Dr. Carmilla Crimson watched the effect of her carefully calibrated words settle over the three top students—the collapse of their judgment, the vaporization of their contempt, replaced by a deep, humbling terror. She gave a curt, professional nod, the movement sharp and decisive.
"The file is closed," Carmilla stated, her voice returning to the cool, precise cadence of a high-INT professional. "Mr. Mikado has completed his requirements. His methodology is his own business, and any further unauthorized physical contact or provocation will result in the immediate and permanent revocation of your Academy Certification and a full report to the System's Oversight Committee. Consider this final warning issued and logged."
With that final pronouncement, she turned crisply on her heel, her white lab coat billowing slightly as she began her rapid, measured walk towards the faculty elevators. She did not need to see the students' reaction; the silence radiating behind her told her all she needed to know. They were broken out of their numerical certainty. They would not pursue Darkiel Mikado again.
As the heavy, armored elevator doors slid shut behind her, plunging her into the cool, low-lit enclosure, Carmilla allowed the professional façade to finally crack. Her shoulders slumped slightly, and she reached up to adjust the small, circular silver earring she wore—a discreet, personalized Mana-Focusing Artifact that helped filter out the constant background hum of the world's Mana-Grid.
The file is closed, she thought, the phrase echoing hollowly in the privacy of her mind. That is the official lie I must tell the System, the faculty, and the students.
But her own data told a different, infinitely more complex story—a story that had terrified her for the better part of fifteen years. She tapped her wrist-monitor, dismissing the image of Darkiel's density scan. The raw numbers were etched into her memory, however, and they were profoundly troubling.
She leaned against the cool metal wall of the elevator car, crossing her arms, her analytical mind immediately plunging into the internal data logs she maintained on Darkiel.
The weights… he still wears them, she mused, her thoughts moving with the calculated speed of a quantum processor. That is the core contradiction. The Void Eater incident and the subsequent internal Mana-Ki instability occurred fifteen years ago. The initial reason for the lead-alloy dampening was strictly physiological: to compress the volatile, raw Ki Darkiel unleashed and prevent the fatal interaction with ambient Mana. It was a pressure vessel designed to keep him from imploding.
She recalled the diagnostic data from just six months prior, during a routine, unsanctioned medical scan she had performed while Darkiel was briefly unconscious in the Gravity Chamber. The results were undeniable, and they refuted the very necessity of his current agony.
The stabilization protocol is complete. His body, through five years of constant, crushing pressure, has adapted perfectly to the integration of external Mana and internal Ki. The Ki-Node is now a fully self-contained, stable generator, capable of outputting incredible kinetic force without drawing Mana from the environment, and capable of drawing Mana without the chaotic feedback loop.
The simple, terrifying truth was this: Darkiel Mikado could safely remove the 200 kilograms of weights.
He could walk out into the world unburdened, unleash his unquantifiable speed and strength, and finally employ Mana-Skills without fear of instant, fiery death. He could exist as the ultimate, unrestrained Catalyst—a power multiplier the world had never seen.
So why? This was the question that haunted her logical mind, the one she had no data to answer. Why maintain the agonizing, ceaseless, self-imposed constraint?
The logical conclusion—the one she had presented to the students—was that it was simply a training method, a way to maintain maximum efficiency and ensure continuous, exponential growth. But Carmilla, the one person who knew his past, understood the terrifying, deeper truth.
The weights were no longer a dampener; they were a psychological anchor. They were the physical manifestation of a singular, horrifying vow that had eclipsed every other thought, every desire, every possibility for a normal life.
Carmilla's memory flashed back, not to the six-year-old child covered in gore, but to a few years later, when Darkiel was eleven. He was still living under her father's protective custody, a quiet, withdrawn child who never smiled and rarely spoke, spending all his time performing complex, low-impact calisthenics—a continuous, self-devised training regimen.
She remembered finding him late one night in the Academy's archives, a vast, circular room lined with ancient data-slates and forgotten scrolls. He wasn't reading about Mana or Skill Trees; he was poring over ancient, pre-Fracture geographical maps overlaid with the current projections of the System's influence.
"Darkiel? What are you doing? It's two in the morning. You'll be exhausted for your language lesson tomorrow." She had been a precocious teenager then, already fluent in seven forms of arcane coding.
Darkiel, then just eleven, had looked up. His amber eyes, though younger, held the same chilling focus as the graduate she had just seen. He didn't reply to her question. He merely pointed a small, dirt-smudged finger at the projected map. The map was covered in pulsing, malevolent red dots—the locations of every active Dungeon Gate in the world.
