Mateo POV:
The hospital ceiling was painfully ordinary.
White tiles, square and unyielding. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead like trapped wasps. A faint crack ran near the air vent—like a scar that had long since healed but never quite faded from sight.
No blue sky. No drifting clouds.
Just reality.
The steady beeping of the heart monitor beside me kept time like a metronome I couldn't silence. The scent of antiseptic clung to every surface, sharp and artificial, leaving a bitter taste at the back of my throat.
And yet—
I could still feel it.
The warmth of sunlight on my skin, heavy and golden. The smell of wet soil after rain, rich and alive.
"You're spacing out again."
Lena's voice snapped me back to the white walls around me.
She was sitting beside the bed, arms folded loosely across her chest, watching me with eyes narrowed like she could read the thoughts I was trying to hide. Carlo stood near the window, his shoulders broad as he pretended to track something outside—but I knew he was listening to every word. Jae leaned against the far wall, that half-smirk of his fixed in place, the one he wore whenever he sensed someone was holding back.
"I was just thinking," I muttered, looking away from their stares.
"About what?" Jae pushed off the wall and closed the distance immediately. "You were mumbling in your sleep like someone was on your heels."
Carlo snorted, not turning from the window. "Yeah. You were sweating through your sheets too—looked like you'd been dragged through a river."
Lena leaned closer, her hair falling forward to brush my arm. "You even shouted. Loud enough to wake the whole floor."
I blinked, my mind scrambling to catch up.
"I did?"
Jae's grin widened, and he dropped into the chair Lena had just vacated. "Oh, you did. The nurse practically sprinted in thinking you were dying again."
Carlo finally turned to face me, his eyebrows lifted high. "So. Nightmare?"
I stared at the three of them—my friends, the only people I'd let get close since everything changed. The truth sat heavy in my chest, a stone I'd been carrying for weeks.
Instead, I let out a sigh that I tried to make sound dramatic.
"Yeah," I said, nodding slowly. "A frog ate me."
Silence.
Then—
"A frog?" Lena repeated, her voice flat with disbelief.
"A big one," I said, forcing my face into something serious. "Huge. Ugly. Slimy. Just opened its mouth and swallowed me whole."
Carlo's jaw dropped a little. "You're telling me all that shouting was because of a frog?"
Jae burst out laughing, doubling over in his chair. "Wait, wait—you almost fried your brain with mana backlash… and in your dream you lost to a frog?"
Lena covered her mouth with her hand, but I could see the corners of her lips twitching upward before she gave in and laughed too.
"You called for help, man," Carlo added, chuckling as he crossed his arms.
Jae wiped tears from his eyes and deepened his voice to mimic me. "'Uncle! Uncle!' Like you were begging him to save you from the amphibian apocalypse!"
The word hit me harder than a punch to the gut.
My smile faltered and died.
"…What?" I asked, my voice quieter than I meant it to be.
Jae was still grinning, but it softened a little as he noticed my tone. "Yeah. Clear as day. You kept yelling 'Uncle.'"
My throat felt dry, like I'd swallowed sand.
They started laughing again, but the sound was distant now—hollow, like it was coming from the other side of a door.
Because I didn't remember shouting.
I remembered hugging him. I remembered the weight of his hand on my head, the way he'd smelled like sun and wheat. I remembered—
You are getting close.
The laughter faded bit by bit as they realized I wasn't joining in.
"You good?" Lena asked, her voice shifting from playful to concerned as she leaned forward again.
Before I could find the words to answer—
Knock.
Three firm taps against the door, sharp and deliberate.
All of us turned.
Carlo straightened immediately, his casual slouch gone. Jae's grin vanished entirely. Lena's shoulders went stiff as a board.
The door opened.
And he stepped inside.
Silas Rowe.
Even in a simple black coat and slacks, he carried the same quiet weight he did inside a Gate—like he could bend the air around him just by being there. His presence shifted the room's energy without him needing to say a single word.
The laughter died completely.
An awkward silence settled over us, thick enough to cut with a knife.
Silas glanced at each of us in turn, one dark brow lifting slightly.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, his voice casual—almost light.
Not accusing. Just observant.
Lena jumped to her feet. "No, sir! Not at all."
Carlo nodded stiffly. "We were just… joking around."
Jae gave an awkward chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. Nothing serious."
