The midnight hour brought no peace to the Bastion of Mourning. Instead, it brought a silence so thick that it felt like a physical weight pressing against the stone walls. In the guest wing, Baron Vane and his Inquisitors were likely submerged in their meditative trances, their Saint rank senses extended like invisible webs across the estate. To move through the castle now was to walk across a field of landmines, where every stray thought or heartbeat could potentially trigger an Imperial execution order.
Cian Valerius stood in the center of his dark chambers, his eyes closed. He was not looking with his physical sight. Through the Akashic Scholar talent, he was observing the rhythmic pulses of the Hegemony's detection net. It was a complex, oscillating wave of mana that emanated from the Baron's room every thirty seconds. To the rest of the world, this net was an impenetrable barrier. To Cian, it was a sequence of code with a predictable interval.
[Detection Pulse: 4 seconds remaining.]
[Detection Pulse: 3 seconds...]
[Detection Pulse: 2 seconds...]
[Detection Pulse: 1 second...]
The moment the wave passed over his room, Cian moved. He slipped through the shadows with a fluid, predatory grace that defied his young age. He didn't use the doors or the main stairs. He moved through a series of narrow service tunnels and disused ventilation shafts that he had mapped out in his first life. These paths were old, dating back to the era before the Hegemony's architectural standards, and they were invisible to the modern detection spells used by Vane's men.
He reached the designated meeting point, a subterranean cellar used for storing salted meats, located directly beneath the southern wall. Standing there in the gloom were ten men. Kael was at the front, his hand resting nervously on his sword hilt. The others were young guards, mostly orphans or sons of low ranking retainers who had grown up in the shadow of the Bastion. They were the ones who had nothing to lose and everything to prove.
"You came," Kael whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "I told them you would. But Cian, if we are caught out here, the Baron will execute us for desertion. My men are terrified."
Cian stepped into the faint light of a single, hooded lantern. He looked at the ten guards, his eyes glowing with a cold, metallic silver light that made several of them flinch. He didn't look like the scholar they knew. He looked like a commander who had returned from the grave.
"If you are afraid of the Baron, you should be," Cian said, his voice a low, resonant hum. "He represents a power that wants to erase you. But if you follow me tonight, you will become the very thing that haunts his nightmares. I am not offering you a promotion. I am offering you the chance to break the ceiling of your own destiny."
"We've seen what happened to Lady Elena," one of the younger guards, a boy named Jaxon, muttered. "She was the best of us, and she got cut down like a dog in the mud today. What chance do we have?"
"Elena didn't fail," Cian said, his gaze locking onto Jaxon. "She played a part. She is already stronger than any of you can imagine. Tonight, I will show you why."
He turned and pushed aside a heavy stone slab, revealing a narrow, muddy tunnel that led directly under the outer walls and into the Grey Weald. "Follow me. Do not speak. Do not light your torches. If you lose sight of the man in front of you, stay still until I find you."
The journey through the tunnel was a claustrophobic crawl, but as they emerged into the Grey Weald, the air became even more oppressive. The Abyssal Miasma was thick tonight, swirling around the blackened trees like a living thing. The guards shifted uneasily, their hands white knuckled around their weapons. They were Awakened warriors, but the Weald at night was a place even Masters feared to tread.
Cian led them deep into the forest, far beyond the range of the Bastion's scout patrols. He stopped at a natural clearing where the trees had been twisted into a circular formation by some ancient, corrupted mana flow.
"Form a circle," Cian commanded. "Sit cross legged. Close your eyes and focus on the sound of my voice."
The ten guards obeyed, their movements stiff with apprehension. Cian stood in the center, his two soul cores beginning to pulse in a rhythmic, synchronized beat. He reached out with his mind, activating the talent he had fought so hard to unlock.
[Divine Talent: Sovereign Tutor is Active.]
[Target Count: 10.]
[Establishing Master Link Protocol...]
Suddenly, ten cerulean threads of light erupted from Cian's chest, lancing through the darkness and connecting to the hearts of the ten guards. The men gasped in unison, their bodies jerking as if they had been struck by lightning. Kael's eyes flew open, but he saw nothing but a vast, blue ocean of information.
"Do not resist," Cian's voice echoed directly inside their minds. "Through this link, I am granting you a fraction of my comprehension. I am opening the gates of your souls that the Hegemony tried to lock."
Cian began to circulate his Primordial Heart-Core Breath. Through the link, he projected the sensation of the Supreme rank technique into their systems. He showed them how to draw the Abyssal Miasma from the air, filter out the corruption using their own life force, and refine it into pure, dense mana.
Usually, such a process would take years of meditation. But with the Sovereign Tutor talent, Cian was "Downloading" the muscle memory and the spiritual logic directly into their subconscious.
[Sovereign Link: Synchronization at 65%.]
[Initiating 'Talent Ceiling' Distortion...]
Cian felt the strain immediately. His Monster Class core was burning, the dark violet energy working overtime to stabilize the massive amount of data being transferred. His secondary core was acting as a heat sink, absorbing the feedback from ten different human souls. He felt a trickle of blood run down from his nose, but he didn't stop.
"Breathe," Cian commanded. "See the flaws in your old ways. See the power that is waiting for you."
