Iron sang softly as the cages swayed.
Ten of them.
Not soldiers. Not slaves.
Chosen.
Grenzabell sat with his back to the bars, wrists bruised, silence wrapped around him like a second chain. Across the other cages, faces flickered in firelight, hard, scared, empty… watching.
A voice broke through.
"Hey."
He turned.
Beside him, a girl with white hair sat cross-legged, like the cage was just an inconvenience. Her eyes were sharp, almost amused.
"You look like you're thinking too much," she said.
Grenzabell didn't answer.
She smiled anyway.
"Name's Fally."
A pause, then a shrug.
"Yeah, weird. Not even sure it's mine. Just… what they called me."
Her fingers tapped the iron bars lightly.
"But I'm keeping it."
She leaned closer, lowering her voice.
"So… what about you?"
The cages screeched to a halt. Chains slackened. The door tore open.
Cold air rushed in.
Fally moved without thinking, pressing close behind Grenzabell, her fingers clutching his sleeve. Ahead of them, the ground broke into a massive pit, wide as a graveyard, swallowing light. It wasn't just deep. It was wrong. Black like something that didn't end.
Gareth stood at the edge.
"Jump."
Silence snapped.
"No."
"You're insane."
"We'll die."
Gareth didn't look at them. His gaze stayed inside the pit, like it was staring back.
"Fear sharpens you," he said quietly. "Adrenaline breaks the lock."
He lifted a hand, staring at it.
"…I'm not a good man."
His voice dipped.
"I'm an evil one."
For a moment, he didn't move. Just stood there, eyes lost, like he was somewhere far behind himself. His fingers trembled slightly, like they remembered things he didn't want to.
Everyone saw it.
That crack.
That fear.
Gareth exhaled, sharp, and shook it off. His arm rose again, pointing at the abyss.
"So let me do something right."
He didn't look at them this time.
Just the pit.
Waiting.
Fally clutched Grenzabell's sleeve tighter, her voice small behind him.
"Are you gonna do it? Are you really going to jump?"
Grenzabell didn't turn. His eyes stayed on the pit.
"I'm scared," he said. "But I'll have faith."
Gareth said nothing, only watching, still as stone.
Then Grenzabell stepped forward and jumped.
His body dropped into the darkness, wind tearing past him. A scream ripped out of his throat, raw and unguarded. His breath hitched, chest tightening as fear surged through him, his heart hammering like it wanted out.
For a brief moment, there was only falling.
Then—
Another body launched after him.
Dawncer.
Muscles coiled, no hesitation, a grin cutting across his face as he plunged in like it was a challenge rather than a death sentence.
One by one, the others followed.
Screams echoed into the pit, overlapping, rising, some panicked, some wild… and a few edged with strange, unsteady smiles as they disappeared into the black.
The fall wasn't silent.
It was filled with breath tearing apart.
Bodies dropped through the black, some rigid, others flailing, a few already gone limp before they could understand what was happening. The pit swallowed sound, but not fear. Fear multiplied, ricocheting off invisible walls, pressing into bones, into minds that had nowhere to escape.
Grenzabell's descent slowed in his perception, each second stretching thin.
Wind clawed at him. His chest tightened. His heartbeat thundered so loudly it drowned everything else. Then something shifted.
Not outside.
Inside.
A pressure. Not pain, but resistance. Like something deep within him was being searched, tested, pulled open.
His eyes widened slightly.
"How are we supposed to awaken?" he muttered through the rush of air.
The moment the thought settled, something answered.
A faint pulse.
Blue.
Not bright. Not explosive. Just a quiet ignition at his core, like a spark finding oil that had always been there. It spread along his arms, then steadied, as if recognizing him rather than consuming him.
He exhaled sharply, shock overtaking fear for a fleeting instant.
Then another presence hit the fall.
A shift in the air.
Dawncer.
His body twisted mid-drop, teeth clenched, then his expression snapped into something fierce. "Is that it?" he shouted into the void, more challenge than question.
His energy erupted in response, red tearing outward in jagged bursts, unstable at first, then locking into rhythm with his pulse.
