The officials on the high platform didn't move. They watched the dirt around the Altar's base, where the stone met the earth.
The cracks were thin at first, then jagged, spidering out with a violence that made the wood of the dais groan. It was the kind of tremor that usually preceded a pillar of light, something blinding, something rare. The representatives leaned forward, bracing for the heat of a high-tier awakening.
But no light came.
The shaking didn't peak; it just died. The violent grinding of stone against stone subsided into a heavy, suffocating stillness.
A single, thin wisp of greenish smoke drifted up from the Altar's surface. It hung there for a heartbeat, grey and sickly, before the wind caught it and pulled it into nothing.
"Ah… nothing," the Senior Elder muttered.
He moved closer to the block of stone, his boots crunching on the grit. He looked like a man trying to find a heartbeat in a corpse.
He adjusted his glasses, peering at the surface for a lingering glow, a residual hum, anything. The Altar remained grey and cold.
"Useless!"
The shout came from the middle of the stands. It broke the tension like a stone through a window. The audience had been waiting for a finale, a spectacle to top the orphanage boy's four-element display. All they got was a puff of smoke. The restless energy of the crowd turned sharp.
The elders on the platform traded looks.
Disappointment is a heavy thing when thousands are watching. Kerry stood in the center of it all, his hand still resting on the stone. His face had gone the color of ash.
He wasn't looking at the crowd. He was looking at his own fingers, which felt like they were made of lead. His chest was moving in short, shallow hitches, the sound of his own pulse a dull, frantic thudding in his ears.
"Kerry Fireborn is a Zero Affinity… a Null."
The Senior Elder's voice was flat, carrying across the grounds without much effort. The words didn't just hang in the air; they landed.
A Null. It was a word Frostveil hadn't heard in a long time. It meant a gap in the world. An empty space.
"A Null?!" a woman shrieked from the front row. "Get him out of here! Why are we wasting time?"
The insults started then, low at first, then gaining volume. Fingers were leveled at him like spears. To them, he wasn't just a boy who had failed a test; he was a defect. An insult to the ceremony.
But one man didn't join the murmurs. Kael, the representative from Obsidian Star, kept his eyes fixed on Kerry's back. He wasn't looking for a System. He was looking at the way the boy's shoulders didn't slump, despite the shaking. There was something in the air, a pressure that hadn't left with the smoke. It felt buried, like a fire beneath a frozen lake.
Kael stood up. The movement was slow, deliberate. He walked down the steps of the dais and onto the dirt.
"Place your hand again," Kael said.
His voice wasn't loud, but it stopped the shouting. The crowd shifted, confused.
"Again? What for?" someone yelled.
Kerry didn't move at first. He could feel the heat behind his eyes, that stinging pressure that comes right before the break. He swallowed, hard. He forced his arm to move, his palm meeting the cold, unyielding surface of the stone for the second time.
The earth didn't just shake this time. It buckled.
A sound like a mountain snapping in half echoed through the square. A jagged, deep fissure ripped through the center of the Altar, the stone groaning as it split.
"Stop!" an elder roared from the back, his face white. "Get him away from it!"
If the Altar shattered, the old stories said a curse would settle on the city's bones. The fear turned the crowd's insults into something uglier, something jagged and cruel. They wanted him gone, not just because he was a Null, but because he was breaking things he shouldn't be able to touch.
Diana had heard enough.
She didn't wait for an opening. She shoved through the people in the stands, her boots hitting the wooden floorboards with a rhythm that demanded space. She stepped out into the open, facing the sea of faces.
"Enough!"
The word didn't need a System to carry. It was the voice of a woman who had raised a son in a hard city. It was a blade drawn in a quiet room.
The noise died. The elders descended from their high seats, their robes brushing the dirt.
They gathered around Kerry, their faces softening into that terrible, heavy pity. They offered the kind of small, hollow gestures people give to those who have lost everything. They knew the weight of standing there with nothing, no spark, no path, just the long walk back to a life of labor.
Across the grounds, Darius and Lina stood in the shadows of the pillars. They didn't join the others. They just watched, their faces etched with a sincerity that was almost harder to bear than the insults. They were the ones with the light. They were the ones moving toward the sun.