"Carmilla," his voice had been thin, devoid of any childish warmth, "Tell me. Is there a number, a calculation, that defines how many of these red dots exist?"
"Of course there is," she had replied, proud of her analytical knowledge. "The System logs approximately 1,482 major Gates and countless smaller Level 1 and 2 anomalies. It is a known, quantifiable threat. We have models that track their expansion rates and projected Overlord strengths. It is data."
Darkiel had traced the map with his finger, his gaze heavy and unsettling."And if a man were to destroy every number? Every single red dot. Not clear the Dungeon, but permanently collapse the Gate. Erase the very existence of the Dungeons from the planet. Is there a number for that effort?"
Carmilla remembered laughing then, a nervous, youthful sound. "That is an impossibility, Darkiel. The Gates are intertwined with the planet's Mana-Grid itself since The Fracture. You can clear a Dungeon, kill the Overlord, and the Gate will stabilize, but it never vanishes. To erase them all would be to rewrite the fundamental laws of this new reality. It would take a billion Mana points, and the sacrifice of every Catalyst in history."
Darkiel had stared at her then, his expression hardening with a chilling finality that silenced her laughter forever.
"Then a billion Mana points is the goal. A trillion kilograms of effort. If the System requires a number to describe the action, then that number will be achieved. They took my family. They took the Mikado way. They took the logic of the old world. If the only way to silence the screams is to erase the concept of the Dungeon from the history books, then that is what I will do. That is why I train. Not to survive, but to avenge the logic the System stole from us."
The memory ended, leaving Carmilla standing in the humming elevator car, her heart sinking with the weight of that singular, impossible ambition.
He still wears the weights, she realized, a cold dread washing over her. Not because he needs them for control, but because he needs them for focus. They are the constant, physical reminder of the unimaginable weight of his vengeance—the weight of rewriting reality itself. He will not remove them until the last red dot on the map is gone.
Meanwhile, in the sterile Hall of Mastery corridor, the three elite students remained in a stunned, silent tableau. Jaxx still stared at his own massive hand, Lyra was rooted to the spot, and Elara looked as if she had just witnessed the complete failure of the Law of Gravity.
It was Jaxx, ironically, who broke the silence, his rough voice subdued and thoughtful.
"Two hundred kilograms… I was going to hit him," Jaxx whispered, the memory of his aborted charge making him physically recoil. "I was going to strike a man who endures ten times the agony I do just to exist casually. He didn't dodge my blow, Lyra. He sidestepped the weight of my blow. He knew the precise kinetic displacement required to avoid contact, even with his limbs weighted down by thirty kilograms apiece."
Lyra shook her head slowly, her analytical mind finally churning again, trying to find a quantifiable angle to this unquantifiable monster. "His entire existence is a study in Anti-System Dynamics. We rely on the System to tell us how to advance, to provide the blueprint. He ignored the blueprint and went straight to the core architectural structure. The Ki... the concept of internal energy. If the Mikado Clan were its masters, it explains the Overlord kill. Mana is external and predictable. Ki is internal and absolute."
"It's heresy," Elara stated, her voice trembling slightly. "It undermines the Fracture Compact. The System was given to us to unify humanity against the existential threat of the Dungeons. It provides measurable, equal footing. Mikado is rejecting that social contract. He is proving that years of grinding for a STR score of 188, Jaxx, is meaningless if he can generate 2.4 tons of force with a base-level physical output."
Jaxx ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wide. "Meaningless? No. Terrifying. He hasn't rejected the System's gift; he has simply calculated that the System's growth is too slow for his needs. Five years of 200kg, 100x gravity training… that's more development than the System could grant him in fifty years of level grinding. He views the Attributes not as goals, but as crutches."
"And the goal," Lyra whispered, stepping towards Elara, her silver eyes filled with a new, dark kind of respect. "Doctor Crimson said he's training to contain the strength, not just gain it. And he's doing it for the purpose of… avenging the logic the System stole. If his family was wiped out by an Overlord, and the only path to safety is through the System, then his entire life is an act of defiance against the world that forced this change upon him."
"He is a relic of the old world, forced to operate in the new," Elara murmured, summarizing the historical tragedy. "The Mikado clan was destroyed because they refused to embrace Mana. Now, their last surviving heir has mastered a pre-Fracture technique, but must still operate within the framework of the Academy to survive. He needed the degree not for the job, but for the access—access to the resources and the field data he needs for his ultimate goal."
Jaxx straightened his imposing frame, the gold of his aura beginning to regain a faint, hardened glow. The contempt was gone, replaced by a fierce, competitive determination. "We misjudged him. We thought he was lazy; he was simply efficient. We thought he was weak; he was merely weighted. We thought he was arrogant; he was simply focused on a scale we couldn't comprehend. He is aiming to erase all Dungeons. That is not the goal of a Catalyst; that is the goal of a God."
