The air smelled of stone and silence.
Aisu awoke not to pain, but to stillness—deep and cold, like the earth had decided not to speak.
He sat up slowly. The cot beneath him creaked. His body ached, not from fresh wounds, but from healing. Real healing. His arms no longer throbbed. His legs, once broken, moved without seizing. A faint scar lined his ribs, but the rest…
He was alive.
Not just breathing—but whole.
The room around him was dim. Torches flickered in iron sconces, casting dancing shadows across the grey stone. There were no windows. Just runes on the far wall—ancient, pulsing faintly with a heartbeat not his own.
Then came footsteps.
A man entered—tall, broad-shouldered, clad in worn black with leather gauntlets and a long coat that whispered across the floor. His hair was streaked with silver, not from age, but from war. A scar stretched across his throat, as if someone once tried—and failed—to silence him.
"You're awake," the man said.
Aisu nodded slowly. "You saved me."
"We intervened," the man corrected. "What you were caught in… that wasn't a rescue. That was a cover-up."
Aisu blinked. "I… don't understand."
Another figure stepped in. A woman this time, no older than twenty. Silver-white hair fell in a choppy cut to her jaw, and her eyes—sharp grey—carried a quiet defiance. Around her neck hung a chain of broken mana crystals, each one dull and dead.
"You will," she said. "I'm Lyn Halbrecht. He's Varun Daskael."
Varun gave a faint nod. "We're part of something few dare to speak of."
"We work from the shadows," Lyn added. "Not to sow chaos. But to correct it."
---
They brought him deeper into the stone halls, past sigil-locked doors and guarded stairwells, until they reached a chamber with high ceilings, cracked pillars, and a wide circle carved into the floor—half ritual, half battlefield.
There, five young men and women stood in silence. All worn by life. All tempered by purpose. Some carried blades. Others bore tomes. But each one had the look of someone who'd seen the world burn—and survived it.
They turned to Aisu. No smiles. No handshakes.
Just quiet evaluation.
"Welcome," Lyn said. "To the nameless. To the forgotten. To the ones justice never saw."
Aisu's throat tightened. He saw them clearly now. These weren't soldiers.
They were survivors.
---
Later, Varun handed him a page—crumpled, torn, and bloodstained. The ink ran in places, but one line burned through everything else:
> "…a child born under starlight and ash shall carry no name, only balance—neither demon nor divine. The world will choose him or fall."
"The prophecy," Aisu whispered.
Varun nodded. "The Arbiters knew. Long before the Demon Realm moved. They feared the prophecy, feared the unknown. So they labeled you a threat."
"They… destroyed Colva because of this?"
"To silence possibility," Lyn said. "They needed the world to believe it was the Demon Realm. So they let it happen. Burned your truth beneath someone else's war."
Aisu stared at the page until his vision blurred.
Everything—his family, his friends, his life—erased not by monsters…
…but by men who called themselves saviors.
---
The next morning, they didn't wait for him to recover.
"Up," Lyn said, tossing a training robe his way. "You're not a corpse anymore. Move like it."
They brought him to a long, echoing hall filled with cracked stone pillars, rope dummies, weighted stones, and fading runes carved deep into the floor.
"Every member of our association trains here," said Varun. "You want to survive the world that hunts you? Learn faster than it expects."
And so, it began.
No swords. No spells.
Balance.
Varun made him stand atop a pillar for an hour, dodging stones thrown from every direction. When he slipped, he climbed again. When he missed, he bled. And when his knees buckled, he stood anyway.
Among the others was a girl—quiet, distant, and watchful.
Her skin was sun-bronzed. Her hair, a dark chestnut, pulled back into a short, careless ponytail. But her eyes… they caught Aisu's breath.
Amber. Like flame trapped in glass.
She stood apart from the others, arms crossed, saying nothing.
"That's Serei Valen," Lyn said, nodding toward her. "She's one of our best in terrain survival and mana control."
Serei said nothing. But when Aisu stumbled from a glancing hit, it was her who tossed him a water flask.
"You're the one from Colva," she said.
He nodded, wary.
"You remember what you saw?"
"Everything," he said. "Even what I wish I didn't."
Serei met his gaze. "Then you'll survive."
---
The training broke him and rebuilt him.
Each day ended in blood, sweat, and silence.
But every time he fell, Serei was nearby.
She never offered words of comfort. Just a fresh bandage. A nod. A quiet presence when the pain became too loud.
One evening, they sat beside each other, backs against the wall.
"You're clumsy," she said without looking at him.
"I was a farmer."
She snorted softly. "Let's make you something else."
Aisu turned his head. "Why help me?"
Her gaze drifted to the torches.
"Because I know what it's like to lose everything and be told it never mattered."
Then she stood and walked away.
Aisu didn't know her story. Not yet.
But something inside him stirred.
He had seen many eyes filled with fire—some wild, some hateful.
But in hers… the fire was controlled. Quiet. Waiting.
And for the first time since the sky turned red above Colva, Aisu Erlic didn't feel like a lost boy crawling through ruin.
He felt seen.