The high-grade stabilization chamber lay deep beneath the Academy, carved directly into living volcanic stone.
Wards layered the curved walls like translucent onion skins, each humming with restrained authority — suppressing external dread leaks while containing anything that might erupt from within. Violet sigils pulsed in slow rhythm, bathing the chamber in dim, funereal light.
At its center stood a single obsidian plinth.
No windows.
No exits once sealed.
Only silence… and the distant, subterranean heartbeat of the island.
Xia Ying stood alone.
Before him floated the rare terror-essence crystal — fist-sized, yet impossibly dense. Black and violet motes churned within its core, veins of shimmering light threading through it like captured lightning.
The **Despair Sovereign Chain fragment**.
Headmaster Eldren's reward.
He had not slept.
The Rift incident's harvest still sang through his veins — raw panic from dozens of students, the dissolving terror of nightmare creatures beneath his Projection, Torren's shattered whisper:
*"The Shadow Sovereign…"*
Added to the tournament's yield — Zuo's collapse, the cohort's dread, the audience's suffocating unease — the accumulated essence was… abundant.
More than enough.
Xia Ying closed his eyes.
And began.
---
He reached forward with his will.
The crystal answered instantly.
Its surface fissured along luminous veins as threads of pure terror essence unfurled like living smoke. He guided each strand into his core with sovereign precision — controlled, measured, absolute.
No resistance.
No inversion.
No abyss backlash.
Where other Branded would have trembled before such a flood…
Xia Ying **drank**.
Memories poured through him in a regulated torrent:
Zuo's final scream as full Dread Projection consumed his mind.
The courtyard's mass hysteria — students fleeing from horrors wearing their own faces.
The sustained, ambient fear of the elite cohort… the subtle way they now avoided his shadow.
Every Aura seed he had planted blooming into doubt.
Every psychological fracture.
Every silent harvest gathered in Academy corridors.
He compressed it all.
Refined it.
Claimed it.
The crystal shattered mid-air with a sound like breaking glass across eternity.
Essence surged inward — merging seamlessly with the Despair Sovereign fragment.
His body remained motionless.
Inside—
Realms shifted.
**Realm 8 — Terror Sovereign — Stabilized.**
---
Power flooded his veins like liquid night.
Enhanced Shadow Tendrils lengthened and sharpened — extending farther, striking faster, obeying finer commands.
His Terror Aura evolved into a living extension of will — passive harvesting vastly more efficient, active pulses now storable for hours… and deployable with surgical precision.
Within his shadow, the **Adolescent Phantom** stirred — stronger, more autonomous, its possession deeper, its manifestations longer sustained.
But the true awakening lay elsewhere.
A threshold crossed.
A dominion matured.
**Dread Projection — Fully Bloomed.**
---
Xia Ying opened his eyes.
Practice constructs ringed the chamber — heavy stone dummies etched with containment runes.
He raised a hand.
Released the ability at full strength.
The air darkened.
Reality bent.
Each construct experienced a personalized nightmare.
One perceived itself as a crumbling monument — strength inverting into brittle dust while faceless allies laughed and abandoned it.
Another suffered an endless loop of its Flaw consuming it — essence hemorrhaging until nothing remained.
A third beheld a veiled sovereign figure — Xia Ying's silhouette crowned in shadow — forcing total psychological inversion… its existence revealed as nothing more than fuel for a greater hunger.
The constructs did not move.
They did not need to.
The illusions were perfect — layered with tactile sensation, auditory torment, existential despair.
They endured for nearly a full minute.
When Xia Ying released the Projection—
Cracks spread across the dummies.
Residual essence leaked from their frames as if physically shattered.
He exhaled slowly.
A rare smile touched his lips.
> *At last.*
> *No longer nascent.*
> *It is mine to command.*
The chamber wards flickered.
As though the island itself had felt the shift.
---
Hours passed in continued seclusion.
He tested limits.
Refined control.
Integrated the new Realm until power and will moved as one.