Lyra stared out the large window, where the shimmering, purple light of the nearest Level 5 Gate was visible on the horizon. "The Doctor told us not to bother him for our own sake. But now… now I understand why. If he truly removes those weights and unleashes five years of unquantified, compressed growth, the System won't even be able to register his power. He will be moving outside the known laws of physics. We, with all our carefully logged AGI and STR points, would be reduced to clumsy statues in his presence."
Elara nodded, her eyes calculating. "He is not our peer, Jaxx. He is our natural disaster. And since he is now a graduate, he is about to become the world's most powerful, unquantified variable. His sole purpose is vengeance against the force that created the Dungeons."
Jaxx stepped toward the exit, his body language shifting from relaxed post-exam confidence to grim, military resolve.
"Then we must train harder," Jaxx declared, his voice firm. "Not to compete with him, but to be strong enough to stand in the world he is trying to create. If Darkiel Mikado is going to wage war against reality itself, we need to be powerful enough to keep the rest of the world from collapsing around him. We need to be the measured, reliable support for the unquantifiable monster. We are the System's shield; he is the System's terrifying, unstable sword."
With a shared, grim nod, the three elite graduates—now humbled, terrified, and newly galvanized by the monstrous dedication of their former rival—finally followed Darkiel's path out of the Hall of Mastery, the weight of his secret now a silent, personal burden they all carried. The future of the Catalyst world had just been irrevocably defined by a man who actively refused to participate in it.
The armored, acoustic-dampening doors of the faculty elevator slid open with a soft, hydraulic hiss, releasing Dr. Carmilla Crimson into the meticulously ordered chaos of the Academy's Logistics and Deployment Wing. The cold, sterile air of the lower levels was instantly replaced by the warm, agitated energy of high-INT staff managing the constant flow of Catalyst Deployment Protocols.
Carmilla had barely taken two steps—her mind still reeling from the historical weight of Darkiel's trauma and the sheer terror of his unquantified potential—when she was intercepted. Her aide, Cadet First Class Elias Thorne, a sharp, perpetually anxious young man whose glasses always seemed to be slipping down his nose, burst from the central monitoring station. Elias was responsible for tracking the movements of all graduating Catalysts and ensuring their deployment was properly logged and cleared by the System's Central Nexus.
"Doctor! Doctor Crimson! Thank the System you're here!" Elias stammered, his usually calm voice pitched high with genuine panic. He didn't even attempt a salute, a sign of true alarm. He clutched a data-slate that was flashing a deep, urgent crimson—the color reserved only for Critical, Unauthorized Protocol Deviations.
Carmilla's internal alarm system—the same one that processed complex magical failure rates—screamed. It was a familiar, cold surge of dread reserved exclusively for anything involving Darkiel Mikado.
"Report, Elias. Keep it linear and quantified," Carmilla ordered, her professional veneer snapping back into place like tempered glass, masking the sudden frantic hammering of her heart. She gripped her wrist, checking the time. It had been less than five minutes since Darkiel had left the Hall of Mastery.
"It's… it's Mikado, Doctor. Darkiel Mikado! He bypassed the standard Level-1 Exit Gate protocols and proceeded directly to Teleportation Portal Five," Elias rattled off, adjusting his slipping glasses with a trembling hand. "We tried to override his security clearance—he's only cleared for Level-3 Field Training Sites—but he appears to have utilized a Tier-4 Authorization Bypass that the System is failing to classify. It simply registered as 'Access Granted: Unforeseen Authority.'"
Carmilla's eyes widened slightly, her calculated composure momentarily breaking. Darkiel had used his arcane, pre-System knowledge to trick the Academy's highest security protocols. Of course he did. He didn't just study the System; he studied its flaws.
"Portal Five? That's the direct access link to the Helios Dungeon Complex—a verified, non-stabilized Five-Star Gate!" Carmilla hissed, the severity of the destination instantly cancelling all other concerns. The Helios Gate was a massive, ever-expanding dimensional tear rumored to house a new, highly aggressive Overlord Class. It was a threat reserved for the joint forces of three National Catalyst Corps.
"Yes, Doctor! And that's not the critical factor!" Elias whispered, leaning in conspiratorially, his eyes wide with fear. "He is currently in the Portal Staging Chamber. He hasn't activated the jump sequence yet, but he is… he seems to be removing something. Our full-spectrum diagnostics are going haywire! The room's ambient Mana readings are spiking—not from the portal, but from him! The dampening signature is disappearing!"