The silence stretched on, uncomfortable and tight.
Then Lena clapped her hands together sharply. "Actually! Mateo needs rest—doctor's orders. Very strict ones."
Carlo nodded so fast I thought his head might spin. "Right! He's supposed to take it easy."
Jae stretched exaggeratedly, yawning loud enough to fill the room. "And I just remembered I left something… somewhere. Definitely somewhere important."
Silas' eyebrow twitched faintly, like he saw right through our terrible lies.
"We'll, uh, give you two some privacy!" Lena finished brightly, already herding Carlo and Jae toward the door.
One by one, they slipped out, throwing me apologetic looks over their shoulders before the door clicked shut behind them.
Silence returned.
And it felt heavier this time.
The room seemed to shrink with just the two of us in it.
Silas didn't speak right away. He walked to the window Carlo had been standing at and glanced outside, his profile sharp against the grey sky—like he was checking for something only he could see.
Then he turned back to me.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
His tone was calm. Professional. Almost detached.
"I'm fine," I said automatically, even as I felt the familiar ache behind my eyes.
He studied me for a second longer than necessary, his gaze so steady it was hard to look away.
"That's not what the monitors said yesterday. You had three spikes in neural activity overnight."
I gave a small shrug and leaned back against my pillows. "I've had worse."
"That doesn't surprise me," he said quietly.
No sarcasm. Just observation.
He pulled a chair closer to my bed and sat down, his hands loosely clasped in his lap.
"Mana backlash at that scale usually leaves fractures in the circuit pathways," he continued, his voice low and even. "Temporary instability, at best. In some cases, permanent reduction in output."
He looked directly at me then, his dark eyes holding mine.
"You don't seem reduced."
I held his gaze, forcing my face to stay neutral.
"…Is that a problem?"
A faint hint of amusement flickered across his lips before vanishing again.
"That depends."
Silence stretched between us, heavy and quiet.
Then he shifted forward slightly in his chair.
"How did you manipulate your mana to that level inside the Gate?"
Straight to it. No warm-up.
I blinked once, trying to look casual.
"Why?" I asked, keeping my voice light.
His eyes didn't move from mine.
"Because you shouldn't have been able to. Not at your rank."
I let out a slow breath and leaned my head back against the pillow, staring at that crack in the ceiling again.
"I just followed what that man taught me. That's all."
His expression didn't change, but I saw the way his jaw tightened just a little.
"That man?"
"Yeah," I said, trying to sound like it was no big deal. "He showed me how to compress it. Redirect it. Shut it down properly when I need to."
Silas' gaze sharpened, like a blade catching light.
"Is it your uncle?" he asked. "I apologize if I'm mistaken—I overheard your friends mention him earlier."
I snorted before I could stop myself, the sound harsh in the quiet room.
"Pffft. No. Not even a chance that old man would teach me something like that."
A small laugh escaped me, but it felt forced.
"My uncle wasn't even an awakener. He was just a farmer—spent most of his time sticking papers all over our land like he was decorating for a party no one was coming to. Said it would 'confuse the sky' so no Gate would ever appear in our village." I shook my head, a faint smile touching my lips despite everything. "I honestly thought he'd lost his mind at some point."
"But he was a great storyteller though," I added quietly. "Could make even the most boring tales feel like adventures."
Silas didn't laugh. He just watched me, his eyes thoughtful.
"So if not your uncle," he said slowly, "then who?"
I hesitated for just a second—long enough for him to notice.
"Hm. He said he was my uncle's friend," I answered, picking at the edge of my blanket. "After my uncle died, he just… showed up. Out of nowhere."
Silence settled over us again.
"What is his name?" Silas asked, his voice still calm but carrying a weight I couldn't place.
I frowned slightly, thinking back.
"…I don't know."
"You trained under someone whose name you don't know?"
I scratched the side of my head, feeling self-conscious under his stare.
"I just call him Mr. Fire. His mana was always hot—like standing too close to a bonfire on a cold night. He hated when I wasted output, said control was more important than volume every single time."
The air in the room felt different now—thicker, like the pressure before a storm.
Silas leaned back slightly in his chair, his eyes narrowing.
"Mr. Fire," he repeated softly. "I see."
"Where is he now?"
I blinked, caught off guard by the question. "…Now?"
