"Alright, listen carefully as I call your names," Vermas said, his voice firm but calm.
"Those who are called will walk across this field of flowers to the center of Mirror Lake. When your turn arises, I shall individually explain to you what you have to do. Do you understand?"
A chorus of young voices answered at once, though many shook with nerves.
"All clear!"
Their tones carried a mix of excitement, fear, and curiosity. Some clenched their fists. Others bit their lips, trying to steady their breathing. The butterflies circled above them like drifting stars, as if watching to see who would dare step first.
"Draco Aurelis," Vermas called, his voice echoing across the river of light.
Draco stepped forward, face set in grim determination. This was his last chance; if he failed to awaken here, he would forever remain a peasant in a realm of kings.
He drew a deep breath and walked across the flower bed to the edge of the Lake where Vermas was standing.
Vermas looked at him and waved his hand to create a wind barrier that blocked all sounds and started explaining it to him.
Looking from afar, Caelrisu leaned towards Lunaris and asked.
"What do you think is in the lake that merely knowing it beforehand is advised against?"
"Can't really say; the only thing I know is it won't be something physical."
"Yeah."
After hearing Vermas's explanation, horror spread across Draco's face, his body trembling like a leaf caught in a storm.
His chest tightened painfully, every instinct screaming at him to run, to turn back, to do anything but step toward that abyssal horror. Yet still, with visible effort, he forced himself to stand straighter.
His voice cracked, but he managed to speak.
"Is… is that why there's no knowledge of this among mundane humans?"
Vermas inclined his head, eyes half-lidded.
"Yes. This knowledge is poison to the mundane. It eats away at their sanity, their lives. But for the Awakened, strangely enough, it holds no harm."
Draco swallowed hard, his hands curling into fists.
"That means… I have to awaken. No matter what."
"Yes." Vermas's answer was calm but filled with care.
Draco drew in a shaky breath, then lifted his head. His eyes, though still wide with fear, carried a desperate resolve.
"Then… I have a request."
Vermas's eyes narrowed, a faint shadow passing through his gaze. He let the silence stretch long enough that the boy's knees nearly buckled under it.
When he finally spoke, his tone was steady, cutting.
"I am not your request fulfiller, child. Survive first… and then fulfill your own request."
Draco froze, and then, he smiled. His smile trembled, but he nodded, bowing his head.
"…Yes, Elder."
The white flowers at his feet glowed faintly as he closed his eyes and remembered the faces of his parents and friends. For a moment, the pressure eased, as though the unseen wall had softened.
And then he opened his eyes again and jumped into the Mirror Lake.
"Survive against [those], boy," Vermas mumbled.
But Draco could barely hear. His vision blurred, the world fading into a white haze.
Then, with a soft thud, Draco fell down on a [Blank Gallery] with millions of empty frames and started roaming around, and then he turned his head and saw 'himself.'
When he saw himself, seemingly millions of strange figures started appearing.
And then simultaneously, all of them turned towards him, and Draco started screaming in pure horror, losing all the courage he had gathered.
***
Half an hour has passed.
Lunaris and Caelrisu stood at the Clan Head's side, each holding one of his hands. Lunaris tilted his head, his large eyes blinking curiously as he looked up at Vermas.
"Does it always take this long, Elder?" he asked in an innocent voice.
"Well…" Vermas hesitated, but before he could explain, Clan Head spoke, his tone calm and clear.
"Yes, it's perfectly normal for it to happen," he said. "So, don't worry about your friend, and just pray to [Light] for His blessings."
Then, he sent a mental command towards Vermas.
[There is a high possibility of 'that' happening, Vermas. Make sure to barricade the children instantly.]
[Yes!]
The butterflies drifted past silently, and then after a while a ripple rose from the still Mirror Lake.
The Clan Head and Vermas fixed their gazes on the lake as something began to stir. Their smiles remained gentle, the kind meant to reassure children, but their hands twitched ever so slightly, invisible sigils coiling beneath their sleeves.
From the riverbed, Draco rose.
At first glance, he looked unhurt, his skin unmarked, his clothes untouched. But the way he moved was wrong. His joints bent with the sound of soft, wet pops, as though his bones had forgotten how to hold him. His head lolled unnaturally to one side before snapping upright, his spine shuddering into place with a crack that echoed far too loudly in the cavern.
The children gasped in joy and ran forward, but their hope was dashed in an instant as their foreheads smashed into a barrier. The impact should have made them scream, but no sound came. The wall pulsed faintly, and their panic was swallowed whole. The light of the barrier slipped into their eyes, dulling them, smoothing their terror into eerie calm. One by one, the children's faces went blank, their voices erased, their memories of the moment plucked away like petals stripped from a flower.
Vermas studied the barrier, nodded once, then turned his attention back to Draco. His eyes narrowed, the warmth in them thinning to suspicion. His voice, though quiet, cut through the cavern.
"How was your Awakening, Draco?"
The boy did not answer. His lips twitched, his chest rose and fell in uneven rhythm, and something, something wrong, hung over him like the stench of rotting meat.
"I ASKED, HOW WAS YOUR AWAKENING, DRACO!?"
Vermas's roar rolled across the cavern like thunder, sharp enough to rattle the stone.
