The field had grown quiet.
The terror of Mentor Shen's demonstration still lingered in the air—a residue that clung to the children like morning frost, invisible but impossible to ignore. They stood straighter now. Kept their expressions carefully neutral. Avoided meeting the mentors' eyes with anything that might be interpreted as defiance.
They were learning.
The unnamed male mentor stepped forward.
He was different from the others. Where Mentor Graves carried herself with cold efficiency and Mentor Shen wielded warmth like a weapon, this man—Mentor Aldric, Bai had heard someone whisper—projected something else entirely. Calm authority. Quiet strength. The bearing of someone who had seen much and judged little.
His face was weathered in ways that evolution couldn't quite smooth away. Lines at the corners of his eyes. A heaviness to his jaw that spoke of burdens carried over long years. He looked like someone who had earned the right to speak—and expected to be heard.
"You don't know why you're here."
His voice carried across the field without effort, but it wasn't the sharp projection Mentor Graves had used. This was something softer. More intimate. As if he were speaking to each of them individually rather than addressing a crowd.
"Not truly. You know you were drafted. You know you were tested. You know you evolved, and that evolution brought you to this place." He paused, letting his gaze move across the assembled faces. "But you don't know why any of it matters."
Silence held the field.
"There is a war."
The words dropped into that silence like stones into still water.
"It has raged for five hundred years. Longer than your parents have been alive. Longer than your grandparents. Longer than anyone you have ever known or will ever meet."
Bai felt the ripple of reaction move through the crowd—confusion, disbelief, the struggle to comprehend a timescale that dwarfed human experience.
"You didn't know. Of course you didn't. That was intentional. The cities you grew up in, the lives you lived, the peace you took for granted—all of it was protected. Shielded from the truth of what was happening beyond the borders of your awareness."
He began to pace slowly, his movements measured and deliberate.
"While you slept in warm beds, others stood watch. While you ate meals with your families, others went hungry on battlefields you'll never see. While you played in streets and studied in schools and dreamed of futures that seemed assured—others died. They died so that you could have those moments. Those precious, ordinary moments that you probably never thought to appreciate."
His voice carried no accusation. No bitterness. Just a quiet, terrible weight of truth.
"Divine existences have been holding the line for five centuries. Generation after generation, they have fought and bled and fallen so that the world behind them could continue. So that mortals could live their lives unaware of the darkness pressing against the edges of everything they know."
Bai watched the faces around him transform.
The fear was still there—Mentor Shen's lesson had been too recent, too visceral to forget. But something else was growing beneath it. Something that looked almost like understanding.
"They're tired."
Mentor Aldric stopped pacing. His voice softened further, carrying an ache that seemed genuine.
"They've been fighting for so long. Watching their friends fall. Watching their students fall. Watching generation after generation march to the front and never return. They've held the line because someone had to—because if they didn't, everything would be lost."
He turned to face them fully.
"But they can't hold it forever. They need relief. They need the next generation to rise and take their place, so that they can rest. So that they can focus on growing stronger, on reaching heights that will let them end this war once and for all."
The words hung in the air, heavy with implication.
"That's why you're here. That's why you were drafted, tested, trained. Not as punishment. Not as cruelty. As necessity. The world needs you. The divine existences who have protected it for five hundred years—they need you."
Bai's jaw tightened.
He could see it happening. Could see the shift in posture, the softening of expressions, the gradual replacement of resentment with something that looked horrifyingly like purpose. The children around him were believing it. Accepting it. Finding meaning in words that painted their captivity as sacrifice and their suffering as duty.
It's working, he thought. They're actually buying this.
Near the front, he spotted Noah Wen. The dream-touched boy's round face had lost its usual distant quality, replaced by rapt attention. His eyes glistened with something that might have been tears—moved, perhaps, by the image of weary warriors finally laying down their burdens.
Further back, Ash Wei stood with shoulders squared in a way they hadn't been before. The former servant's scarred hands were no longer clenched in tension but relaxed at his sides. His expression carried quiet determination Bai had never seen there—the look of someone who had found a cause worth serving.
Even Leah Tang, whose concept of Solace should have made her sensitive to manipulation, seemed affected. Her gentle features had softened into something like reverence, her calming presence radiating outward as if to soothe the lingering fear of those around her.
They want to believe, Bai understood. They need to believe. Because the alternative—accepting that all of this is meaningless, that they're just tools to be used and discarded—is too terrible to bear.
Mentor Aldric's voice rose slightly, gathering strength.
"I won't lie to you. The path ahead is hard. Some of you will struggle. Some of you will fall. That is the nature of war—it takes, and takes, and takes, demanding everything you have and more."
His expression grew solemn.
"But those who fall will not be forgotten. They will be remembered as heroes. Their names will be spoken with honor in every city, every village, every home that their sacrifice protected. Their families will be cared for—elevated, compensated, given the recognition they deserve as the blood of those who gave everything."