Awakening wasn't just a ritual. It was a wall.
On one side, the academies, the power, the chance to be more than a name in a ledger.
On the other side, the rest of the world. Kerry was standing on the wrong side.
Kael didn't join the circle of elders. He stayed on the edge, his coat catching the wind. He didn't care about the lack of light.
He cared about the crack in the stone.
Instinct is a quiet thing, and Kael's was screaming. The boy's story wasn't ending; it was just waiting for the lights to go out.
He walked toward the group.
"I'll take him," Kael stated.
Kerry's head snapped up. He wiped the moisture from his face with a sleeve, his eyes red-rimmed. "Seriously, sir?"
Kael nodded. It wasn't a sympathetic gesture. It was a statement of fact.
"But I don't have a System," Kerry whispered. His voice was a thin, fragile thing.
Kael reached out, his hand steady as he placed it on the boy's head, ruffling the bicolored hair. "Listen to me. Power doesn't always wake up because a bell rang. Sometimes it hides. Sometimes it waits for the right moment to burn. Rare Systems don't play by the rules, and I don't care about a lack of light today. You won't be useless to me."
Kerry felt a hitch in his chest. A small, jagged piece of hope. He nodded, the hollow ache in his ribs loosening just enough for him to breathe.
The crowd muttered, some laughing, some just confused, but Kael didn't look back.
The rest of the evening was a blur of ink and cloaks. The participants were sorted, their names assigned to schools. Red cloaks, blue cloaks, green. First years, second years, thirds. The city began to empty as the sun dipped below the horizon, leaving the testing grounds in long, cold shadows.
Tomorrow, the world would change.
That night, the Fireborn house was too quiet. Kerry stood in the center of the small room, his arms wrapped around his mother.
"Mom… will you really be okay?"
His voice was low, heavy with the realization of the morning. Everyone leaves eventually, but knowing it doesn't make the air any easier to breathe.
"My son," Diana whispered. She held him until his ribs felt like they might snap. "Don't spend a second thinking about me. You have your father's spirit. Be strong. Protect the things that matter, the way he did. You don't need a System to be formidable. Hard work can forge what nature forgot to give."
She didn't hide the tears. They tracked down her cheeks, soaking into his shirt. Kerry buried his face in her shoulder, letting the warmth of her voice settle in his chest. He knew that tomorrow, the world would be much colder.
Early the next morning, the city was still grey, shrouded in a mist that smelled of woodsmoke and damp earth. Most of the town was still asleep when the students began to leave. Kerry and Diana hadn't slept at all. They had sat in the kitchen, watching the candles burn down, the silence between them too heavy for words.
Kael landed in the dirt outside their door. He stood on a flying sword, a long, tapered piece of metal that hummed with a low, rhythmic vibration. He looked like a statue against the morning light.
Kerry's throat felt like it was full of sand. He wanted to run to the sword, and he wanted to never leave the porch. He looked at his mother, the only anchor he'd ever known.
He threw his arms around her neck, holding on as if he could stop the sun from rising.
"Mom…"
His voice broke. He couldn't finish it.
Diana cupped his face, her hands rough and warm. "Shh. Take care of yourself. Your father would be proud. Just… stay safe."
Kael checked the device on his wrist, then looked at the sky. "Kerry. We need to move. It's a long journey—days, maybe."
Diana pulled back. It was a slow, painful movement, her fingers trailing off his shoulders. "You can go now."
Kerry stepped onto the metal of the sword. His eyes were swollen, his vision blurred. He reached out one hand as the blade began to lift, a final, desperate reach for the porch.
"Mom!!!"
The cry tore through the quiet morning. The wind caught it instantly, sweeping it away as they climbed higher, the houses of Frostveil shrinking into grey blocks. He didn't look away. He watched her until she was just a speck, then a nothing.
"I promise," he whispered into the rush of the wind, his chest aching with a cold he couldn't shake. "I'll find out who I am."
The sword turned south, toward the horizon, and the city disappeared into the mist.