Back at Four Stars Academy, life continued.
Despite several of their most prominent students currently fighting in the grandest tournament the continent had ever known, the rest of the academy remained active. Classes were shortened, drills softened, and instructors allowed themselves small indulgences. There was laughter in the halls again. Relief.
By midafternoon, most trainees had gathered in the Great Hall. A massive projection hovered above the marble floor, relaying the same feed the crowds in Lestrel City were watching.
Korimer's group had just entered the ruins.
Cheers broke out. Some students clapped. Others leaned forward, whispering predictions. If all things held, they would reach the Dukcilliea Chambers first. That was the general consensus.
The tension of the day eased. Fatigue slipped away.
That was why no one noticed the shift at first.
At exactly 3:34 p.m.—the precise time recorded by a first-year trainee who had absentmindedly checked his pocket watch—the first tower fell.
There was no warning bell. No tremor beforehand. Just a sound—deep, metallic, and wrong—followed by a violent surge of Spiritual Energy that rippled through the academy like a shockwave.
The eastern sentry tower collapsed inward as dozens of Zengas burst through its lower seal, their bodies distorted by compressed SE, eyes glowing with mindless hunger.
The Great Hall went silent.
Then—
Screams.
Four Stars Academy was built around balance. Its four sentry towers regulated ambient SE, maintaining internal pressure and suppressing the dungeon ecosystems embedded beneath and around the grounds. They were not decorative. They were locks.
With one broken, the system failed.
The SE surge slammed into the students like a physical force.
A first-year boy near the back of the hall dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach. His face turned pale, then gray.
"I—I can't—" he choked before vomiting violently onto the polished floor, bile streaked faintly with glowing residue as his undeveloped Spiritual Sea spasmed under the pressure.
Others staggered. Some collapsed outright.
Anyone below Advanced Blue Eyes Form felt it immediately—the sensation of drowning while standing upright, lungs burning as foreign energy forced itself through unprepared channels.
Outside, demonic beasts began to stir.
According to Hugh Messier, a third-year trainee who would later give testimony, the fallout was instantaneous.
Zengas flooded the courtyard. Lesser beasts clawed their way out of fractured dungeon mouths. The air itself became hostile.
And for a few crucial moments, no one acted.
Perhaps because it had never happened before.
Perhaps because Headmaster Kime was not there.
Perhaps because no one believed the academy—the safest place on the continent—could truly fall.
At 3:40 p.m., the death count crossed twenty.
Some were torn apart by Zengas.
Others were trampled in the panic.
Several simply collapsed, their bodies unable to withstand the ambient SE.
Rose was already working.
She knelt beside a second-year girl whose side had been shredded by shrapnel from the tower collapse, hands glowing as healing energy poured from her palms.
"You're going to be fine," Rose said, voice shaking but steady. "Just breathe. Stay with me, okay? Just—just stay with me—"
The girl's lips parted.
"M-my brother—he's still—"
Her eyes glazed.
The glow faltered.
Rose froze.
"No—no, wait—stay—"
But the SE slipped away, dispersing like mist. The girl's chest stilled mid-sentence.
Rose sat back, hands trembling, blood soaking into her knees.
Around her, the injured kept screaming.
It was then that Keel Kun arrived.
The senior instructor's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. He rallied the third- and fourth-years, forcing order through sheer authority.
Defensive formations snapped into place. Survivors were pulled back. Countermeasures deployed.
At 3:43 p.m., they struck back.
It didn't matter.
The second sentry tower fell moments later.
The release of ambient SE was catastrophic.
Even top trainees at the base of Denkei Form found themselves immobilized, their techniques failing as the environment itself turned hostile. Demonic beasts surged in greater numbers, emboldened by the collapse of the academy's internal balance.
It became slaughter.
In the next ten minutes, twelve more trainees died.
Somewhere in the chaos, a young boy slammed his fists against a reinforced door, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Please—please open it!" he screamed. "My sister's still out there! She was in the west wing—I can still feel her SE, I know she's alive—please!"
No one opened the door.
By the time the retreat order was issued, there was nothing left to save outside.
The remaining trainees were funneled toward the most secure location on the grounds—
Headmaster Kime's office.
By 3:58 p.m., nearly two hundred survivors were sealed inside.
Fifty names would never answer roll call again.
---
The office was packed.
Too many bodies. Too much silence.
Morale had collapsed. With so many dead, even those uninjured looked hollow. Some stared at nothing. Others shook uncontrollably.
Rose sat slumped against the wall, blood dried on her sleeves, staring at her hands.