Others began to react.
Fally's grip on awareness broke as panic crested into something else, something instinctive. Her fall stuttered, then her form steadied, a pale white shimmer flickering around her before she lost consciousness mid-descent.
Around them, the pit began to answer back.
Blue met red. White touched instability. Colors flickered across falling silhouettes, not all at once, but in sequence, each one triggered by a different internal breaking point.
The darkness below was no longer empty.
It was alive with awakening.
Gareth stood at the edge of the pit, the abyss breathing below them in slow, unseen currents. The darkness wasn't empty anymore. It shimmered faintly with scattered pulses of color, like distant stars refusing to die.
Behind him, his two lieutenants remained silent, their posture rigid, eyes fixed downward, measuring what others would struggle to even perceive.
Gareth's gaze lingered.
Blue. Red. White. Then hints of purple and green, flickering like unstable echoes trying to find form.
A faint smile touched his face.
"They're stronger than expected," he said quietly.
His eyes narrowed slightly as another pulse rose from below.
"Especially the red one… and the white one."
A pause.
His smile deepened, but it carried weight rather than warmth.
Below, the abyss continued to awaken.
Gareth snapped his fingers.
The world shifted.
In an instant, the falling stopped. Bodies reappeared above the pit, suspended for a breathless moment before dropping onto solid ground near the edge, groaning, coughing, some still glowing faintly with unstable energy.
Silence returned.
Gareth's eyes moved across them, counting with quiet precision.
One. Two. Three…
His expression changed slightly.
One was missing.
His gaze drifted back to the abyss.
Without hesitation, he leaned forward and peered into the void. The darkness swallowed detail. He narrowed his eyes and pushed his vision further, enhancing it beyond normal limits.
Still nothing.
Then he stepped off the edge.
No warning.
He descended fast, faster than the others had fallen, cutting through the darkness like a falling blade.
Wind tore past him as he dropped deeper, his eyes scanning, searching.
Then—
A faint blue light.
Small. Distant. Struggling.
Gareth's lips curved into a subtle smile.
"Damn… we really ought to be proud."
He extended his hand.
Another snap.
The world shifted again.
He reappeared at the top of the pit, now suspended high in the air for a split second before his unconscious body began to fall.
Gareth was already moving.
He reached up, catching Grenzabell mid-drop, gripping him firmly before he could hit the ground.
Gareth glanced down at him, then back toward the others, who were already steadying themselves, some smiling despite the exhaustion.
His voice came out calm, almost indifferent.
"He barely made it."
Grenzabell regained consciousness later, slowly, the world stitching itself back together in fragments of light and sound. His body ached, but his mind returned sharper than before.
He stood, steadied himself, then followed Gareth without a word.
They walked a short distance from the pit, the others left behind in scattered recovery.
Grenzabell broke the silence first.
"How strong is a king?"
Gareth glanced at him, mildly surprised by the question.
"They are strong," he replied. "Very strong."
Grenzabell didn't slow.
"The king of the world."
The air seemed to tighten.
Gareth's eyes turned cold.
"How do you know that?"
Grenzabell met his gaze without hesitation.
"My father told me… a long time ago."
A brief pause settled between them.
Gareth exhaled, a quiet, weighted sigh.
"It's nearly impossible to kill even one of them."
His gaze drifted ahead, distant.
"It would take luck… gods… and a whole lot of will… just to be worthy of lifting a finger against him."
Grenzabell stopped walking.
The words echoed in his mind again and again.
Kill the Five Kings of the world.
He exhaled sharply, then suddenly smacked his own head once, hard.
"Damnit… damnit…"
Frustration boiled over. His fist clenched and struck a nearby stone with a sharp crack.
Pain shot through his hand.
Blood seeped from his knuckles.
He stared at it, breathing unevenly.
Then the faint blue light returned.
It crept across his skin, slow and steady, wrapping around his wounded hand like it recognized the damage. The bleeding eased, the torn skin knitting itself back together piece by piece.
Grenzabell watched in silence as the pain faded.
He flexed his fingers once, testing.
"…It's quite useful."