The mists always arrived first in the God Dream.
Silas Vane sat completely still on a throne carved entirely from human marrow and blackened bone. He didn't know how he knew it was marrow, he just did. The sensation of absolute power throbbed beneath his fingertips.
Dozens of concubines lounged at the base of his skeletal dais. They possessed a terrifying otherworldly beauty, but it was their hollow spectral eyes that commanded his attention. They stared up at him with absolute reverence and ravenous hunger.
One pale woman offered up an ornate goblet filled with a thick crimson liquid. Silas reached out and brushed her skin. He was a sovereign here. He opened his mouth to issue a command.
"Silas! Wake up, you absolute statistical anomaly!"
The throne of marrow shattered. The spectral concubines dissolved into smoke.
Silas snapped his eyes open to the harsh fluorescent lights of Dormitory Sector 4. A scrawny boy with thick glasses and unkempt brown hair was violently shaking his shoulders.
"Donnie," Silas groaned. He swatted his roommate away and rubbed his temples.
A vicious headache throbbed behind his eyes from the God Dream. "If the building isn't collapsing, I swear to God I'm going to throw you out the window."
Donnie Miller didn't back down. He frantically adjusted his glasses with wide eyes.
"I ran the numbers, Silas. I ran them three times. Do you realize that the mortality rate for being late to the Culling Gate is practically one hundred percent? Actually, it is 99.8 percent, but the 0.2 percent who survived were paralyzed from the neck down. Statistically speaking, they might as well be dead!"
Silas froze. The sleep instantly evaporated.
He lunged toward the battered digital clock resting on their cramped metal desk. The glowing red numbers mocked him.
08:45 AM.
"Oh, hell," Silas breathed. His face paled.
The Culling Gate was the final brutal entrance exam for the Iron Blight Institute. It had started exactly forty five minutes ago.
"Why didn't you wake me up earlier?!" Silas yelled. He practically leaped out of his narrow cot and scrambled for his combat fatigues.
"I tried!" Donnie squeaked and took a step back. "You were completely unresponsive! You were murmuring about bones and concubines again! I thought you had slipped into a Void Silt coma. The probability of waking up from a Class 3 Silt trance without medical intervention is..."
"Save the math, Donnie!" Silas snapped. He pulled a worn standard issue synthetic shirt over his head.
He didn't have time to process the dream. He didn't have time to process anything.
Silas was what the Institute officially classified as a Low Chain student. Your genetic potential dictated your worth in this brutal hierarchy. Silas had bottom tier genetics. He had no innate elemental affinities, no bone density mutations, and no latent aura.
He was standard human trash in a world that had long since evolved past the need for standard humans.
Forty years ago, the sky cracked open and showered the Earth in a cosmic residue known as Void Silt. The substance rewrote the laws of biology and physics. The ecosystem mutated into a living nightmare overnight.
Harmless animals twisted into towering Dire Kin beasts. Pockets of warped reality called Anomalies scarred the continents. Humanity only survived by harnessing that same Void Silt to forcibly evolve themselves into a new ruling class of Ascendants.
And then there was Silas. A guy who still tripped over his own shoelaces on a bad day. He was expected to survive an exam designed to weed out the weak.
Everyone assumed he wouldn't even survive the preliminary training weeks. Yet through sheer stubbornness, hiding, and dumb luck, he had made it to the final day.
Until he overslept.
"My boots, where are my boots?" Silas muttered frantically. He kicked aside a pile of Donnie's probability charts.
"Under the desk," Donnie pointed with trembling hands. "Silas, seriously. Instructor Thorne is supervising the Culling Gate today. Do you know what her tolerance level for tardiness is?"
"Zero?" Silas guessed. He shoved his feet into his combat boots.
"Statistically less than zero," Donnie corrected grimly. "She actively enjoys punishing rule breakers. If you walk in there now, she will make an example of you."
"If I don't show up at all, they revoke my citizenship status and banish me to the Scavenger Wastes," Silas shot back. He grabbed his standard issue short sword from the rack. "I will take my chances with Thorne."
Silas bolted out of the dormitory room before Donnie could hit him with another depressing mortality rate.
The hallways of the Iron Blight Institute were an oppressive maze of reinforced concrete and rusted iron pipes. Silas sprinted down the corridor with his boots slamming against the metal grating.
He dodged a couple of maintenance drones and vaulted over a collapsed section of railing.
His lungs were burning by the time he reached the central courtyard. The Iron Blight Institute wasn't just a school. It was a militarized fortress built to train human weapons.
Towering obsidian spires pierced the sky. The distant roars of captured Dire Kin reverberated through the grounds.
Forty five minutes, Silas thought with a hammering heart. How could I sleep through the blaring alarms? The God Dream has never held me under for that long.
Usually, his dreams of the bone throne were fleeting power fantasies. But today, it had felt different. It had felt tangible.
He shook his head to force the thoughts away. He needed to focus. The Coliseum was just ahead.
The massive circular arena loomed at the edge of the campus. It was a brutalist structure of dark stone and reinforced energy shields. The muffled roar of tens of thousands of spectators bled through the thick walls.
Silas skidded to a halt in front of the massive primary blast doors. Two heavily armored Institute Guards stood at attention. Their visors glowed with a sinister red light.
They looked down at Silas, then at the cheap dented sword in his hand, and finally at the clock mounted above the entrance.
"You are late, Low Chain," the guard on the left grunted.
"I know. Alarm malfunction," Silas lied and panted heavily. "Just open the doors. Please."
The guards exchanged a look that clearly communicated he was dead meat walking.
"It is your funeral, kid," the guard on the right said. He hit a heavy switch on the wall.
Hiss!
The hydraulic locks disengaged. The massive iron doors slowly ground open. A blinding wave of sunlight and the deafening roar of the crowd washed over Silas.
He swallowed hard and adjusted his grip on his sword. He didn't have a plan. All he had was a desperate desire not to be thrown out into the mutated wastelands.
Taking a deep breath, Silas stepped out of the shadows. He walked into the blinding light of the Coliseum, unaware that the true nightmare of his life was only just beginning.