The midday bell had barely finished echoing through the academy halls when the whispers started.
Two second-years leaned against the bulletin board near the alchemy labs, their voices pitched just low enough to sound scandalous.
“Heard it myself—Sera Vellmont t with Haeren last night. On the training field.”
“No way. The prodigy of Third Class? With the rebellion’s dude?”
A third student chid in, loud enough to turn a few heads.
“Wouldn’t surprise . She’s too good to stay third-class. Must’ve gotten tired of playing lapdog.”
Down the corridor, Calo’s boots scuffed to a stop.
Veik, just behind him, sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Here we go.”
Calo turned slowly. “You seriously think Sera Vellmont—our Sera—would join a bunch of lodramatic flunk-outs with weapon envy issues?”
The crowd quieted. A few second-years shifted uncomfortably.
“She's the highest-ranked third-class for a reason,” Calo continued, arms crossed. “She’s ten steps ahead of any of us. And she doesn’t need rebellion to prove it.”
“I can’t say you’re wrong” Veik confird. He appreciated Sera’s friendliness and always doubted why she was so perfect and yet was on third class. It matched now, she uses daggers
Elliot caught up with Lyris between classes—books cradled to her chest like armor, glasses slipping slightly down her nose. They sat at the quiet stairwell overlooking the southern courtyard, the one where wind always swept through like it was eavesdropping.
“I heard Sera was approached by Haeren.” Elliot’s voice was careful.
Lyris didn’t answer right away. Instead, she traced her finger along the spine of her textbook.
“He ca to , too. A week ago.”
Elliot’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
She shrugged. “He’s persuasive. Plays the ‘forgotten genius’ card well. Said we’re all wasting our talents in these so-called traditions.”
He waited.
“I said no.” Lyris’s voice was flat now. “I have no interest in burning down the system just because I haven’t gad it yet.”
Elliot sighed at the response—then tilted his head slightly
“And Sera?”
“I don’t know what she said to him.” Lyris’s gaze dropped to her boots. “But I don’t believe she would join”
Towan sat buried in a fortress of leather-bound tos, their musty scent clinging to his clothes like a second skin. Moonlight stread through the library's high windows, casting long shadows across pages filled with grueso illustrations — twisted limbs, blackened veins, landscapes reduced to ashen wastes.
"Tsk." He slamd another book shut, sending up a small cloud of dust. "Nothing useful."
For hours he'd scoured every shelf for ntions of "purple sky" and "corruption monster," only to find the sa clinical studies:
Essentia Corruption in Avian SpeciesGeographical Impact of Corruptor ManifestationsPost-Exposure Psychological Effects
Fascinating, yes. But none matched the apocalyptic visions seared into his mory — that unnatural violet horizon, the creature that moved like living shadow, the way Elliot had shattered—
Towan rubbed his temples. (Maybe it was just a dream...)
Yet his hands still trembled when he reached for the next volu.
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“Are you having problems, young one?”
The voice ca from behind, smooth and asured, like parchnt unrolling.
Kaen.
His professor’s robes draped loosely over his slender fra, the scent of aged paper and ink clinging to him like perfu. That ever-present half-smile tugged at his lips, as if he already knew the punchline to a joke the universe hadn’t told yet.
“I’ve seen you here more often than before,” Kaen continued, tilting his head slightly. “What is it that you look for?”
Towan hesitated. The weight of all his unanswered questions pressed against his ribs. “I…”
He studied Kaen’s face — the way the shadows deepened the curve of his smirk, the way his fingers tapped idly on the spine of the book tucked under his arm. This man knew sothing. He always did.
“You know sothing, don’t you?”
Kaen’s smirk widened. Slowly. Like a door creaking open into a room full of smoke.
Without a word, he reached into his robe and placed a book on the table between them.
Corruption: Legend.
The title was plain. Unassuming.
