.
Incomprehensible.
Like several people talking inside a sealed room underwater.
He whipped around.
But the corridor was empty.
Nothing.
Only darkness and the blue Aura lights.
He sighed tiredly and continued walking.
But as he progressed, the whispers grew clearer.
“…The heir…”
“…Awakened…”
“…The throne…”
He stopped again.
This time, he felt a genuine chill.
“I’m certain I didn’t sleep that little.”
Suddenly, something strange reflected on the glass of a window beside him.
Four shadows.
They appeared for a split second behind him.
Tall.
Blurred.
Not entirely human.
He turned around immediately.
But… nothing.
The shadows vanished instantly, as if they had never existed.
Sami frowned deeper.
He walked slowly toward the glass.
His reflection looked normal… until he noticed something.
Behind him—only inside the reflection—stood an unknown figure wearing black armor.
Sami’s eyes widened.
He spun around.
No one.
He looked back at the window.
The shadow was gone.
Silence lasted for a moment, then he heard a very faint, feminine laugh.
Distant.
“…Interesting.”
He froze.
The voice hadn’t been in the hallway.
It was inside his head.
Immediately after, more whispers followed.
Multiple voices, overlapping, unclear.
One was calm and cold: “…Finally.” Another chuckled softly, and a third sounded like it was speaking a language no human should understand.
Sami squeezed his eyes shut.
“Great. Either I’m losing my mind… or the Academy is haunted.”
At that same moment, the walls shook slightly.
The lights at the end of the hall exploded.
From within the darkness, something appeared for a split second.
Two red eyes.
Then, everything vanished.
The quiet returned suddenly.
The voices stopped.
The air felt normal again, as if nothing had happened.
Sami stood still for several seconds, then said slowly: “…I already hate this place.”
On the other side of the Academy, inside a secret monitoring room, Selene Arctis’s eyes widened as she stared at an Aura monitor.
For a few seconds, four unknown signatures had appeared within the system.
Then they vanished.
But the terrifying part was that the system couldn’t categorize them as human.
Or Aura.
Or even living entities.
Only one word appeared on the black screen: UNKNOWN.
Selene whispered anxiously: “…What is tied to that boy?”
And at the deepest point beneath the Academy, behind thousands of ancient seals, the giant black gate shook slowly.
From within the darkness, four different eyes opened for a brief moment.
Then…
Something inside the void smiled.