Carmilla felt a sickening plunge in her stomach. The logical part of her brain, the one that dealt in probabilities and countermeasures, shut down completely. This wasn't a protocol deviation; it was an unmitigated Cataclysm in the making. Darkiel had determined that the time for restraint was over. He was shedding the weights—shedding his anchor—and choosing a destination designed to kill him in seconds, or to unleash a power that would break the fabric of the surrounding reality.
"Portal Five Chamber!" Carmilla shouted, pushing past the stunned Elias. "Sound the Tier-1 Lockdown and redirect all available security to the Helios Gate receiving zone! Alert the Dean—no, don't alert the Dean! Tell the Head of Security that I am enacting a Priority Zero, Field-Level Containment! I'll handle the target! Clear the path!"
Her sprint was a blur of crimson and white. Carmilla was a System Analyst, not a front-line fighter, but her high AGI score, honed by years of late-night research sprints and dodging administrative reprimands, served her well. She pushed through a set of double fire doors, her specially-designed anti-slip boots hitting the polished ferro-steel floor of the maintenance tunnel with rhythmic, heavy thuds.
200 kilograms. Five years. Ten thousand days of constant, crushing, resistant training.
The image of Darkiel moving without that burden—the sheer, instantaneous acceleration, the uncontrolled kinetic force he could unleash—flashed through her mind. It was less a body moving and more a teleportation of mass. If he didn't adjust, if he took a simple step, he could shatter the floor beneath him. If he used a fraction of his strength, he could accidentally level the staging chamber. And he was standing next to a Five-Star Teleportation Portal.
This is about the vengeance, she thought, pumping her legs faster, her breath ragged. He is not using a training weight anymore; he is shedding the mantle of caution. He wants to go in naked and unrestrained. He wants the Overlord to experience the same unquantifiable horror he delivered fifteen years ago.
The tunnel opened into the massive, cathedral-like Portal Nexus. It was a vast, circular room dominated by five enormous, shimmering Gates, each crackling with various levels of Mana energy. Portal Five, a deep, swirling vortex of electric blue and violent amethyst light, pulsed menacingly at the far end. A small, reinforced staging chamber surrounded its base, designed to contain the initial Mana backlash of a deep-Gate jump.
Carmilla slammed through the final emergency barrier and skidded to a stop at the reinforced glass viewing port of the Staging Chamber.
And then she saw him.
The sight was devastating. Darkiel Mikado stood in the center of the containment field, his back to her, silhouetted against the swirling cosmic void of the active portal. The oppressive, dark leather jacket was off, draped over a nearby Mana conduit. He wore only the Academy-issue grey T-shirt and loose pants, but the fabric now strained against his true physique—not the average, low-profile body they had all assumed, but a dense, tightly-corded frame, every muscle fiber singing with compressed power.
He was finishing the removal.
The last of the weights—the heavy 30 kg Anklets—were dropping from his right leg. They were not falling to the ground; they were being pushed away from him, released by the immediate, reflexive expansion of his calf muscle and tendon.
CLANG! CLANG!
The sound of the two hundred kilograms of lead-alloy hitting the reinforced ceramic floor was deafening, a sharp, metallic shriek that echoed through the massive chamber. A visible cloud of fine, grey, metallic dust rose from the impact point, momentarily obscuring his feet.
But it was the moment of release that struck Carmilla with the force of a physical blow. When the final weight was gone, Darkiel did not stumble, nor did he reel from the sudden, jarring change in gravitational load. Instead, his body settled. It was a terrifying, instantaneous re-calibration, like watching a compressed spring suddenly achieve its full, explosive length.
His muscles, for five years forced to operate at a continuous, agonizing 200 kg resistance, immediately tightened and coiled. His stance, previously relaxed, shifted into an unnatural, effortless state of absolute readiness. A nearly invisible, yet palpable, wave of energy—Ki—radiated from his core, not Mana, but pure kinetic potential. The air around him suddenly felt heavy, dense, as if the very atoms were bowing to the sheer, physical will he exerted.
Carmilla's scream tore through the sound-dampening glass, a purely instinctual response of fear and desperation.
"DARKIEL!"
He reacted, but only with his head. Darkiel turned his face toward the sound, his amber eyes—now blazing with an unsettling, frigid intensity—locking onto her through the thick viewport. He looked not like a human, but like a weapon that had finally been unsheathed.
He pointed a finger at the swirling blue vortex of Portal Five. His voice, amplified by the chamber's internal mic system, was clear, cold, and utterly detached.