But the mont it touched the wood, the air humd — a low, discordant vibration that prickled Towan’s skin. The leather binding radiated unnatural warmth. The page edges glowed faintly, like they'd soaked in light from so forgotten sun.
Towan’s breath caught.
His fingers twitched toward the cover.
But he forced himself to look up first.
“You sure like to be cryptic, huh?”
Kaen chuckled, folding his arms. “I’m just doing my job,” he said, with a note too amused to be entirely innocent. It wasn’t duty. It was curation. A spark, fanned carefully toward fla.
As Kaen vanished back into the shelves, his robes whispering across the stone, Towan turned back to the book.
It pulsed beneath his palm.
With a slow exhale, he opened it.
Blank pages.
(What—?)
He flipped faster. Still nothing. Just pristine white, cold to the touch. Endless. Mocking.
(What a piece of bul—)
His thumb caught.
A page, half-stuck to the spine, bore words that bled up from the parchnt like bruises:
‘When the sky turned purple, it was not the world ending—
It was the lie unraveling.
The Essentia flowed once as one.
Not fire, nor wind, nor stone, nor sea.
But truth—pure and unsplit.
And from that truth, they carved order.
Four realms. Four flows. Four truths.
And left behind... the fifth.
The Corruptor.
Not born, but broken.
Not created, but forgotten.
It is not Essentia.
It is what Essentia rejected.
When it stirs, the sky bruises violet.
Dreams burn.
And the threads between souls unravel.’
The words moved. Not like ink — like shadows underwater.
Alive. Slithering.
A tallic tang blood in Towan’s mouth.
The air had turned to static.
Then his gaze locked on the next section.
‘In the last Cycle, it ca.
Wearing smoke and scream, it hollowed the strongest cities.
Elental masters fell by the dozen.
Except one.
He had no na.
Only a title, etched in the breath of those who survived:
The One Who Ended Ti.
He struck the hour from the world's heart.
Burned the future to buy a second chance.
But he ca too late.
He could not destroy Corruption.
Only delay it.
The syllables hit. Not like sound. Like strikes.
Towan reeled back. At that title—
The One Who Ended Ti
—his lungs stalled.
Not just familiarity.
Recognition.
Primal.
Visceral.
Like hearing a song your mother sang before you could speak.
(I know him.)
It wasn't a guess.
It was truth.
Cut clean into the deepest part of him.
The thought tore through him, undeniable.
But that was impossible. He’d never read this before. Never heard that title spoken aloud.
So why did it feel like a wound?
A FLASH.
A warrior stood before him—faceless, yet towering, his presence a crushing weight. Towan’s mind strained to see him clearly, but the image slipped like smoke through his fingers. Tall. Broad-shouldered. A silhouette of raw power, etched in the dying light of a forgotten battle.
(No—not a mory. Sothing deeper.)
His Essentia rembered.
It knew this man.
The Strongest.
Towan’s hands flew to his temples as pain lanced through his skull—(Ugh..!)—a white-hot spike driving between his eyes.
He rembered.
Sothing he had never seen.
A voice—strong, resonant, yet warm—cut through the darkness like sunlight through storm clouds.
"I trust you."
The words settled into Towan’s bones, heavy with unshakable conviction. A hand, broad and calloused, rested gently on his head, its weight both comforting and suffocating—like the last embrace before a fall.
"I hope you’ll do better than ."
The words weren’t just spoken. They were given, passed down like a dying man’s last weapon.
Then—
Towan’s eyes snapped open.
The library rushed back into focus, the musty scent of old parchnt flooding his senses. His chest heaved, his breath coming in ragged, unsteady gasps as if he’d just surfaced from deep water. The headache was gone, but in its place—a hollow ache, a phantom imprint where that hand had been.
He clutched at his tunic, fingers twisting into the fabric like he could dig out the lingering echo of that voice.
"What was that?"
His own whisper sounded foreign, shaky. Not just confusion—dread. Because deep down, he already knew.
That wasn’t a vision.
It was a mory that didn’t belong to him.
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