The rift snapped shut behind Lucien and Kaelix like the quiet close of a curtain.
Light returned first, followed by air—clean, charged, humming with that faint static of power that never quite left the Academy's higher districts.
They stood upon the marble causeway leading to the Celestial Halls, where the Trials had been held. From a distance, the spires glittered beneath the fractured sky, banners of each class still fluttering with wind and lingering mana.
Kaelix stretched his neck lazily. "You ever get tired of tearing holes in space?"
Lucien's smirk was faint. "Only when I have to sew them back."
The moment they stepped past the threshold, the world seemed to stir.
A shift rippled through the metaphysical fabric—the subtle hum of balance trying to realign itself.
Lucien's gaze flicked upward.
He didn't need to see it. He simply knew.
Hoshigama had awakened.
The girl's soul signature pulsed through the metaphysical plane itself, not through ordinary power, but through authority—a kind of dominion that few ever touched. Her awakening was not like fire or frost or gravity. It was conceptual, ethereal—she had grasped the laws that governed the space between laws.
Kaelix noticed the flicker in Lucien's expression. "You felt that too?"
Lucien nodded slowly. "She's awake."
"…And?"
"She's touching the metaphysical plane directly."
Kaelix whistled low. "That's supposed to be impossible. Even the old Masters just dip their fingers through that layer."
Lucien's eyes narrowed slightly. "She isn't just touching it. She's shaping it."
For a moment, silence.
The metaphysical plane—the world beyond the physical, where thought becomes substance and will defines reality—was the source from which most ancient arts drew their structure. Those who could control it could alter perception, rewrite boundaries, even silence gods.
Yet even with her newfound control, Hoshigama's influence stopped short of Lucien.
It was as if her dominion skirted around him, like a river that refused to flow through its source.
Kaelix seemed to sense it too. "She can touch the metaphysical layer… but it doesn't warp you."
Lucien's tone was calm. "It can't."
"Why not?"
Lucien looked ahead toward the halls where the trial's aftermath echoed faintly—the murmur of students, the clatter of boots, the sound of exhausted triumph.
"The metaphysical plane exists beneath creation," he said quietly. "But I come from what exists beneath that. My essence wasn't born from the same narrative weave. Her control reaches to the edge of existence; mine begins past it."
Kaelix smirked faintly. "So you're saying she rules the stage, but you built the floorboards."
Lucien chuckled softly. "Something like that."
They walked on, passing through lines of shimmering crystals projecting student rankings. The atmosphere was electric—newly empowered candidates laughed, argued, or stared in disbelief as the results rolled in.
The Trial of Selection was complete.
Of the 800 who entered, only 120 remained.
The ranks were being announced across the courtyards, with the Academy's banners flaring above each division:
Class C — Outer Division: For the beginners and the unstable, those who survived more by instinct than skill. Class B — Inner Division: Skilled candidates capable of self-sustained techniques, worthy of formal mentorship. Class A — Upper Division: The prodigies, balanced in body and metaphysical will. Class S — Master Class: Reserved for only the most terrifyingly gifted—the ones who could challenge teachers rather than follow them.
Lucien and Kaelix stood by the outer railing, watching the ceremony unfold.
Down below, banners rose, and names were called.
Faces filled with pride, despair, awe.
Among the crowd—Hoshigama stood silently in her new uniform, Class S insignia glowing on her chest. Her long indigo hair shifted with the breeze, and her expression was calm, eyes no longer the color of stormlight but of mirrored water.
Around her, space bent.
Her very presence warped the metaphysical underlay—threads of unseen light twisting, forming geometric halos that pulsed like breathing glass. Students near her instinctively took a step back, their instincts screaming of danger, even if they didn't know why.
She tilted her head, eyes meeting Lucien's from across the courtyard.
For a heartbeat, everything between them—noise, people, banners—went silent.
Reality folded, gently, like a bowing servant.
Her gaze reached him through three layers of existence.
Lucien met it evenly. No challenge, no hostility—just acknowledgment.
Then, the metaphysical weave around her paused.
A flicker of realization crossed her eyes.
Her influence couldn't touch him.
No matter how deeply she synchronized with the plane, Lucien remained… untouchable.
He offered her a faint, knowing smile.
A silent message:
"Welcome to the stage. You're playing the right game now."
The announcement drum rolled through the plaza, breaking the tension.
"CLASS S — HOSHIGAMA SHION. Rank 2."
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Even the faculty looked impressed.
Only one name remained uncalled—one that everyone waited for.
"CLASS S — RANK 1…"
The voice hesitated. Then—
"ARATA KUROGANE."
Kaelix blinked. "…Wasn't that—?"
Lucien smirked. "A different story's echo. Leave it."
The students bowed. The trials ended. And as the teachers approached to let the candidates choose their mentors, Lucien simply turned away, hands in pockets, coat brushing the wind.
He had seen what he needed to see.
For now, the Academy was alive again.
But somewhere beyond the veil—
another pair of eyes remained open.
Somewhere far past the light of existence, where concept and time dissolved into liquid meaning—
a chamber of glass manuscripts floated among rivers of shimmering script.
The walls were made not of stone or thought, but of recorded possibility.
This was the Realm of Paraxis, the space where written worlds converged before they became real.
Here, all stories flowed together before branching into their own timelines.
And in the heart of it sat a single being—
not god, not man, but something in between—a shape cloaked in parchment and silence.
Its name was Elyndor Veyl.
Elyndor's eyes gleamed like twin fractures in a mirror, reflecting not light but knowledge.
Before him floated countless tomes—shifting, whispering, rewriting themselves with each passing thought.
But one book lay open on the table, unlike the rest.
A black-bound volume, its cover breathing faint motes of white dust.
Letters shimmered faintly across the title.
Lucien Dreamveil: The Sole Exception.
Elyndor's finger hovered above the page, tracing the ink where the last words bled out.
"Still ahead of his narrative," he murmured softly, his voice both amused and thoughtful.
"He sensed me again. Even through Paraxis."
The manuscripts around him shifted, whispering fragments of overlapping timelines.
"He is rewriting the margins."
"He remembers beyond his iteration."
"He should not exist where he stands."
Elyndor smiled faintly, resting his chin on his hand. "And yet he does."
He leaned back, gaze distant, thoughtful. "That girl, Hoshigama… she's touching the metaphysical layers I left unfinished. Perhaps she'll reach this place too, one day."
The book twitched—pages fluttering though there was no wind.
Lucien's name shimmered across the spine like a heartbeat.
Elyndor's smile deepened. "You're getting closer, Sole Exception. Let's see how far you'll go before you realize the truth—"
He paused, eyes narrowing slightly.
"—that even I may not be your final author."
The candles of Paraxis flickered.
The manuscripts trembled, their text whispering as if aware of something watching them in turn.
For a moment—just a moment—Elyndor looked up from his desk, sensing what Lucien had sensed earlier:
something beyond him now watching back.
A ripple crossed his reflection in the table's glass surface, distorting his form.
Then, as quickly as it came, it vanished.
Elyndor exhaled, tapping the book's edge gently.
"Very well then," he whispered, smiling faintly.
"Let's see who rewrites whom."
And as the lights dimmed in Paraxis, the book's next chapter began to write itself—
line by line, word by word—
without a hand to guide it.