It had already been two weeks since Kael's arrival at the station.
After the conversation in the cafetaria, after hearing that even those with lineage and talent could still stand sponsorless, Kael had quietly returned to his provisional assignments. Not out of renewed confidence, and certainly not because the memory of that splitting pain had vanished, but because stagnation felt more dangerous than fear. If sponsors measured consistency, then he would give them consistency. If they measured resilience, then he would at least appear resilient.
The station, contrary to popular assumption, did not rely solely on field performance to determine sponsor suitability. While combat deployments and incident responses are important, there existed another route — structured evaluations administered through the internal review division. Written examinations, procedural assessments, and scenario breakdowns designed to test not only reflex and firepower, but judgment, composure, and technical literacy. Sponsors did not merely invest in strength; they invested in reliability, documentation discipline, ethical compliance, and operational foresight.
Kael had learned that quickly.
Field work alone was volatile. One incident could elevate a name — or bury it. But written evaluations accumulated. They built profiles.
So he signed up.
The first assessment he took focused on Field Recovery and Corpse Handling — a topic most trainees avoided unless required. He had not chosen it randomly, for obvious reason of course. He knew that what happened after a battle often mattered as much as the battle itself.
The written test themselves was meticulous. Scenario-based breakdowns of hazardous retrieval zones. Questions on contamination layering and containment thresholds. Proper tagging protocols under partial structural collapse. Ethical prioritization when resources were insufficient to recover all remains. Timed sections that forced candidates to choose between speed and procedural purity.
But he had done well.
Not because he guessed correctly. Not because luck had favored him. But because the material was something he understood in his bones. For the first time since arriving here, he had not felt like he was trying to catch up to everyone else.
As for his field assignments, they had remained aligned with the same domain. And thank the gods, there had been no repeat of that day. The work had been steady. Predictable. Somber, but controlled.
And so the days moved.
Wake. Report. Recover. Document. Submit. Train. Sleep.
A few days had passed like that,
structured and unremarkable.
Until today.
For the first time since setting foot in this place, a visible glimmer of anticipation surfaced on Kael's face.
He was fast-walking through an unfamiliar wing of the station. His boots struck the polished flooring in brisk, contained steps as he navigated the unfamiliar route, one hand gripping a sealed letter tightly enough to crease its edges.
The letter had been delivered that morning to his dormitory intake slot.
At first, he had assumed it was routine — a score report, perhaps, or an updated rotation schedule. He had opened it absently in his room.
Then he had read the header.
He had read it again.
And then once more, just to make sure the words did not rearrange themselves into something less extraordinary.
It was a Sponsor Interest!
He had stood there in the center of his dormitory, the thin paper trembling faintly between his fingers.
Someone had reviewed his records. His field logs. His recovery detail reports. His assessment performance. And someone had decided he was worth watching.
He had gained a sponsor's interest!
***
Kael followed the directions printed neatly along the bottom edge of the envelope. This part of the station felt older — less polished, more lived-in. The lighting strips were warmer, the walls lined not with recruitment banners or performance rankings, but framed citations and faded operational commendations.
He checked the envelope again to be certain he hadn't misread the room number.
Eventually, he stopped before a door marked with a simple plaque. No grand departmental title. No ranking insignia. Just a name engraved in modest lettering — Henry — and beneath it, a sigil Kael didn't recognize.
He hesitated only a second before knocking.
"Come in — ah, no, wait — just —"
Too late.
Kael had already pushed the door open.
He stepped inside — and paused.
The room was chaos.
Stacks of paper rose like uneven towers across every available surface: desks, spare chairs, filing cabinets, even portions of the floor. Several maps overlapped on the walls, dark ink circling regions, lines drawn and redrawn as if someone had changed their mind repeatedly mid-thought.
It looked less like a sponsor's office and more like the aftermath of a storm that had decided to settle down and continue working.
In the center of it all stood an old man with grey hair pulled back loosely at the nape of his neck. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, spectacles hanging precariously from the bridge of his nose as he shuffled frantically through a stack of papers that threatened to collapse at any second.
"Ah — yes — no — where did I put that — oh dear… this is not it, that's from last month — unless — no, no…"
He muttered to himself, fingers flicking through sheets before finally noticing Kael standing just inside the doorway.
"Oh!" The man straightened abruptly, nearly upsetting the stack in his hands. "You must be Kael."
His expression brightened instantly, as though the chaos surrounding him did not exist.
"Just a second. Just a second."
He waved vaguely toward a chair that was half-buried under documents, clearly meaning for Kael to sit, then returned to attempting to consolidate several unruly piles into something resembling order. A few pages slipped from his grasp and fluttered back to the floor.
He stared at them for a long moment.
Then sighed.
"Oh dear… well. Let's just leave it like that then."
With a sudden decisiveness that felt almost theatrical, the old man stepped forward, closing the distance in two brisk strides before seizing Kael's hand and pumping it enthusiastically.
"Nice to meet you! Truly, truly a pleasure," he declared, grin wide and unrestrained. "The name's Henry!"
He did not release Kael's hand immediately.
"And I must say," Henry continued cheerfully, leaning in slightly as if sharing a delightful secret, "it's a rare delight to meet another fellow from the lower district."
Kael blinked, caught off guard by the statement more than the handshake.