Avery Ransthrol stood near the center of the room, scanning faces he barely recognized anymore.
That was when Alison Jean approached him.
"Avery Ransthrol?"
He looked up slowly. "Yes…?"
She placed a small metal emblem into his palm.
Recognition struck like a knife.
"That's Anarchia's emblem," she said quietly. "Isn't it?"
Avery's fingers curled around it.
As a child raised in the Dead Men's Ship territory—born an illegitimate descendant of the Flame Emperor's bloodline—he had been exposed to secrets most would never learn.
And Project Anarchia was the darkest of them all.
---
16–17 years ago…
Project Anarchia began as a dream—one born from exhaustion rather than ambition.
The Dead Men's Ship Territory had grown tired of burying its own. War after war had demanded blood, and each victory came heavier than the last. Enasto Ransthrol wanted a different future. One where men were no longer sent to die, where battles were fought by something else—something created to shoulder that burden in their place.
The idea was simple in theory, monstrous in execution.
Instead of sacrificing soldiers, they would create an ultimate being to fight for them. One that could be replicated. Mass-produced. A solution to war itself.
The research began quietly. Deep beneath the territory, far from prying eyes.
They discovered that children captured at a very young age possessed Spiritual Energy cores that were still pure—unshaped, unclaimed by identity or will. Without a distinct Spiritual Signature, those cores could be molded into almost anything.
All they needed was a foundation.
Another active Spiritual Energy to act as a template.
The higher the rank of the borrowed SE, the greater the result.
They began experimenting with fragments taken from powerful beings. Enasto himself acquired pieces of Spiritual Energy from each of the Five Legends—including his own.
The first true test was carried out on his youngest son.
Korimer Ransthrol.
Using his own SE as the base, Enasto watched as the fusion took hold. Korimer's core adapted, reshaped itself, and became something new—something strikingly similar to Enasto's own, yet undeniably different.
It worked.
Perfectly.
Korimer's Spiritual Energy functioned like Enasto's Enasto's—yet it was not a copy. It was its own existence.
The success filled Enasto with elation. For the first time in years, he believed he could change the world. End wars. End pointless deaths. Create a future where none of his people had to suffer the way they always had.
If that made him selfish, he didn't care.
He was tired of watching people die.
And that exhaustion became greed.
Enasto pushed further.
Too far.
The next tests were disasters.
When they attempted to use fragments of Carpathia's Spiritual Energy, every single test subject died. Violently. Instantly. They assumed it was due to the peculiar nature of Carpathia's shadow-based abilities—something too unstable, too absolute, for any vessel to contain.
They moved on.
Lucky was next.
That failed differently. His raw strength didn't fuse at all. Instead, it overwhelmed the vessels completely, consuming them from the inside out as if they were nothing more than fuel.
Then came Kime.
They never learned what truly happened during those trials.
All the test subjects vanished.
No remains. No residue. No trace of Spiritual Energy.
Nothing.
That was when the world itself seemed to tremble.
Kime discovered what Enasto had been doing behind the backs of the other Legends. The fallout was immediate. Tension spread across the continent, thick enough to suffocate. A war between the Five Legends loomed—one that would have torn the world apart.
Carpathia stopped it.
He reminded them of their bond. Of what they had sworn to protect. He forced Enasto to swear—publicly—that Project Anarchia would cease. That no further experiments would be conducted without the knowledge and consent of the others.
Enasto agreed.
And for four years, he kept his word.
Project Anarchia was shelved. Locked away. Buried under silence and guilt.
Until someone else came knocking.
Four and a half years later, Uzami Tuo approached Enasto.
He volunteered a fragment of his own Spiritual Energy.
But that wasn't all.
Instead of offering a random child, Uzami provided something else entirely—
a child created using his own XY chromosome.
It wasn't truly a child.
It was a clone.
The experiment resumed.
And this time… it succeeded beyond anything they had imagined.
The fusion wasn't partial. It wasn't flawed. There was no instability, no rejection.
Everything aligned.
The result was a being that was 99.999% identical to Uzami Tuo.
Not a replica.
An extension.
The success terrified them.
Because what they had created was an abomination.
Uzami Tuo was banished to the Black World for his role in it. Enasto Ransthrol was cursed with an incurable disease—one that would not kill him immediately, but condemned him to a death he could neither escape nor delay.
He knew exactly when it would come.
And how.
The child was taken away.
Transported to one of their facilities in Brandish, where he would remain hidden for the next ten years of his life.
His name was Kutote Tuo.
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Spiritual Energy (SE)
Spiritual Sea (SS)
Spiritual Signature (SST)