The Sentinel Academy loomed in the distance.
Camera flashes exploded everywhere as the Thornveils arrived. My father walked ahead with that presence of his — the kind that fills any space effortlessly. Roxanne at his side. Me between them. My mother behind.
The paparazzi pushed against the established boundary line, stretching their cameras as far as they could reach.
"Over here! Look this way!"
"A photo of the whole family!"
"Cedric, Cedric! A statement for the Eldralid Herald!"
"So many eyes..." I muttered without thinking. "It makes me nervous."
"Then you shouldn't have come," Roxanne replied without looking at me.
"Like I had a choice."
"Then shut up."
"Roxanne Thornveil!" A reporter aimed his camera directly at her. "You're the first person in history to enter the Sentinel Academy at just fourteen years old! Do you have anything to say about that?"
Roxanne ignored him completely.
"Blake!" Another camera nearly hit me in the face. "Do you consider yourself ready to carry on your father's entire legacy? And how did you manage to survive the Anomalous Rift? Everyone else died, but you walked out without a scratch! What's your secret?"
"Uhh..." I froze. "I..."
A single look from my father was enough.
"Walk," he ordered under his breath.
I obeyed.
We crossed the main entrance. The academy split into two hallways — one marked Guests, the other Incoming Students.
"We'll meet up when the ceremony is over," my mother told us both.
My father said nothing. He just watched us in silence.
Roxanne and I headed toward our hallway.
And then I felt it.
Ding. Ding.
A sound rang out inside my head. Sharp pain exploded behind my eyes.
"Ah!" I stumbled into the wall, grabbing it to keep from falling. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to steady myself.
"What's wrong with you now?" Roxanne turned with annoyance.
"I-it was just a headache. It's nothing."
"If you felt sick you should've stayed home. I don't want you embarrassing me."
"It won't happen. Don't worry."
I opened my eyes slowly.
And froze.
Floating in front of me, as if it were completely real, was a window. Red.
[Welcome to your first quota!]
For a moment, surprise caught me off guard — and fear too — thinking I was hallucinating. But I recognized it instantly. The window. The color. It was exactly the same as when that monster had swallowed me whole.
The same one that had saved my life that time.
Was this connected to that?
"Hey..." I pointed straight ahead. "You can see it too, right? What's right in front of me."
Roxanne looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
"What are you talking about? Is this some kind of joke?"
"I'm not lying. There's something... in front of me."
"I don't have time for this nonsense. Goodbye."
And she walked away toward the ceremony without looking back.
I blinked several times, waiting for the window to disappear. It didn't. I reached out carefully. My fingers touched... something. Not solid, but not air either.
Then the details unfolded.
◈ Hello, servant! The time has come to carry out your first mission! Your lord Mor'khad is very hungry, and his favorite dish is blood — so you'd better hurry up.
→ Servant's Blood Quota — 0/4000ml
→ Time Remaining: 30:00
[Warning]
→ If the required quota is not met, the automatic consumption protocol will activate. The System is hungry. To feed itself, it will devour a random part of the body.
I read it two times.
The first thing that brought back memories was the name Mor'Khad — it was the same name that strange man had used in that situation.
But on the other hand...
It was really asking me for four thousand milliliters of blood. In thirty minutes...?
I didn't understand any of it.
How was I supposed to get 4,000 ml of blood? Was it referring to a blood transfusion or something like that? Last time it had only made me choose between yes and no.
And what did it mean by devouring a random part of my body? Was that symbolic? Because... how would it even do that? It's just a window with a message. Besides, there's no monster here, no presence that could actually carry it out either.
"Attention all incoming students," a voice crackled over the speakers through the hallways. "The ceremony is about to begin. Please make your way to the main auditorium."
I decided to ignore the window. After all, it didn't make much sense — maybe it was just trying to mess with my head. And besides, the ceremony was far more important, at least to my father.
~ ~ ~
The auditorium was packed.
I found a seat among the crowd of students. The lights dimmed.
An older man stepped onto the stage. Tall, immaculate suit, the kind of commanding presence that demands respect the moment he enters a room. Cornelius Pierce, the governor of Eldralid.