"Yes." His gaze sharpened again, though his tone stayed steady. "If he taught you to manipulate mana at that level, I would very much like to meet him. There are few awakeners capable of that kind of instruction."
Silence lingered a beat too long. I scratched the back of my neck, looking away.
"I don't know."
Silas waited, letting the words hang.
"We were only together for nine days," I continued, my voice quieter now. "Right after my uncle's funeral. He just… appeared at the house one morning. Said he owed my uncle a debt."
My throat tightened a little.
"And then?" he prompted gently.
"And then he vanished."
Silas' brows furrowed slightly.
"Vanished?"
"Yeah." I let out a short laugh, but it sounded thin and brittle. "Like a ghost or something. After nine days exactly, he just stopped showing up. No goodbye. No explanation. One morning I waited for him until sunset, and he never came back."
"And you never saw him again?"
"No."
Silas was quiet for a moment, processing.
"Nine days," he repeated softly. "After your uncle's death."
I nodded, staring at my hands.
"He taught you all of this in that short time?"
"Every day," I said, closing my fingers into fists. "He'd come before sunrise, make me sit in the yard even when it was pouring rain. Told me to feel the heat inside my body—to 'listen to the spark' that wakes up when you touch mana." I shrugged. "Sounded crazy at first. Still kind of does."
Silas' eyes narrowed faintly, like he was putting pieces of a puzzle together.
"What exactly did he teach you?"
I hesitated, then let the words come—just like Mr. Fire had taught me to let mana flow.
"He said mana isn't something you release," I said slowly, recalling his voice clearly in my head. "It's something you borrow from yourself. From the part of you that woke up when you awakened. And if you borrow too violently, take more than you can carry… your body will one day collect the debt."
Silas' expression shifted—just slightly, a flicker of something I couldn't read crossing his face.
That was not a beginner's metaphor.
"Did he ever demonstrate his ability in front of you?" Silas asked.
"No," I answered immediately. "Never once. He said seeing his power would make me try to copy it instead of finding my own way."
"Strange."
"Why?"
Silas exhaled through his nose, looking toward the window again. "Because if someone can teach compression at that level, they are not an ordinary awakener. They're not even close."
I looked down at my hands, at the faint lines on my palms—lines Mr. Fire had traced once, saying they matched the flow of my circuits.
Silas' gaze returned to me, sharper now than ever.
"Mr. Sarmiento."
I looked up, my heart skipping a beat at the formality in his voice.
He stood then, his frame casting a long shadow across the bed.
"Never mind. I am not here solely for that," he said, though his eyes told me the subject was far from closed. "Though it is one of the reasons I came."
He stepped closer to the bed, stopping at the foot of it so he could look down at me without leaning in.
"I do not believe you are malicious, Mateo," he said, his voice softer now—gentler, but no less serious. "But something about you is… incomplete. As if your awakening was interrupted. Like part of you is still waiting to wake up."
I swallowed hard, feeling that familiar chill creep up my spine.
Then he continued, his gaze locking onto mine again.
"I have one last question, Mr. Sarmiento."
"Sure," I managed, my mouth dry.
"Your mana output during the incident peaked at a level inconsistent with your registered rank," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "But that isn't the issue."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"The issue is that your mana signature shifted."
A cold knot formed in my stomach.
"Shifted how?" I echoed, my voice barely a whisper.
"It became… layered," he said, the word heavy and strange in the quiet room.
"Layered?"
"Yes." He spoke calmly, but I could hear the gravity in his tone. "As if there were two rhythms overlapping. One was yours—slow, steady, exactly what we'd expect from a D-class. The other…"
He didn't finish the sentence. His eyes just held mine, and I felt like he could see right through my skin.
I forced a small laugh, trying to shake off the feeling.
"You're overthinking it. Probably just the backlash messing with things."
"Am I?"
His gaze was unwavering.
"Your rank is D-class. Your control resembles someone trained far beyond that classification. And during the collapse event… something else responded. Something that wasn't supposed to be there."
My pulse quickened, the monitor beside me beeping a little faster.
"Responded?"
"Yes." He stepped closer still, his voice dropping to a low murmur. "It did not feel like borrowed mana. It did not feel like external reinforcement."
A beat passed—long enough for me to hear my own breathing.
"It felt internal."
Silence swallowed the room whole.
"You're saying I'm stronger than my rank?" I asked, forcing lightness into my voice even as my hands started to shake.