He spread his hands, encompassing the entire assembly.
"And those who survive? Those who fight and grow and rise through the stages of evolution? You will become the next generation of protectors. The next line of defense between the world and the darkness that seeks to consume it. You will be the ones standing watch while others sleep peacefully, never knowing how close they came to losing everything."
His voice dropped, becoming almost intimate again.
"Wouldn't that be something? To know that your existence matters. To know that every struggle, every hardship, every moment of pain you endure serves a purpose greater than yourself. To know that centuries from now, when this war is finally won, people will speak of your generation—the ones who held the line when it mattered most."
Bai could feel the energy shifting around him. The fear that had paralyzed them was transforming into something else. Something that looked almost like hope.
"The elders who fight now—they've been holding on for so long. Waiting for relief. Waiting for the next generation to grow strong enough to take their place." Mentor Aldric's voice carried a note of urgency now. "When you reach their level, they can finally focus on evolution. On growing powerful enough to end this war once and for all. On bringing peace—real peace, lasting peace—to a world that has known nothing but conflict for five hundred years."
He paused, letting the image settle.
"Imagine it. A world without war. Your children—your grandchildren—growing up in safety, never knowing the fear that has shadowed existence for centuries. All because you were willing to do what was necessary. All because you chose to fight."
The silence that followed was different. Charged. Expectant.
"I know you miss your families." Mentor Aldric's voice softened, carrying genuine understanding. "I know you long for home. For the faces you left behind, the lives you were torn from. That longing is natural. Human. It makes you who you are."
He smiled—a small, sad expression that somehow made him seem more real than any of the other mentors.
"Work hard. Grow strong. Accumulate achievements through your service. Those who prove themselves will earn privileges. Visits. Communication. The chance to see the people you love again, to show them who you've become."
The promise hung in the air like golden light.
"And one day—when this war ends, when the final victory is won—you will go home as heroes. Not as frightened children torn from their beds, but as the warriors who saved the world. Your families will look at you with pride. Your names will be remembered for generations. Everything you suffered, everything you sacrificed, will have meaning."
He straightened, his voice rising to fill the field.
"That is what awaits you. Not just survival—glory. Not just duty—honor. The chance to be part of something greater than yourselves. The chance to end a war that has consumed five hundred years of existence and bring peace to a world that has forgotten what peace feels like."
His gaze swept across them one final time.
"Will you answer that call? Will you stand where others have stood, fight where others have fought, and be the generation that finally brings this to an end?"
For a moment, silence reigned.
Then someone cheered.
It started small—a single voice, raised in what might have been desperation or defiance or genuine belief. But it spread. Another voice joined it, then another, then a dozen, then a hundred. The cheers rolled across the field like thunder, building until over a thousand voices rose together in a wave of sound that shook the air.
Children who had been bleeding from their eyes minutes ago now raised their fists in triumph. Children who had been paralyzed by terror now shouted with something that looked horribly like joy. The fear hadn't disappeared—it had been transmuted, transformed into fuel for a fire the mentors had carefully kindled.
Bai Zixian stood in the midst of it, his expression carefully neutral, his hands still at his sides.
He didn't cheer.
He watched.
He watched Noah Wen's tears of wonder, watched Ash Wei's fierce determination, watched Leah Tang's gentle smile as she radiated comfort to those around her. He watched Vera Lin's sharp eyes carrying something that might have been belief or might have been calculation—he couldn't tell which. He watched Maya Chen's distant gaze focus on something only she could see. He watched Sera Zhao's lips move silently, as if binding herself to an oath she hadn't consciously chosen.
He watched over a thousand children embrace a purpose they didn't understand, commit themselves to a war they knew nothing about, and find hope in words that were almost certainly lies.
And it hurt.
Not because he believed—he knew better than to believe in words designed to manipulate. Not because he was afraid—fear was a constant companion he'd long since learned to manage.
It hurt because it was working.
Because these children—his peers, his teammates, the people he might have called friends in a different life—were being shaped into weapons. Because they were embracing their chains with gratitude, thanking their captors for the privilege of service, finding meaning in a narrative constructed specifically to exploit their longing for purpose.
Because there was nothing he could do to stop it.
This is how they win, Bai thought, watching the cheers continue, watching the mentors exchange satisfied glances, watching the transformation of fear into fervor happen in real time. Not with force. Not with threats. With hope. With purpose. With the promise that suffering means something.
That's the cruelest weapon of all.
The cheers began to fade, replaced by the organized chaos of mentors dividing children into groups, assigning positions, beginning the process of turning raw enthusiasm into structured obedience.
Bai moved with the crowd, following instructions, keeping his expression carefully aligned with those around him.
But behind that mask, his mind was cold.
Remember this. Remember what they did here. Remember how easily hope can become a leash.
And never, ever let them do it to you.
The training had truly begun.
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End of Chapter 37
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