When the chamber finally unsealed, the corridor air tasted…
Richer.
More obedient.
Lin Mei and Wei Jun waited outside, summoned by discreet message.
They straightened instantly upon seeing him.
Lin Mei's eyes widened.
"You… changed. The essence worked."
He inclined his head.
"Realm 8. Terror Sovereign. Dread Projection fully awakened."
Wei Jun's tracking senses swept over him, awe restrained beneath pragmatism.
"You feel deeper. Like dread bends around you now."
---
They walked to a secluded cliff ledge overlooking the storm-torn sea.
Salt wind howled.
Distant screams echoed from the island's natural leaks.
Lin Mei spoke first, voice trembling with devotion.
"I knew you would surpass us… but seeing it… I would give anything to keep supporting you. Heal you. Stand beside you when the mainland comes."
Xia Ying placed a hand on her shoulder, refined essence threading into her channels.
"Your loyalty is my foundation, Mei. You will never be left behind."
Wei Jun crossed his arms.
"The recall notice updated. Forty-eight hours. Mainland faction wars are already spilling into New Haven. Zuo's clan is quiet — but not forgiving. This Realm changes our position. We move carefully."
Xia Ying gazed across the black ocean.
"The Academy was never a prison."
"It was a forge."
"Knowledge of the Chains. Loyal tools. Endless terror harvests. And now this."
Residual crystal light glimmered across his fingers.
"All of it serves ascent. The core remains unbreakable."
The trio stood in silence — bonds hardened into something far deeper than alliance.
They were extensions of his will now.
Willing.
Devoted.
Indispensable.
---
The next morning, a crimson interface bloomed.
**Headmaster Eldren requests your immediate presence in the Observation Tower.**
---
Xia Ying arrived alone.
The tower crowned the island's highest peak — its circular chamber open to raging skies on one side.
Stormlight bled across the sea.
Headmaster Eldren stood by the railing, gray robes stirring in the wind.
Instructor Vale lingered behind him, watchful.
"Xia Ying," Eldren said. "You move quickly."
He turned, eyes sharp with appraisal.
"Sealing a Rift alone… with such precision. Few students could achieve it. The Academy is grateful."
He extended a sealed letter.
"A recommendation to the Dread Legion. Additional essence stipend upon return to New Haven. And my personal protection from immediate clan interference… within reason."
Then his tone cooled.
"The dread answered you too willingly that night. The Rift did not merely close."
"It obeyed."
A pause.
"Depth concealed serves you now. But hidden sovereigns often become the threats we train to contain. Do not make me regret this favor."
Xia Ying bowed flawlessly.
"Your generosity honors me, Headmaster. I seek only strength enough to oppose the greater horrors beyond the Veil. Scrutiny is natural."
A long silence.
Then a nod.
"Safe travels, Xia Ying. New Haven's faction wars will test even you."
---
He left the tower with privileges secured.
At dusk, he returned to the dormitory rooftop one final time.
The island burned crimson beneath the setting sun.
Students hurried below, preparing for recall.
Xia Ying stood at the edge.
Watching the Academy that had unknowingly armed him.
> *They taught fear of the abyss.*
> *I taught the abyss to kneel.*
Knowledge of the 22 Chains.
Loyal tools in Lin Mei and Wei Jun.
Terror harvests beyond counting.
The prize essence.
The Rift's gift.
> *The Academy's chains are shattered.*
> *Ascension accelerates.*
He raised a hand.
A controlled Dread Projection unfolded — visible only to himself.
The entire island bowed.
Shadows stretched in reverence toward a single sovereign figure.
The vision dissolved.
A crimson notification appeared.
---
**Mandatory Recall to New Haven — 48 Hours**
All students report to transport docks.
Mainland faction wars escalating.
Prepare for deployment.
---
Xia Ying smiled into the gathering dark.
Shadows coiled eagerly around him like kneeling subjects.
> *The island is spent.*
> *New Haven awaits…*
> *And with it — a far greater feast.*