"Good evening, everyone," his voice rang out clear and powerful. "It is an honor to stand here and witness the birth of a new generation of sentinels."
He paused, letting his gaze move slowly across the room.
"You, the young people seated before me, have accomplished something very few ever do. You have proven yourselves capable of becoming a wall between humanity and the darkness. Between our families and the monsters that stalk us day and night."
His voice rose with conviction.
"The road ahead will not be easy. Some of you will fall. But those who endure will become something greater than themselves. You will be Eldralid's hope."
Applause filled the auditorium.
"And now," Pierce continued, "I'd like to give the floor to someone who represents the very best of our generation. A man who has devoted his life to protecting us. The most powerful sentinel of our era. Cedric Thornveil."
More applause.
My father walked onto the stage with steady, deliberate steps. His presence alone swallowed the entire room.
"I'll keep this brief," he began. "Strength is not enough. Talent is not enough. What will define you is not how much power you have — but what you choose to do with it."
His gaze swept across the students.
"I expect great things from this generation. Don't disappoint me."
A pause.
"And especially..."
His eyes found me in the crowd.
"I expect great things from my son. Blake Thornveil. The survivor of the Anomalous Rift incident."
Murmurs rippled through the auditorium. Every head turned toward me at once.
"Blake, why don't you come up and say a few words?"
My stomach dropped.
But everyone was waiting. There was no way out.
I stood on shaking legs and walked toward the stage. Every step felt like marching toward an execution. When I reached the microphone, hundreds of eyes stared back at me.
"I... uhh..." My voice came out thin. "Thank you for... for being here. I just wanted to..."
Ding. Ding.
The sound returned. Louder this time.
And then I felt it — my fingers burning as if I'd plunged them into boiling oil.
I looked down.
My skin was turning red. Swelling.
"Blake," my father murmured from the side. "What are you doing? Keep going."
But the pain was unbearable. It multiplied with every passing second.
"I'm sorry."
I stepped back from the microphone and ran.
Murmurs erupted behind me as I crossed the auditorium. I ran through the hallways until I found a bathroom, threw on the faucet, and shoved my hands under the cold water.
It didn't help at all. The burning didn't stop. It spread — now reaching my toes.
And then it appeared. The red window. Floating in front of me.
◈ Time Remaining: 00:00
[You have failed to meet blood quota...]
[ACTIVATING AUTOMATIC CONSUMPTION PROTOCOL.]
"What...?"
Crack.
The sound was horrible. Like something ripped out by the root.
And then came the pain.
All of my nails. At once. As if invisible hands had violently torn every single one of them out.
"Aaaghhhhh!"
The scream tore through my throat. Blood exploded from my fingers — red, bright, staining the white sink.
But it didn't stop there. My toes burned too. I felt something wet sliding down.
"What just happened?" I whispered, staring at my destroyed hands. "My nails... where are my nails?!"
The blood kept falling.
And the window kept floating in front of me in silent. Waiting.
~ ~ ~
The limousine moved quietly through the streets of Eldralid.
I sat by the window, hands wrapped in makeshift bandages. Across from me, Roxanne scrolled through her phone with complete indifference. My mother stared out at the passing city. And my father...
My father was staring at me.
"I can't believe you ran off that stage like that." His voice was ice cold. "Have you lost your mind?"
I squeezed my bandaged fists. Pain throbbed beneath the fabric.
"I'm sorry... but my fingers started hurting too much. I don't understand why, and then my nails just—"
"Then you should have endured it!" He slammed his fist against the armrest, making me flinch. "I don't know — shove your hands in your pockets or something! But don't pull a stunt like that! Do you have any idea how humiliating that was?"
"Father, it was excruciating. I didn't know what to do. It felt like my skin was going to burn right off—"
"Damn it, Blake! They were just your nails!" The shout filled every inch of the closed vehicle. "You're going to make that big of a scene over something like that?! You can't handle a pain that minor?!"
"Father, I'm serious. The pain was multiplied by—"
"Shut your mouth."