As the guards began to synchronize with Cian's rhythm, the air in the clearing began to vibrate. The grey mist was sucked toward the center of the circle, forming a swirling vortex of energy. The guards' mana signatures, which had been weak and flickering, began to brighten, turning from a dull white to a sharp, electric silver.
[Student Progression: Kael.]
[Rank: Awakened (Level 3) -> (Level 4).]
[Talent Ceiling: Master Rank -> Loosening.]
Suddenly, Cian's Akashic Scholar talent pinged a warning. A red heat map flared in his mind, coming from the edge of the clearing.
[Threat Detected: Imperial Assassin.]
[Rank: Ascended (Level 7).]
[Codename: Silent Talon.]
[Status: Cloaked. Preparing Lethal Strike.]
Cian didn't break the link. If he stopped now, the backlash of mana would kill all ten guards. He had to maintain the ceremony while fighting an elite Imperial killer.
So, Vane wasn't satisfied with the audit, Cian thought, his eyes remaining closed. He sent his shadow to see what the scholar does in the dark.
The assassin moved with a speed that defied the biological limits of a human eye. He was a master of the 'Grey Void' style, a technique that allowed him to blend into the Abyssal Miasma itself. He lunged from the shadows, a blackened dagger aimed directly at the back of Cian's neck. The blade was coated in 'Soul-Eater' poison, designed to collapse the mana circuits of anyone it touched.
Cian didn't turn around. He didn't even move his hands.
He tapped into his Monster Class core, releasing a shockwave of dark mana that was strictly physical in nature.
BOOM.
The air around Cian exploded outward. The assassin, caught off guard by the sudden burst of raw, non human energy, was blown backward ten feet. He twisted in mid air, landing with the grace of a cat, his silver mask reflecting the blue light of the soul threads.
"A second core?" the assassin hissed, his voice a distorted rasp. "You are no scholar. You are a monster masquerading in human skin. Baron Vane was right to be suspicious."
The assassin lunged again, this time unleashing his Ascended rank skill: [Five Point Shadow Strike]. He seemed to split into five identical shadows, each striking from a different angle.
Cian's Akashic Scholar talent analyzed the attack in a heartbeat.
[Analysis: Five Point Shadow Strike.]
[Logic: Only one shadow is physical. The others are mana illusions designed to overwhelm the visual cortex.]
[Real Target: The shadow at the eleven o'clock position.]
Cian reached out with his left hand, his fingers glowing with silver light. He didn't strike the assassin's blade. He struck the air three inches to the left of the incoming dagger.
CLANG.
His fingers caught the flat of the blackened blade. The assassin froze, his eyes wide behind his mask. No one at the Awakened rank should have been able to catch an Ascended rank's strike with their bare hands. But Cian wasn't a normal Awakened. He had the physical reinforcement of a Monster Class warrior and the predictive logic of a Divine Scholar.
"You speak of monsters," Cian said, his voice echoing through the soul link to his ten guards, who were now watching the fight in their minds. "Let me show you what a true monster looks like."
Cian's secondary core flared. He didn't use a martial art. He used a raw [Mana Burst], flooding the assassin's own dagger with a violent, chaotic energy.
The blackened steel shattered. The assassin screamed as the feedback of his own broken weapon tore through his arm. Before he could retreat, Cian stepped forward and delivered a single, open palm strike to the man's chest.
CRACK.
The assassin's ribs imploded. He was sent flying through the air, crashing into a blackened Ironwood tree with enough force to splinter the trunk. He slumped to the ground, his life force fading rapidly.
[Target Slain: Silent Talon (Ascended Rank).]
[Absorbing High-Level Soul Essence...]
[Rank Progression: Awakened (Level 1) -> (Level 5).]
[Secondary Core Saturation: 15%.]
Cian took a deep breath, the silver and violet energy within him slowly settling. He turned back to the ten guards. They were staring at him with a mixture of terror and absolute, religious devotion. They had seen the entire fight through the soul link. They had felt Cian's heartbeats, his logic, and his overwhelming power.
The cerulean threads began to fade, the ceremony complete.
Kael stood up first, his movements fluid and powerful. He looked at his hands, which were now glowing with a faint silver aura. He felt stronger than he ever had in his life. He felt like he could take on an Inquisitor and win.
"My Lord," Kael said, dropping to one knee in the mud. He didn't say 'Young Master' or 'Cian.' He said 'Lord.'
The other nine guards followed suit, their foreheads touching the cold, damp ground of the Grey Weald.
"From this night on," Cian said, looking at the ten warriors who would become the foundation of his legion. "You are no longer guards of House Valerius. You are the Sentinels of the Void. You will serve as the mysterious force that protects this border. To the world, you are dead or missing. To me, you are the blade that will cut the Hegemony's throat."
[System Notification: The First Ten have been established.]
[Sovereign Tutor Level Up: Level 2.]
[Teacher's Tax: Your Mana Density has increased by 10% from the collective breakthroughs of your students.]
Cian looked at the body of the assassin. "Kael, dispose of the remains in the deeper Abyss. Leave no trace. Tomorrow, Baron Vane will realize his shadow has gone missing. He will come for us with everything he has."
"Let him come," Kael said, his voice filled with a new, terrifying confidence. "We are ready to die for you, my Lord."
"I don't want you to die for me," Cian said, turning back toward the Bastion. "I want you to kill for me. The audit is about to get much more interesting."