Horus woke up in his room, completely free of all his injuries. For a moment, he wondered if he was dreaming.
His room was one seamless carving of brown marble. No windows or doors in sight. Its archaic design was set off by the LCD screens embedded into the wall and the holographic copy of his body above him.
He was alive and back in Fort Thunder. A city in Bloodhaven where the high-ranked Awakened lived.
He stumbled to his feet with many questions, but then he passed his mirror and stopped, staring at his reflection in confusion.
Who the Hel is that?
His face had changed. He looked like a slightly handsomer brother, his hair became a deeper black, and his indigo eyes were now an auroral blue and purple.
"Feature customisation," He concluded immediately. They couldn't fix his face with normal healing magic, so they bought a Feature customization kit from the system.
He knew something like this could happen one day. A horrible, disfiguring injury. Which is why in his emergency info, he explicitly wrote that his features should remain the same.
Ignoring his irritation, he walked to a section of smooth wall. The proximity sensor caught his approach, and a doorway opened in the wall smoothly.
He made his way through the mansion, ignoring the servants who celebrated his waking up, and went downstairs.
The Callisto dojo bore wide grounds and an open air dueling floor that was empty. It had been Horus's home for around ten years now.
The wooden building had multiple floors, but Horus's father, Enji, sat on the grass in front.
His long black hair was tied into a single ponytail. His eyes were closed, meditating as he did every day for five hours.
On his lap was a wooden sword that made Horus hesitant to approach him.
Pushing through his apprehension, he knelt in front of Enji, making no effort to say anything. He had to allow his father to finish his exercise. It could take hours, but interrupting would anger him.
"With all that's expected of you, Fourteen," Enji started. "You still almost died in a Common-tier dungeon. Had to be rescued. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Horus was the fourteenth. The fourteenth child of Seraphina Twilight. It was how Enji always addressed him when he was angry.
"Our maps were wrong, sir," He explained, keeping his voice steady and his back straight. "Did anyone else survive? Was…"
It was a dumb question. He stopped himself.
"Your friend with ginger hair survived. He is in intensive care."
His heart felt lighter than wind. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes but he was with his father. John was still gone and he'd have to deal with that.
Enji sighed, eyes still closed, but his face twisted in distaste. "Now for your report to the military command, don't mention that you can't read maps, say one of your friends misread the map."
Horus' mouth grew bitter. But he kept his anger out of his voice. "Wally was the only one that complained about the map. I can't do that to him."
Enji's wooden sword groaned under his grip. "Do not disregard me like that again."
Everything that had happened pushed Horus past his limits. His fingers dug into the grass.
"I can't forgive this," he muttered. "Ares just tried to kill me, Dad, he—"
Enji's wooden swords cracked against his head before Horus even registered movement.
The courtyard grew silent. The servants silently retreated. Horus forced himself to stay upright, barely flinching. A show of weakness here would further enrage his father.
"Do not defame your brother," Enji's eyes opened. Grey and full of controlled rage.
"The peace of the Twilight clan is more important than your petty anger. And you will protect its pride by choosing your words more carefully. My idea is more plausible than your 'truth' anyway."
Enji rolled his eyes. He could see the warring emotions in Horus' eyes. His face twisted in annoyance. "What are you, Fourteen?"
"I am a sword, sir," Horus answered shakily.
"A sword of great potential. One that will serve as Swordmaster when your brother becomes Patriarch of the clan. Both of you must work in concert for the prosperity of Bloodhaven and its people."
Enji rose to his feet with a tired sigh. "We're leaving for your awakening ceremony in twenty minutes. I don't know why we must do awakenings in that odious town."
While his father walked away, Horus asked, "My face, why was my emergency info ignored."
"One of the medical assistants was a fan of yours," Enji said casually. "She showed me some improvements she could make to your appearance, and I approved them. Is there a problem?"
Horus met his father's stern gaze faintly. "No, sir."
●——●
Five minutes later, Horus was fully dressed and silently joined his father in the car. Sierra Vista was a five-minute drive from their dojo in Fort Thunder. It was where the awakening ceremonies were held.
An invisible, magical shield protected the two small towns. Outside were the remains of a world ravaged by a sudden apocalypse.
The quiet moment in the car allowed him to remember his friends. Most of them never thought much of the ruined world outside. But Wally always held an interest in the outside world.
An old memory of them sitting on one of the many hills of the territory came to him.