Silence fell like a slab of concrete. Only my father's heavy breathing filled the air, thick with barely contained fury.
"I forgive you one mistake. Just one. And you manage another one in record time?"
He leaned forward, bringing his face inches from mine.
"Don't forget what I told you before, if you mess it up you'll wish you had accepted my first proposal."
He let that sit for a moment.
"I don't need a pathetic, useless person like you in this family."
I looked down. I couldn't hold his gaze.
"I genuinely cannot imagine what your teammates must have gone through having you in their group. Dealing with your fear of monsters, your inability to handle pain — at sixteen years old..."
He laughed. Short and bitter, like the very idea was too absurd to take seriously.
"And don't think I've forgotten. I'm sure what happened with your nails wasn't even that bad. You just exaggerated it, like you always do."
"Father! I'm completely serious! Something was very wrong, the pain was inten—"
"Shut that mouth! I didn't ask you to speak!"
I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down on my lower lip to keep from saying another word.
"There's really no getting through to you..." He leaned back in his seat with a long sigh of frustration. "You can't even follow a simple order."
"Honey..." My mother spoke for the first time since we'd left the ceremony. "Maybe we should be concerned. It wasn't just one nail. It was all of them."
My father looked at her with obvious irritation. "And what exactly do you expect us to do about it?"
"We could take him to the hospital to be examined..."
"But he was there, and they themselves discharged him!"
"That's not a bad idea..." I murmured, staring at my bandaged hands as if they might give me some kind of answer. "Maybe they didn't consider that I might experience side effects..."
My father turned his head toward me slowly. Calculated. Threatening.
"That they didn't consider that was the best thing that could have happened to you."
"What do you mean?" I said, confused.
"Ha!" He laughed without a trace of humor. "You have no idea. You're the survivor of an anomaly that occurred inside a rift. Anyone who shows symptoms after exposure to an anomalous rift gets hospitalized. They run experiments on them. To the point where they're never heard from again."
He let that sink in before continuing.
"Is that what you want, Blake?"
I said nothing. The words stuck in my throat as I tried not to imagine what he'd just described.
"That's what I thought."
"Even so..." My mother pressed on, turning to her husband. "Maybe we should consider it. In case something like this happens again — it could be dangerous, not just for him, but for everyone around him."
"Fine!" My father said it like the word physically hurt him. "If something like this happens again, we report it."
He rubbed both temples with his hands.
"God, what a headache this all is. I'm certain that if any of your teammates had survived, they wouldn't have been half as much trouble as you."
"Don't worry about it..." I kept my eyes on my bandaged hands, refusing to look at anyone. "It was probably just physical weakness from being unconscious for so many days..."
Neither my mother nor my father responded. The silence stretched heavily through the vehicle.
Then Roxanne looked up from her phone for the first time in several minutes.
"Before the ceremony," she said, her tone casual, almost bored, "Blake mentioned seeing something strange in front of him. But there was nothing there."
My heart lurched.
Why was she doing this?
"What?" My mother turned in alarm, her eyes darting between Roxanne and me. "Is that true, Blake?"
"Are you losing your mind on top of everything else?" My father narrowed his eyes, studying me with a look that could cut steel.
"No — none of that happened." I glared at Roxanne. She didn't even bother looking back. "Why are you telling them that? You know that's not true."
"Don't lie," she replied without flinching, eyes still on her screen.
"I think that's enough to report this..." My mother brought a hand to her mouth, visibly shaken.
"What the hell happened in that rift, Blake?" My father leaned forward again, invading my space. "Are you sure you don't remember anything? Because I'm very sure you're lying..."
"Blake..." My mother looked at me with a rare, genuine concern. "You don't have a sacred mantle. If something happened to you down there, it's critically important that you tell us..."
"That's enough!" I snapped, my voice louder than I intended. "Can we just drop this? It's probably nothing serious."
Everyone stared at me in silence.
The air inside the limousine became so heavy it was almost hard to breathe.
No one said another word.
But I could feel Roxanne's eyes on me. Even as she pretended to look at her phone, I knew she was watching.
And that worried me more than anything else.