Drakes leaned forward, his fingers bracing against the edge of the mahogany desk as he stared intensely at the pages. For a long, suffocating moment, the only sound in the archives was the heavy thrum of his own breathing. Then, slowly, he shook his head.
"I can see the shapes," Drakes murmured. A rare, unsettling look of unease crossed his face, fracturing his usual mask of absolute confidence. "But reading it... it's impossible. This is the first time I have ever encountered a language I cannot decipher."
Seeing Drakes—a man who treated the world's greatest mysteries like simple riddles—so utterly defeated sent a cold shiver down Kael's spine. It was wrong. He didn't press the issue. Without a word, Kael quietly slid the book back into the deep recesses of the library archives, half-expecting some kind of supernatural fallout, a curse, or a sudden burst of dark energy.
But nothing happened. The mystery simply faded into the quiet, mundane hum of ordinary life.
As the new school term started, the frantic demands of Kael's daily routine took over. The unreadable pages and the dread they inspired slipped from his mind, buried under essays and exams. Days bled into weeks, and the vibrant, fiery colors of autumn eventually surrendered to the bleak, biting chill of December.
Then came a morning that shattered the quiet completely.
Stepping out into the freezing air to head to school, Kael froze on his doorstep. The world felt wrong. A heavy, suffocating pressure hung over the neighborhood, pressing down on his chest like a physical weight.
He looked up at the sky and felt his breath catch in his throat. It was an abyssal, inky black—far darker than the usual pre-dawn gloom of winter. The sun was impossibly late. It wasn't a lingering storm cloud or a trick of the morning light; it felt as though the very laws of nature had fractured, leaving the world trapped in an endless, unnatural night.
Kael's gaze darted down, and his heart skipped a beat. Two monstrous, towering figures stood on either side of his gateway, leaning casually against the stone pillars. Their bodies seemed woven from shadows, their faces completely obscured. Strangely, a group of students walked right past them, chatting and laughing, completely oblivious to the nightmares brushing against their shoulders.
Heart pounding against his ribs, Kael hurried past them, his head down as he bolted toward the school courtyard.
The vast garden was usually a comforting, familiar sight, but the oppressive darkness choked the air here, too. Worse, the shadows were alive. Dark silhouettes peeked out from behind the thick trunks of the trees, their unseen eyes tracking his every movement.
Spotting a familiar winter jacket ahead, Kael felt a surge of desperate relief. "Hey! Renjiro!" he shouted, breaking into a sprint.
Renjiro glanced back over his shoulder, but Kael's eyes widened in horror. Several twisted, shadowy figures were running directly behind his friend, closing the distance with terrifying speed.
But as Kael got closer, the relief vanished. Renjiro's expression—or lack thereof—was chilling. His eyes were dull, vacant, and glazed over.
Something is profoundly wrong.
Kael skidded to a halt, his instinct screaming at him to check his six. The moment his head whipped around, the pursuing monsters disintegrated, dissolving into clouds of floating, gray dust that drifted harmlessly into the freezing wind.
Kael stared at the settling ash, his mind racing, trying to stitch reality back together. Who... what were they?
"They were demonfolks," Sara's voice echoed sharply inside his mind, cutting through his panic like a scalpel.
Kael tilted his head slightly, keeping his lips barely moving as he whispered under his breath, "Demonfolks?"
"Humans who mastered black magic and forbidden curses," Sara explained, her mental tone grim and devoid of its usual warmth. "Once their corruption reaches a certain level, they are chosen to ascend. If anyone tries to refuse, they are executed by the higher demons."
Kael murmured, "So they derive all their strength from black magic?"
"Partially," Sara clarified. "But more accurately, they serve a high-ranking demon. Their master grants them a mere fraction of its true power, turning them into thralls."
Kael snapped his attention back to his friend, and his stomach dropped. The creatures had reappeared. They were standing directly behind Renjiro, their distorted, shadowy faces practically breathing down his neck.
Panicking, Kael bolted forward, reaching out to grab Renjiro's shoulder. But the exact second his fingers made contact, the figures vanished into thin air, leaving nothing but empty, freezing space.
Kael let out a tense, breathy smirk, forcing his shoulders to relax. He shrugged it off. If he couldn't physically hit them, there was no use letting them rattle his cage.
Falling into step alongside his friend, Kael tried to force his voice into a casual, everyday cadence. "Hey, where's Azune today?"
Renjiro blinked, his response delayed and his voice sounding as if it were traveling from the bottom of a deep well. "She's... out of town for a few days. Some family work."
"Oh…" Kael nodded slowly, his eyes scanning the empty shadows dancing along the edge of the path. "So that's the reason."
Azune was gone. The defense was down.
They walked together toward the main building, but when they reached the assembly hall, Kael realized the courtyard was nothing compared to this. The situation here was worse—far worse—than his encounter with Vrita.
Dozens of demons were standing like gargoyles along the edges and rafters of the building, all of them completely still, staring up at the dead, black sky.
Kael raised his arm, pulling back his sleeve to check his watch.
7:30 AM.
By all accounts of time and cosmos, the sun should have been burning through the horizon. Yet, there was only darkness.
Kael closed his eyes tight, pressing his lids together until he saw spots. It's an illusion. It's just my imagination. Wake up.
He opened them.
The illusion didn't shatter. Instead, every single demon on the rafters had turned their heads. Dozens of glowing, crimson eyes were now locked entirely on him.
The morning bell rang, a hollow, tinny sound that signaled the start of assembly. Throughout the principal's muffled speech, Kael couldn't take his eyes off Renjiro. Up close, his friend's face wasn't just vacant—it was deathly pale, the color completely drained from his skin as if something were slowly siphoning the life out of him.
When the assembly finally dismissed, Kael practically dragged his feet to the classroom. He took his seat, staring at the door.
The teacher walked in, her heels clicking against the linoleum. But right behind her, stepping perfectly in her shadow, a towering demon followed her into the room, its clawed hands hovering just inches above her shoulders. The teacher laid her books on the desk, completely unaware of the death sentence walking in her footsteps.
Renjiro sat a few desks away. Slowly, the pale boy turned around, looking at Kael with a slight, confused frown.
"Hey," Renjiro whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "Can you... feel something different today?"
Kael looked at his friend, then looked at the demon looming over the teacher, and finally out the window at the pitch-black morning. He forced his face into a mask of calm indifference.
"I don't know what you mean," Kael said softly, his voice steady despite the adrenaline roaring in his ears. "I'm not feeling anything wrong."
At that time Kael understood that Renjiro was feeling same like him.