"This is Teleportation Portal Five, correct, Carmilla?" he asked, using her first name—a casual intimacy that sliced through the professional distance. He didn't sound like a student; he sounded like a commander confirming operational data.
Carmilla rushed to the sealed, heavy door, pounding on the control panel, attempting to override the lock with her Tier-1 Faculty Keycard, but the lock remained stubbornly red. Darkiel's bypass had disabled all external controls.
"Yes! It is the Helios Gate, Darkiel, the Five-Star Dungeon! What are you doing? You haven't stabilized! You have no backup, no squad! The energy readings from your body are off the charts! You are going to vaporize the entire staging chamber!" Carmilla shouted, her voice laced with fear and the desperate need to connect with the boy she had once guarded.
Darkiel looked down at the silent, heavy pile of weights at his feet—the leaden monument to five years of agony. A ghost of a cold, satisfied smile crossed his lips.
"Vaporization is an acceptable loss. The readings are finally honest," Darkiel responded, his eyes returning to the churning vortex of the Gate. "I removed the last of the dampening alloy. I no longer need the anchor. The control is absolute. The System's crutches are discarded. The final stage of the methodology has begun."
Carmilla's professional facade dissolved completely, replaced by the desperate plea of a friend and guardian. "Mikado, listen to me! You told me years ago, you were training to contain the power! You achieved that! I confirmed it myself! The Ki is stable! You have control! You don't need the weights! Why, then, are you going to a Five-Star Gate unrestricted? You are throwing away five years of silent sacrifice! This is an immediate death sentence! You can't fulfill your goal if you die in the first minute!"
Darkiel's amber gaze turned back to her, and the intensity in his eyes was so profound it felt like a physical pressure through the glass. It was the look of a man who had already died once, fifteen years ago, and had only been walking as a mechanism of revenge ever since.
"My 'goal' is not to survive, Carmilla. Survival is merely a side-effect of efficiency," Darkiel said, his voice dropping slightly, gaining a chilling, powerful resonance. "My dream, as you call it, is the erasure. It is the destruction of the concept of the Dungeon and the complete vindication of the Mikado name."
He took a slow, deliberate step toward the portal. The movement, though unhurried, was unnaturally fast, a fluid, graceful lunge that covered the distance in a fraction of a second. The floor beneath his foot did not shatter, proving his claim: the control was indeed absolute. He was managing the full, unquantified weight of his power with surgical precision.
"You asked why I kept the weights, even after stabilization," Darkiel continued, his voice echoing over the portal's rising hum. "The weights were the constant, physical reminder of the debt I owe. They were the constant, unremitting agony required to keep the vengeance sharp and focused. But I'm done with the reminder. The training is complete. The debt is due."
He turned completely, facing the massive, swirling Gate, the blue and purple light washing over his newly revealed, powerful frame. He did not look heroic or triumphant; he looked grim, terrifyingly resolved, and utterly alone.
"This is the only way to start the repayment," Darkiel stated, his voice a final, cold echo in the staging chamber. "What else? I will fulfill my dream, that's what."
With those final, damning words, Darkiel didn't run, nor did he jump. He simply stepped across the threshold.
As his figure passed into the swirling, Mana-saturated abyss, the containment chamber was instantly filled with an impossible surge of energy. It was not Mana, but the Ki-Displacement Shockwave generated by Darkiel's instantaneous interaction with the Gate's field. A blinding, golden light—the color of pure, unadulterated kinetic energy—erupted from the spot where he had stood. The surge overloaded the chamber's internal Mana sensors, sending a piercing, continuous alarm shriek throughout the entire Logistics Wing.
The colossal portal itself seemed to shudder under the impact of his unquantified entry. The blue light flared white, and for a terrifying second, the swirling vortex destabilized, appearing to collapse inward before snapping violently back into place. Darkiel Mikado was gone, swallowed by the Five-Star Helios Gate.
Carmilla, her face pressed against the thick, cool glass, watched the light subside, leaving only the oppressive, rhythmic hum of the now-activated Gate. The crimson warning light on the external console turned from a blinking urgency to a solid, static red—a record of a mission that, according to the System's metrics, should have been instantly fatal.
All that remained in the chamber, sitting in a dull, grey, metallic heap, were the 200 kilograms of lead-alloy weights—a testament to five years of agony, now abandoned like useless husks. They were silent, heavy, and cold, the only witnesses to the first, terrifying step of Darkiel Mikado's impossible, self-imposed mission. Carmilla finally slumped back against the barrier, the professional Analyst in her overridden by the deep, personal dread of a childhood friend who had just sent himself on a suicide mission against the world. The unquantifiable variable was now in play.