"Another…?" He hesitated. "You're from the lower district too?"
Henry finally released his hand, adjusting his crooked spectacles with one finger. "Born and raised," he replied easily. "Though I've been away long enough that most forget."
Kael's brows drew together faintly. "How did you know?"
"Well," he began, gesturing vaguely toward one of the precarious towers of documents, "your informational background was part of the file I reviewed, of course. Origin, prior occupation, regional registration — all very properly recorded!"
He stepped around a stack and plucked a thin folder from near the edge of his desk, tapping it lightly.
"But not just that, your written assessment played an important role as well."
Henry flipped the folder open and extracted several annotated pages. Red markings lined the margins — not corrections, but notes. Observations.
"Corpse handling and post-mortem procedures," Henry said, voice warming with clear approval.
"Your answers were precise and efficient! A perfect score, if I do say so myself."
Kael felt heat rise faintly at the back of his neck. "I just… answered what made sense."
Henry's eyes twinkled knowingly.
"No," he said gently. "You answered what experience teaches."
He closed the folder with deliberate care.
"Those nuances? They're not taught up here. Not in that way, at least. Those textbooks only explain protocol and the likes."
Henry's smile sharpened just slightly.
"A burner, I assume?"
Kael swallowed, then nodded.
Henry leaned back in his chair as though a quiet tension had finally slipped from his shoulders. For a fleeting moment, something like relief passed over his face.
"Yes," Henry murmured, almost to himself.
"This is it..."
Henry's smile softened.
"I grew up in the lower district too, you see. Different block, different gutter — but the same smoke in the air." He exhaled slowly, drifting his gaze toward the ceiling.
"We learn to read death early down there. Not from books."
The old man straightened slightly. "Eventually, you would have asked me why I chose to sponsor you. So let's not pretend you won't."
Kael hesitated only a moment before voicing it. "Why?"
"Because we're from the same place. Because no one extends a hand to people like us unless there's profit involved. Because sometimes the only ones who understand the climb are those who started in the gutter." His voice lowered.
"We owe it to ourselves to extend a hand where no one ever did for us."
For a second, that answer lingered in the space between them.
Then Henry's expression shifted.
"Well… that's what I would like to say."
The warmth in his tone thinned, not disappearing, but sharpening into something more serious. He leaned forward and reached beneath one of the precarious towers of paper, withdrawing a thin, sealed dossier bound with dark cord. The cover bore the station's insignia — but stamped over it was a secondary sigil, intricate and unfamiliar.
He laid the dossier on the desk between them.
"Let me tell you something they don't put in the lectures," Henry said quietly.
"You've heard of the Cycles, I assume?"
Kael nodded. Every person had.
"Six Cycles," Henry continued. "Six opportunities for ascension. Six thresholds where a species either adapts… or disappears."
He raised one finger.
"Humanity has only ever reached the third."
Henry's gaze sharpened. "The Abjection, on the other hand—" He exhaled through his nose, and something close to bitterness slipped through.
"For all their fractured logic, their grotesque imitations of divinity, their warped consciousness… they've reached the sixth Cycle."
Kael felt his throat tighten. Even hearing it spoken aloud — an Abjection that had reached the pinnacle of the Cycle system — sent a cold tremor down his spine. The sixth threshold was theoretical to humanity. To imagine something having surpassed it...
"And yet," he continued, "most of our esteemed scholars refuse to accept it. They argue the readings are corrupted. That Somnus distorts measurements. That what we've observed is misinterpretation." His mouth thinned.
"But if the data is accurate — if the Abjection truly stand at the sixth Cycle — then our world may already be on borrowed time. We would not be facing random incursions. We would be witnessing the early stages of ecological displacement."
His fingers tapped once against the dossier.
"In the real world, when an Abjection falls, it leaves behind raw matter. Tissue. Bone. Crystalis. Something people harvest, catalog, and forget. A corpse reduced to components."
He slid the dossier slightly closer to Kael.
"But in Somnus, they leave more. Residues. Structural impressions. Persistent phenomena. The environment itself remembers them. Those traces are not random. They're architectural."
His eyes gleamed now, not with madness, but with fervent conviction.
"And architecture implies design!"
Kael's gaze dropped briefly to the dossier, then back to Henry.
"I have a theory," Henry said. "That those residues are not merely aftermath. They are blueprints. Records of how they reached the height they're at. I believe we can learn from them."
"Not worship," Henry added sharply. "Not emulate their madness. But understand the mechanism. The structural shifts. The adaptations embedded within their post-mortem residues." He leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
"Humanity does not have the luxury of pride."
Silence stretched.
Finally, Henry's tone steadied.
"That is why I want to sponsor you."
Kael met his gaze.
"You are a burner," Henry said. "You have handled bodies no one else wanted to touch. You know how to read destruction without flinching. In Somnus, when an Abjection falls, I need someone who can examine what remains before they were strip merely for their crystallis only. I need you to document residues, anomalies, crystallization patterns, environmental distortions — everything!" His voice lowered.
"Not as salvage. As evidence."
"My condition is simple," Henry concluded.
"You will treat every fallen Abjection not as waste… but as a chapter in a manual humanity has yet to read."
The old man's gaze held steady.
"Do that, and I will ensure you have every resource I can spare."