"I am saying," Silas replied carefully, "that your rank and your mana structure are not aligned. Like you're wearing a coat that's too small—eventually, something has to give."
My mind drifted for a second, and I heard that voice again, clear as day:
You are getting close.
I swallowed hard.
"Maybe the system misread me," I said, even though I knew it was a weak excuse.
"Perhaps."
He studied me for one final moment, his eyes softening just a little.
"But the system rarely misreads twice."
The beeping of the monitor felt louder now—sharper, like it was counting down to something.
Silas straightened his coat slightly, his gaze moving to the door.
"Rest," he said. "Your body needs time to heal, and your mind does too. We will revisit this conversation when you're stronger."
He turned and walked toward the door, his steps quiet on the linoleum floor.
Before opening it, he paused.
Without looking back, he added.
"If Mr. Fire exists… I would very much like to meet him. Tell him Silas Rowe is asking."
Then he left.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I stared at the ceiling again.
White tiles. Fluorescent light. Ordinary.
But my chest felt anything but.
Layered.
Two rhythms.
Getting close.
For the first time—
I wondered if the frog joke had been safer than the truth.
————
Somewhere Beyond Human Territory
Inside a Gate
Darkness.
Not the absence of light—
But something heavier. Something that pressed against skin like a wet shroud and whispered cold things against the bones. The sky here was fractured, crisscrossed with veins of burning crimson lightning that tore through the void like open wounds. No sun. No moon. Only a sickly, rotting glow that seeped from cracks in reality itself.
The ground was a wasteland of shattered obsidian and molten fissures that breathed in slow, deliberate pulses. Each exhale released heat thick enough to warp vision into ripples. The air stank of sulfur, iron, and something older than stars.
In the distance rose shapes that might have been mountains—
If mountains were corpses.
Colossal skeletal remains of creatures no archive had ever recorded. Ribcages arched like cathedral ceilings. Horns curved into crescent moons large enough to hang cities from. Skulls so vast they could swallow a block of buildings whole.
And scattered across the battlefield between them—
Fresh bodies.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Creatures without classification.
One had six wings of interlocking bone blades, every joint cleanly severed. Another wore armor of solidified magma, its core crystal cracked open like an egg. A third lay collapsed like a fallen tower, torso split in half with edges cauterized by heat no mortal flame could match.
No signs of struggle. No craters. No widespread ruin.
Just precise annihilation.
At the center of it all—
A man sat alone.
He rested on a jagged slab of obsidian as if it were a throne: one leg bent, elbow propped on his knee. His coat was torn at the hem, faint smoke curling from the fabric—not from injury, but from residual heat that clung to him like a second skin.
His hair fell loose over his eyes, shadows dancing across his face from the glowing cracks below.
Before him lay the final corpse.
A towering monstrosity nearly the height of a cathedral. Its body was forged from molten steel fused to scaled flesh; jagged spires jutted from its spine, dripping lava-thick ichor onto the stone. Its head had been severed cleanly—so precise the cut looked surgical.
The man stared at it for a long moment.
Then he exhaled softly.
"…Tch."
Low. Calm. Mildly irritated.
"I told you not to roar that loud."
Silence answered.
The air trembled—not from power being unleashed, but from power being held back.
He stood slowly, and the heat in the air intensified by degrees—controlled, disciplined, as though even the very temperature bent to his will. He glanced up at the crimson sky.
"Threat Level I."
A faint scoff.
"Overrated."
He brushed dust from his sleeve, his gaze drifting past the corpses, past the gate itself—somewhere far beyond.
"…I wonder how that kid's doing."
A pause. His eyes softened just enough to let warmth through the cold mask he wore.
"Did he figure it out yet…?"
The molten fissures beneath his feet pulsed once—an unconscious response to the shift in his mood.
He turned his back on the battlefield, and as he did, the air shimmered. A translucent system screen materialized above the fallen titan
[Abyssal Tyrant — Varkhazul the World-Devourer Eliminated]
[Gate Stabilization in Progress…]
[Threat Level I - Cleared]
As the gate began to collapse behind him, reality warping and thinning at the edges, he walked forward—heat bending light around his silhouette like water around a stone.
Just before the world sealed shut—
His voice echoed through the dying darkness.
"Don't burn too fast, kid."
The gate vanished.
["Mr. Fire"]
[Rank:???]