The road to the clan was not long…
But Ares felt as if he were crossing the boundary from one world into another.
Even the air was different.
Heavier… purer… saturated with something unseen yet deeply felt.
Something like dominance.
The Ancestor who had brought him here stopped at a distance, then disappeared without a word of farewell…
Without even a final glance.
As if his task had ended the moment Ares set foot in this place.
The small child raised his head.
Before him rose a towering black gate, so massive that the mountains behind it looked like small stones.
It was not decorated.
It carried no heroic carvings.
No names… no history.
Just a dark, smooth surface that absorbed light.
As if it had not been built to be seen… but to subdue whoever stood before it.
Slowly… it opened.
No creaking.
No shaking.
Two enormous masses moving in frightening silence, like the mouth of an ancient creature awakening from its slumber.
Behind it stood the guards.
Their energies were terrifying.
Ares was not yet able to measure them precisely, but the Gravity Core inside him trembled instinctively…
Like atoms trembling near a collapsing star.
[System analysis…]
[— Energy density: beyond calculation.]
[— Danger: extremely high.]
[— Recommendation: avoid any behavior that could be interpreted as a threat.]
But the strange thing…
The guards did nothing.
No bow.
No inspection.
Even curious looks were absent.
One of them looked at him for a second… then turned his gaze away.
As if a child walking alone toward the heart of the strongest clan in this world…
Was not an event worth noticing.
Ares entered.
No one stopped him.
No one guided him.
The gate closed behind him with the same silence.
Only in that moment…
He understood the first unwritten law:
Whoever reaches here… does not need a welcome.
He began to walk.
His small steps were unnaturally steady for a child in his first year, yet even that was not enough to attract attention.
The corridors were wide… but nearly empty.
No servants running.
No trainees showing off their strength.
No shouting voices.
Only organized… cold movement.
As if the place was not inhabited by humans, but by a single will distributed across thousands of bodies.
A woman passed beside him carrying a spear twice her height.
The skin of her arms was cracked… not a wound, but the mark of energy repeatedly compressed inside the body.
She did not look at him.
Even his shadow did not reflect in her eyes.
Ares suddenly stopped.
Something caught his attention.
An open hall to the right.
He approached.
Then… he saw.
Children.
Around seven years old.
But suddenly, the word "children" no longer seemed appropriate.
A boy stood inside a gravity field almost visible from the intensity of its density.
His knee trembled…
The veins in his arm bulged like tightened ropes.
And yet…
He did not fall.
He did not scream.
He simply stared ahead with silent stubbornness.
Nearby, a slender girl repeated the same balance exercise atop a thin metal pillar.
A drop of blood slipped from her nose… then another.
She wiped it with her sleeve without stopping.
She fell once.
She immediately stood up.
She tried again.
No trainer shouted.
No one applauded.
As if failure were just an unimportant detail.
In another corner…
Two children were fighting.
No clear rules.
No referee.
A fast strike — the air compressed with it.
The small body slid several meters… but rolled and attacked again immediately.
The floor was full of old scratches.
Proof that this was not an exception…
But a daily routine.
Ares watched the scene for a long time.
The Gravity Core inside him rotated slowly… as if responding to something deeper than mere energy.
[System note:]
[— The environment imposes high growth pressure.]
[— The average physical capability of individuals here exceeds natural standards several times over.]
[— Conclusion: this place is designed to produce highly adaptive beings.]
But Ares did not need the system's analysis to understand.
He felt it instinctively.
Here…
Harshness is not training.
It is the minimum standard.
And suddenly, he realized something simpler… and more dangerous:
No one looked proud of what they were doing.
Nor even in pain.
As if surpassing limits…
Were just a habit.
Ares suddenly stopped.
It was not a sound…
Nor a movement.
Just a sensation.
As if the world around him had grown slightly heavier.
The Gravity Core inside him contracted instinctively…
Then rotated with cautious slowness.
[System alert]
[— Unknown perceptual interference detected.]
[— Awareness level: immeasurable.]
Ares raised his head.
He looked right.
No one.
Left.
The corridor was empty.
Even the children inside the hall continued their training… as if nothing had happened.
But the sensation was not an illusion.
There was "something"…
Something that passed over him the way a searching eye passes over a line in a book.
Then—
It disappeared.
[Update:]
[— Signal lost.]
[— No energy trace.]
[— No distortion in the field.]
The system fell silent for a fraction of a second… a duration it had never been silent before.
Then a single sentence appeared:
[— Assessment: the entity chose not to reveal itself.]
Ares did not freeze.
He did not search.
He simply understood.
In this place…
Even observation does not require presence.
He lowered his gaze slightly, and a faint smile passed over his lips.
"Good…"
"That means I am in the right place."
Somewhere inside the clan…
Sheikh Farin slowly opened his eyes.
He said calmly:
"So… you have returned, Ares."
Then he fell silent for a moment and murmured,
"It seems you do not live up to the Ancestors' expectations."
"But I am tasked with observing you. The phenomenon of your anomaly is something new… it has never happened before."
Then he thought for a moment.
"I wonder about the other anomalies… especially the anomaly of the broken hourglass."
As for Ares—
He lowered his gaze to his small palms.
He remembered the moment he had been labeled an "anomaly."
He remembered the trembling energies around his birth.
He remembered the looks of shock.
It seemed they truly meant nothing now.
At first, he had thought he would receive special treatment…
But in the end, it did not seem that anything like before would happen.
His eyes widened slightly.
Not in fear.
But in understanding.
Then the idea formed inside him with cold clarity:
"In this place… survival itself is considered a talent."
He fell silent for a moment.
Then added inwardly:
"As for superiority… it is merely the starting point."
He smiled.
A small smile… not suited to his age.
Deep within his chest, the Gravity Core rotated with greater stability…
As if it had finally found the environment it had been created for.