The courtyard was alive with the soft hum of cicadas, sunlight spilling across polished stone and trimmed hedges. At its centre, Bari stood across from Dax, his small frame tense with focus.
He studied Dax with eyes that devoured detail—every twitch, every breath, every subtle shift of weight. His divine gaze glowing red with absolute comprehension; memory etched into rhythm, impulse mapped into inevitability.
Bari stood at a modest 124cm—barely four feet tall—his raven-black hair tied in a short, disciplined knot, its length a hindrance in combat. Flecks of silver glimmered in the sunlight, hints of something older hiding within youth. His blood-red eyes burned with layered rings, rippling outward like silent waves across still water. Unlike most who shone with vitality, his gaze drew the world inward, into him, as though all truth was swallowed by its gravity.
The last of his childhood softness had been stripped away through relentless training under Dax. His features were lean, sharpened. In his right ear, three crystal droplets caught the sun, refracting it into countless shards that reflected the crimson of his eyes. They were not merely adornment—his very first Memory, Strider's Earrings.
***
Memory:Strider's Earrings
Memory Rank: Awakened
Tier: VI
Type: Charm
Description:Long ago, a tear fell. Born from that tear was a spider. Its body reflected the world's most beautiful desires, and upon its death, its remains scattered into a thousand crystal shards.
Enchantments: [Transparent Mind and Soul], [Unbreakable Crystal], [Enhanced Thought]
Bari's comprehension told him more than mere description could. [Transparent Mind and Soul] guarded his spirit from intrusion; [Unbreakable Crystal] made the earrings indestructible, a fortress among treasures. But it was the last that he cherished—[Enhanced Thought]. It did not simply sharpen his mind, it expanded it. Thoughts could be separated, categorized, and stored without ever being lost. He could analyse endlessly, holding every truth his eyes revealed as though his mind itself was a library without end. It was, in every way, made for him.
His armour, however, sat heavy with irony. Gifted from the family treasury, it was a relic of his father's past—a piece forged by the very man who had betrayed and murdered him.
Memory:Knight Armour 24
Memory Rank:Ascended
Tier: IV
Type: Armor
Enchantments: [Durable Defence], [Self-Repair]
The plates gleamed faintly, straps secured with practiced care. [Durable Defence] gave it formidable resilience, while [Self-Repair] allowed it to mend itself in battle. It was invaluable protection, yet every buckle and seam left a bitter taste in Bari's mouth.
***
Bari lunged, twin daggers flashing in his hands, his feet whispering across the polished courtyard stone. Every breath, every twitch of Dax's muscle was a signal, a script waiting to be read. Bari's crimson eyes devoured those truths, weaving them into motion before they fully existed.
Steel rang out as daggers struck against the longsword. Dax moved with calm inevitability, his blade sweeping arcs of silver, each swing flowing into the next like a tide. His reach dominated the space, every strike carrying weight enough to split bone and armour.
Bari darted sideways, his frame low, his daggers stabbing upward in sharp feints. He was relentless, his motions quick as sparks, but Dax's longsword answered them all. The blade hummed past Bari's side with terrifying closeness, the air itself cutting as though sliced in two. A single miscalculation would have ended him.
Bari's heart hammered, but his mind was cold. Shoulder rotation—follow-through too long—half-second opening on recovery. His aspect traced the truth of every motion. He slid inside the arc, daggers snapping forward—only for the longsword to recoil faster than expected, steel biting down with brutal force. Bari barely twisted aside, feeling the rush of wind kiss his cheek as the blade passed.
Dust scattered under their feet. Sweat rolled down Bari's temple, but his eyes gleamed brighter, more focused.
He spun left, daggers crossing to deflect, sparks flying as metal screamed against metal. Dax's power drove him back, his boots scraping across stone, but Bari refused to yield. He let the rhythm of Dax's strikes guide him, flowing between them like water through cracks.
Then he saw it—the smallest hesitation, the faintest overextension in Dax's downward cleave. Bari pounced, daggers slashing upward. The clash rang out like thunder, steel locked against steel. He dropped low, driving a dagger toward Dax's midsection.
For a heartbeat, it felt real. Victory, close enough to taste.
But Dax twisted, his longsword carving a vicious horizontal arc. Bari ducked, the blade cleaving so close past his shoulder that his tunic tore, the edge grazing fabric and leaving the ghost of a burn across his skin. But Dax did not relent, his longsword carving a vicious follow up arc aimed straight for Bari's throat.
The world slowed. Bari ducked—late. Pain bloomed across his neck as the edge whispered by, a shallow cut searing fire into his skin. A thin trail of blood ran down his throat. Had he moved a fraction slower, his head would have been rolling on the stone.
Adrenaline flooded him, sharp and electric.
He roared, twisting his wrist—dagger flying point blank. It spun with deadly precision, aimed straight at Dax's face.
Dax's hand moved in a blur, knocking the blade aside. Bari surged forward, catching it mid-spin, his other dagger stabbing toward Dax's chest. Steel struck—
Clang.
The weapon bounced uselessly off the knight's armour.
Bari froze, lungs burning, blood trickling warm down his neck. The fight was over.
Dax's longsword lowered, his face unreadable, though the faintest flicker of respect lingered in his bright green eyes.
***
Bari stood, panting lightly. He had pressed harder than ever before, yet he knew the truth: if Dax had unleashed his full strength—if essence had been involved—he would have died a dozen times already.
Applause broke the silence.
From the shaded bench at the courtyard's edge, his grandmother rose with deliberate steps, her presence commanding even in age. Nephis trailed beside her, laughter and sunshine embodied, her smile warm enough to melt steel.
