The Lords shared a look of cold, divine agreement.
"Very well," the High Lord of Elves Priscilla said, waving a hand dismissively. "Take the human back to his hole. The 'Void' is ours. The world is back in balance."
Hours later, the mechanical automaton returned Aether to Sub-Level 9. It didn't carry him; it dragged him by the iron shackle, his boots bumping rhythmically against the cold, weeping stone of the stairs.
The door to his cell shrieked open and he was tossed onto the moldy straw like a bag of discarded grain. The door slammed shut. The lock turned.
Silence.
Aether lay in the dark, his hazel eyes open but vacant, staring at the green slime on the wall. He didn't cry. He didn't call for his mother. He didn't even remember why his chest felt so hollow, as if someone had reached inside and taken his very soul.
But as his hand brushed against the straw, his fingers found the leather-bound book he had hidden.
Aether opened the book once more. Those same words were still there.
Human, a scourge of light beckoned by darkness.
Shall rise and take fight against our wrongdoings.
Human, fire the ones who wronged you.
Free those who are amongst the stars.
May the spectrum lead them all to their slow and inevitable downfall.
For the human might shall once more shine brighter than ever before
Aether stared at the ink. His small finger tracing the words gently as he thought about what his father said.
Aether let out a sound that almost sounded like a chuckle and a sob at the same time. Even as a six year old boy, he couldn't understand why he was being treated so badly.
Aether was tired. He felt almost numb to the bone. Mama... Papa... I'm sorry...
The next day arrived not with the gentle warmth of a sun, but with the bitter, metallic taste of the hard metal floor.
Aether woke up, but for a long moment, he wished he hadn't. Every inch of his body felt like it was being crushed. This was the "Spectrum Sickness"—the agonizing side effect of having neither the Physical Spectrum to reinforce the bones nor the Magical Spectrum to buffer the nervous system. To be a Zero-Tier on Sylvaris was to be a creature constantly at war with gravity itself. Each breath felt like drawing jagged glass into his lungs, and the simple act of lying on the moldy straw sent tremors of lightning-pain through his spine.
He blinked, his hazel eyes clouded with a film of exhaustion. He looked around the suffocating, iron-ribbed confines of his room. The green slime on the walls seemed to pulse in time with his headache.
Mama... Papa... where did you go? His little mind wandered back to the forest, grasping for the scent of woodsmoke and the rough texture of his father's tunic.
But as he reached for those memories, the events of the previous day rushed back like a freezing tide.
The Great Hall.
The silver eyes of the High Lord.
The screaming.
The feeling of his very soul being unspooled like thread from a bobbin.
They took it, he realized, a cold hollow opening in his chest that hurt worse than his bruised ribs. They took the silver strings. They took the part of me that made the big man with the staff look twice. Now I'm just... I'm just meat.
The heavy iron door didn't just open; it shrieked, the sound vibrating through Aether's sensitive skull. Suddenly, two figures appeared in the doorway, their silhouettes blocking out the dim light of the corridor. They were clad in armor from head to toe—plates of blackened Iron that seemed to swallow the light around them.
The guards were Daemons. Aether could see the faint, smoldering glow of their crimson eyes through the slits of their visors, and the smell of sulfur and cold, stagnant blood preceded them into the room.
"Get up, scum," one of the Daemons barked. His voice was a discordant rasp, a status of pure aggression that forced Aether's heart to skip a beat.
Aether tried to push himself up, but his arms gave way, his face hitting the damp straw with a dull thud. He pushed the thoughts of failure and pain out of his mind, forcing his small, trembling limbs to obey. He couldn't cry. If he cried, they would know how much they had broken him.
"I... I'm up," Aether whispered, his voice sounding like dry leaves skittering over stone.
The second Daemon stepped forward, his heavy greaves clanking with a finality that sounded like a coffin lid closing.
He didn't offer a hand. Instead, he reached into a satchel at his hip and pulled out a pair of heavy, jagged shackles. These weren't the "Student IDs" from before; these were Restraint-Grade Bindings, etched with runes that hummed with a predatory hunger.
"The Sovereigns have dictated your curriculum, human," the first guard said, his armored hand reaching down to seize Aether by the collar of his ruined tunic. He hoisted the boy up as if he weighed nothing more than a handful of dust. "No more pretty towers. No more soft benches. You've been assigned to the Experimental Combat Tier."
Experimental? The word sounded big and scary. Does that mean more needles? More lights?
"Hold still," the second Daemon growled.
He snapped the shackles around Aether's wrists. The moment the cold iron touched his skin, Aether felt a sharp, stinging bite. The runes on the cuffs began to glow a dull, bruised purple.
They weren't just meant to keep him from running; they were designed to anchor a Zero-Tier's body so it wouldn't collapse under the pressure of the High City's mana-dense atmosphere. It was a mercy that felt like a torture.
"Where are you taking me?" Aether asked, his eyes going wide.
The Daemons shared a dark, vibrating chuckle that rattled Aether's teeth.
"The Centaur teaches scholars, boy," the lead guard said, dragging Aether toward the door. The boy's boots dragged across the floor, leaving light trails in the grime. "You're going to the Pit. The Beast-Warlord wants to see if a 'Zero' can still bleed when the Spectrums start flying."