"I want to see an automaton," Wally mused casually. The soft, warm winds caressed his ginger hair. "Or maybe the Glass Ocean and the Nevada Republic. What about you? What do you want to see, Ki?"
Horus's heart clenched with the same embarrassment that it did that day.
He mouthed the same answer silently. "I don't have anything I want to see. I'm okay here."
Wally smiled warmly. "Sounds about right. When we awaken, distance will become kind of meaningless. We can talk across the world. No more radios for me. I've always hated them. But…"
Beside him, his father coughed, a subtle signal to Horus to stop talking to himself.
But the memory of awakening and his father's cough made him think of Enji's class. Enji's [Swordstrider] class was a Master-tier class painstakingly built from the [Adept Swordsman] class he started with.
Everyone hoped he'd awaken his mother's Legendary class, [Twilight Swordsman], or the Epic-tier of her class, [Crescent Swordsman].
All his siblings had [Crescent swordsman], but he was a talent incomparable to them. So many theorised he would awaken the Legendary Class immediately.
But strangely, he had always wanted to awaken his father's class.
The city was full of dessicated, crumbling buildings that hadn't seen a soul since the apocalypse, but many were newly painted and lived in.
The roads rose and fell over many hills. There weren't many people on it, but Horus realised why when he reached the awakening hall.
Crowds were gathered, cheering, singing amongst themselves, and holding up signs and banners with his face and the words, "We want the Fourteenth star."
Enji scoffed with an amused smile. "Popular among the common folk are you? All that volunteer work you did in this Hel was worth something at least."
Their convoy went underground to park, where many of their fellow awakeners were waiting.
"Follow your mates," Enji said, joining the parents and high-society members of the awakened class.
His friends, Randall, Ulrich, and Shiv, surrounded him once he left the car. They all went to school together and were each from high-ranking Awakened families.
People like them were called Inheritors.
Randall was a tall, blonde boy with an expressive face. "Horus, how was your… um coma? Rest?"
Shiv put a hand on his shoulder. "What our slow friend is trying to say is, are you okay?" She was tall with an athletic build, deep, thoughtful black eyes, and long brown hair in braids
"I'll be fine." He managed a smile.
Ulrich was quieter, his pale silver hair covered his eyes and rested on his shoulders. He wore muted colours and silently nodded at Horus in solidarity.
He already texted them about everything that happened in the dungeon. They all looked sad, but Ulrich was obviously furious.
"Ares has to pay for this," Ulrich started. "John is dead because of him."
Randall's smile fell; this was a topic he couldn't easily join. Conspiring against the future leader of the Twilight clan was something only Horus and Ulrich had the status to do.
Shiv, as usual, sought peace and opened a logical possibility. "It might not be him. Maybe someone in Command messed with the maps."
Horus sighed, "Do any of you know Wally's sister?"
Shiv turned with a look of disbelief on her face. "June? Even if you say you can't remember her from school. There's no way you haven't heard her songs or the rumours?"
"We went to school with her, same year, she was on scholarship with Wally and the Kruniv brothers." She started.
Horus still looked lost, so Shiv continued explaining.
"After we graduated, she made this website that she releases music on and worked with a system publisher to get her music on the System. June's pretty popular."
To be frank, Horus had never heard a song before. He only discovered the concept of entertainment when he turned eleven, when he started school.
"So what are these rumours?" he asked, mildly worried about Wally's sister.
Shiv chuckled. "That she's a terrorist."
Horus had been absentmindedly paying attention, but the words made him double-take.
"Her songs supposedly hold hidden messages for Equalists." Shiv continued with a delighted glint in her eyes, she had his attention. "I don't know if this rumour is true."
"Ulrich used to have a thing for her, before the rumors of course. He likes her more because of them, though." Randall added
His words earned him an elbow from Ulrich, who said, "Forget that. Just look over there. That's her guiding the others."
A strange sense of familiarity arrested Horus when he saw June. She didn't look like a terrorist, resembling a school teacher or librarian in her long beige skirt and white turtleneck.
Along with the ornate round glasses and dark blue hair in a princess cut, June looked a bit out of place, like an older and more distinguished adult.
She must have been working as a guide for the ceremony, trying to make the Inheritors go upstairs despite them ignoring her.
Their eyes met. Lightning surged through Horus' veins, making him flinch, and June did the same.
Stopping in front of Horus and the others, June looked confused. Her voice was melodious and charming. "The ceremony is starting."