"Well done, my boy," Grandmother said, voice lined with both warmth and steel. "You have surpassed all expectation. To be so adept at our battle art in only five months… astonishing. You remind me so much of your father. He would be proud."
Her praise struck deeper than any blade. Rarely did she offer such words, and rarer still ones of such weight. Bari's chest tightened, his heart swelled, and for a moment, his crimson eyes softened with love.
Dax sheathed his longsword, finally speaking. "You will leave for the Awakened Academy soon. Your task there is simple—gain experience in battle against other Sleepers. Beyond that, pursue any courses that interest you." His voice was rough, yet his smile—subtle and gruff—carried quiet pride. His bright green eyes reflected comfort and expectation alike.
Bari nodded, the weight of destiny already heavy on his small shoulders. He knew the true reason for his journey.
***
The Academy was a city within the city, a fortress layered in steel and certainty. Its walls were built from a dense alloy said to withstand the full brunt of essence weapons. A black moat ringed its base, deep enough to drown leviathans, its waters seeded with dormant enchantments that shimmered faintly beneath the surface. Turrets rose along the wall in careful intervals, each one a heavy-calibre monstrosity linked into a grid of overlapping each other. Together they formed a dome of suppression that, on paper, could tear even colossal Nightmare Titans from the sky before they breached the perimeter.
This was less of a school and more a prison.
Bari lingered outside its gates, his eyes moving across the massive structure. His Aspect flared without his command, painting every rivet, every seam, every angle of the walls with brutal clarity. Even the subtle hum of defensive essence threads, woven invisibly into the alloy, was laid bare to him.
A city within a city. A prison disguised as a sanctuary for Sleepers.
The Academy was government-run, built to accept any Sleeper regardless of Quadrant, lineage, or wealth. For most, it was the first and last step before venturing into the Dream Realm. Nearly a thousand youths walked its courtyards each cycle, some with months to prepare, others with only days.
Every Sleeper was entitled to food, lodging, and instruction. The curriculum was wide—combat training, wilderness survival, sorcery basics, artifact study, resource management, and nightmare creature studies. On paper, all were given the same chance.
Bari's lips curled faintly. He had already lived through three of those disciplines—combat, survival, and monster lore—at the hands of Dax. But the Academy would offer only the surface layer of such knowledge: the kind polished for the masses, scrubbed of true depth. The clans, by contrast, hoarded the marrow of those arts, shaping them into weapons sharp enough to cut through worlds.
Still, Bari intended to choose artefact study as his focus. His eyes, his cursed gift, would help him break past the slow crawl of theory and grasp its truths quickly.
Shaking free of thought, he entered the Sleeper compound.
The southern wing of the Academy was set aside for those yet to Awaken. Unlike the towering bastions to the north, it was modest above ground—white alloy walls, tall glass windows, and a frame of clean lines softened by orchards and sculpted greenery. Yet most of its mass stretched downward, sunken into the earth, as though knowledge itself sought the safety of the deep.
Inside, the air was cool and scrubbed clean by filters. Light panels in the ceiling glowed like captured daylight, banishing shadows. The architecture was pristine, sterile almost—white walls broken by the occasional band of grey steel. Bari thought it beautiful in its austerity, though in summer it must have looked brighter, softened by the living green beyond its walls.
An assistant, her face carved into the mask of professionalism, guided him through echoing halls until they reached the induction chamber.
The doors opened into a vast hall already brimming with bodies. Bari's breath stilled.
Hundreds of young men and women crowded the space, all newly inducted Sleepers. Most had been pulled into the Academy weeks earlier, dragged here as the Winter Solstice drew near. Bari, timing his arrival with precision, had been fortunate—or not—to walk in just hours before the ceremony began.
The logistics of such gatherings were chaos. The Spell never spread in patterns; infection came in waves, jagged and unpredictable. Some had nearly a year to prepare before being cast into the Dream. Others, mere days. The ceremony, repeated monthly and then weekly as the solstice loomed, and was the only order carved out of that chaos.
Bari's gaze swept the hall. Three truths struck him immediately.
Firstly, every Sleeper carried the weight of preparation. Suitcases, duffel bags, worn backpacks—each clutched their belongings like lifelines. Clothes were neat, hair trimmed, movements taut with nervous energy.
Secondly, they were all beautiful. His eyes, merciless in their clarity, carved every face into memory. Skin smooth, postures refined, expressions honed into confidence or masks of indifference. Most were scions of clans, their legacies radiating like banners. Others—the outliers—were marked by their rough edges, commoners dragged from obscurity. He did not despise them, but neither did he welcome their nearness. They had been dealt a harsher hand at birth. He had not. That was luck, not superiority. So he resolved to treat others as they treated him.
And lastly—he hated crowds.
He had known it would be bad. He had not known it would be this.
The Strider's Earrings dulled the noise, but they could not muffle sight. His eyes caught everything: the twitch of fingers against cloth, the sway of braids, the shift of weight as a foot tapped. Each detail demanded analysis, each movement assessed, his Aspect forcing judgment on whether it was threat or triviality. It was relentless, inescapable.
The whisper of silk. The scrape of a shoe. A laugh too sharp.
Every sound was tied to motion, every motion dissected. His throat tightened, jaw stiff as sweat prickled at the nape of his neck. Even the smallest tremor—a sleeve brushing against another's arm—seared across his nerves like a spark.
Bari's hands curled briefly into fists. He steadied his breath.
"This is necessary and temporary. Endure it." He thought to himself.
But the truth remained. For someone cursed with eyes that could never close, a crowded hall was not a gathering. It was an assault, and he hated every second of it.