Draco did not flinch. He began pacing instead, hands clasped behind his back like a scholar pondering a riddle. His bare feet scraped the stone with soft, sticky sounds, as though water, or blood, still clung to them. His eyes glimmered with an uncanny brightness, his expression too calm, too measured. Not the face of a boy.
Then, suddenly, he froze. His head jerked to the side, neck cracking as his gaze locked onto a patch of empty cavern wall. His lips parted. His breathing quickened. It was the look of someone listening, waiting, for a whisper that no one else could hear.
Vermas's hand shot upward, light blazing at his fingertips.
"He's corrupted; let me end it!"
"WAIT!!"
The Clan Head's roar cracked like fire through the chamber. His chest heaved, his face was pale, but his eyes were fierce, overflowing with both command and desperate pleading.
"How can you strike him down so recklessly? What if it is no more than a wound of the mind? A child's fear turned into madness? Would you slaughter him before you know?"
Vermas's reply was a snarl, his voice heavy with scorn.
"Do you still not see it? You call yourself Clan Head, yet you let your heart blind your judgment. That thing is no child anymore; it walks, but its steps are broken. It smiles, but the smile is rotten. Look at him! The boy you love is gone."
The light around his hand sharpened, his words striking harder with each sentence.
"Every time you hesitate, every time you cling to love, someone else pays the price. Don't you remember reading about the last one we spared because the Clan Head of that time 'hoped' he was only ill? What did they find? Corpses. Children's corpses, torn open like cattle. Do you want that again?"
He stepped forward, fury trembling in his jaw.
"You can't cradle a snake because you raised it, even as it coils to strike. You can't gamble with the lives of hundreds and then bear the weight of killing one. Tell me, is that leadership or cowardice dressed as compassion?"
The cavern seemed to tighten around them, Vermas's voice echoing like a hammer on steel.
"You love them all, I know. You see every child as your own blood. That is your greatest strength. But it is also your curse. You will damn this entire clan if you keep reaching for ghosts of the past while the present festers into monsters before your eyes!"
His hand shook, not from doubt, but from rage and grief intermingled. His final words dripped with bitter finality:
"Step aside, Clan Head. Spare yourself from the sin. Let me do it. My hands are already stained with kin's blood; what's one more? But if you falter now, if you choose your heart over your duty, then you are no longer worthy to lead this clan."
The Clan Head's body trembled, but not from fear. His eyes never left Draco. And in the warped, shambling thing before him, he still saw the boy who once clung shyly to his robes, who once smiled with a missing tooth, and who once fell asleep in his arms after training too hard.
Tears burned behind his eyes as he whispered, "No. He is mine to protect. And if he must be released… it will be by my hand. That is my burden, as his Clan Head." His voice broke. "And as the father in all but blood."
His hand rose, light gathering at his palm.
And then Draco smiled.
It was no child's smile. His lips stretched too far, skin splitting at the corners, teeth showing pale and sharp in the glow. From that gaping mouth came not words but shapes, jagged, writhing sounds that clawed at the ears, twisting into forms the mind was never meant to grasp.
The cavern's air turned foul, heavy with the stink of burnt hair and curdled milk. The shadows writhed like worms under his voice, the butterflies burst into ash, and the flowers bent as if recoiling from him.
Just hearing that dreadful voice caused internal injuries and a splitting headache as some profane knowledge entered their mind.
Thankfully, the children were safe due to the barrier.
Clan Head looked at Draco one last time and released his spell.
"Rest well, child. Oblivion's Kiss."
A ball of extreme dread flew towards Draco, who didn't even look at it and continued his conversation with the empty air as his expression turned into that of despair, as if hearing something.
And just as he was about to say something else, it reached him and enveloped him. Destroying his entire self without harming a single hair on his body.
Clan Head looked at the place where Draco was and said,
"This work was suited for my brother the best."
And then used his ability to seal the memory of Draco emerging from the lake from the minds of children.
Vermas looked at him with pity in his eyes.
'No matter how much upfront he puts in meetings, his true nature remains the same, that of a kind young man. I wonder how time would change him.'
The Clan Head's lips pressed together, and for once, he didn't wear his usual smile.
And so, the list went on. One after another, the children stepped forward. Some carried determination, others only fear. Some emerged victorious, some endured longer but couldn't awaken, some died within the pond, and some came back as the hideous madman who spoke to empty air, but none became like Draco had become, where his words alone caused damage to the psyche and body of Clan Head and Vermas.
Many died, first-timers, repeaters, and even those standing at their last chance.
The flower bed became a stage where every shade of humanity unfolded.
Hope, joy, despair, love, and hatred.
Truly, there are few things aside from a test that can reveal so much about the human spirit.
By the time fifty-one children had walked the flower bed, the tally was clear:
29 awakened.
12 failed.
10 died.
"Thankfully, no one was wounded seriously like Draco," Lunaris said, his voice heavy with relief.
That's how everyone's memory was manipulated temporarily.
"True." The Caelrisu nodded, then allowed a faint smile to curve her lips. "Now… isn't it Fremileo's turn? It should be fun."
"You are right about that," Lunaris agreed, glancing down at the list in his hand, which he took from Vermas. His eyes flicked towards Fremileo, standing close to his father.