The cheering from the Academy courtyard faded into a dull buzz, but it never truly stopped ringing in Sam's ears.
Every step he took felt like he was dragging lead weights. He didn't know where he was going. He just knew he couldn't stay there a second longer.
He wandered aimlessly through the pristine streets of the city, completely ignoring the sleek hovering cars and the bustling morning crowds. Eventually, his feet dragged him to a rundown park on the absolute edge of the residential district.
It was a forgotten place. The grass was too long, the pavement was cracked, and the paint on the lonely swing set was peeling off in sad, rusted strips.
Sam slumped onto a bench under an overgrown oak tree. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands.
'What a joke,' he thought, letting out a bitter laugh.
'I guess being a loyal boyfriend has the same survival rate as a Bronze-ranker blindly charging into a boss room. Pure suicide...'
He closed his eyes, but the darkness offered no comfort. Instead, his brain decided to play a continuous, agonizing highlight reel of the last three years.
He remembered the first time he had actually spoken to Kira. She had been struggling with mana pathway theories in their second-year combat class. Sam, who had practically memorized the textbooks to make up for his average stats, stayed after hours to tutor her.
He remembered how her eyes had lit up when she finally understood it.
He remembered the countless lunches he had sacrificed his own sleep to make for her. While other guys were out showing off their combat skills, Sam had been in his tiny kitchen, arranging nutrient-rich meals into a bento box so she wouldn't have to eat the cafeteria trash.
He had felt like the luckiest guy in the world back then.
'I was basically a glorified golden retriever,' Sam mused bitterly, his fingers digging into his wet hair.
'Fetch the food, carry the bags, offer a shoulder to cry on. Good boy, Sam. Now go sit in the corner while the rich adults talk.'
He remembered the gifts. To keep up with the expenses of dating a top-tier student, he had taken up garbage odd jobs, hoarding every silver coin he could find. For her seventeenth birthday, he spent his entire life savings on a crafted mana-crystal hairpin.
She had kissed his cheek that day, whispering that she would treasure it forever.
He hadn't seen her wear it in months. Now he knew why. She had probably tossed it in the trash the second Alias started buying her luxury artifacts imported straight from the DreamScape.
The betrayal cut deep. People broke up, sure. That was life. But to do it like this? To secretly hook up with his best friend behind his back, only to humiliate him in front of the entire Academy on graduation day?
That was a statement. It was her way of saying that the last three years meant absolutely nothing.
To stop the suffocating ache in his chest, Sam forced his mind to think about the only other thing that used to bring him comfort.
Before Kira, right after his sister had mysteriously vanished, he had been a total wreck. To cope with the crushing loneliness, he used to spend his nights hunched over a battered notebook, writing chapters for a massive fantasy novel.
He had poured his soul into that fictional world. He had spent weeks creating a complex magic system and a cast of characters to keep him company—a brave protagonist named Alden, an arrogant rival named Elian, and a fiercely loyal heroine named Lyra.
But when Kira entered his life, he stopped writing. He shoved the notebook in a drawer and never looked back. He foolishly thought he didn't need a fictional world anymore, because his real life was finally turning into a good story.
He had looked at Kira and thought he had found his Lyra.
'Turns out, I wasn't Alden,' Sam thought, a dark smirk pulling at his lips. 'I wasn't the hero. I wasn't even Elian. I was just some nameless mob character who gets killed off in the prologue to make the main couple look cooler.'
Above him, the sky began to change.
The bright morning sun was quickly swallowed by a thick blanket of dark, bruised clouds. The air grew heavy.
*Rumble...*
A low growl of thunder vibrated against Sam's chest.
'Of course,' Sam thought, rolling his eyes. 'Because my life is apparently a cheap soap opera now. Bring on the rain.'
A single drop of cold water hit his cheek. Then another. Within seconds, the heavens opened up, unleashing a torrential downpour.
The rain lashed at the city, driving people off the streets. But Sam didn't move. He stayed glued to the rusty bench, letting the freezing water soak right through his jacket and T-shirt. The rain plastered his jet-black hair to his forehead, washing away the last bit of warmth he had left.
He didn't care. The physical cold was better than the hollow feeling in his chest.
After losing his sister—the only family he had—he had been drowning... Kira had been the lifeboat that pulled him out.
And now, she had cut the rope.
'I'm alone again,' Sam realized, the thought echoing with terrifying clarity. 'Mom, Dad, Sis... and now Kira too. Everyone leaves. Eventually, they all just leave.'
He sat there in the storm for what felt like hours. The cold eventually seeped past his skin and deep into his bones. His teeth chattered uncontrollably. If he stayed out here much longer, he was going to catch pneumonia before the DreamScape even got a chance to kill him tomorrow.
With a heavy sigh, Sam stood up. His stiff muscles protested the movement. He shoved his freezing hands deep into his pockets and began the miserable walk back to his empty apartment.
The city looked entirely different under the storm. The streetlights along the sidewalk flickered erratically.
They struggled against the downpour, flashing on and off like a dying heartbeat.
Sam walked with his head down, staring at his soaking wet shoes. His mind was entirely blank, wiped clean by exhaustion. He wasn't paying attention to the blinking neon signs. And he certainly wasn't looking at the pedestrian traffic lights.
He stepped off the curb, crossing a wide, secluded intersection.
He didn't hear the roar of the engine over the deafening rain.
Suddenly, a blinding pair of headlights cut through the darkness to his left. Sam turned his head, his pupils shrinking violently against the sudden glare.
It was a sleek, black luxury car. And it was speeding through the rain-slicked intersection way past the legal limit.
By the time the headlights illuminated Sam's soaked figure in the middle of the road, it was already too late.
*Screech—!*
The sound of tires screaming against wet asphalt pierced the air.
Sam didn't even have time to shout. He didn't have time to trigger the basic mana reinforcement they taught at the Academy.
*CRASH!*
The impact was devastating. The heavy grill of the car slammed into Sam's side with the force of a battering ram. The sickening crunch of his own ribs shattering echoed in his ears.
He was launched violently into the air, flipping over the hood of the car. The world spun in a dizzying blur of rain, blinding lights, and dark sky.
He crashed onto the hard, unforgiving street a dozen yards away. He rolled like a discarded ragdoll before finally sliding to a halt near the gutter.
Pain—hot, white, and absolute—exploded through every nerve in his body. It was an agony so intense that it pushed past the limits of screaming. He just lay there, silently gasping like a fish out of water.
Through his blurring vision, Sam saw the brake lights of the black car flare a hellish red. The vehicle skidded to a halt. It sat there for exactly two seconds.
The driver, likely realizing they had just hit a teenager in a blind spot with no cameras, made a split-second decision.
The engine revved loudly, and the car sped off into the rainy night, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of exhaust.
'Coward...' Sam thought sluggishly.
He lay broken on the cold asphalt. The freezing rain continued to pour over his face. He tried to move his fingers, but his body was completely dead to his commands. A warm, metallic-smelling pool of blood began to spread beneath him, mixing with the muddy rainwater and flowing into the nearby storm drain.
'So... this is it?' Sam thought, his internal voice sounding distant.
'I don't even get to die fighting in the DreamScape. I just die... in a muddy gutter.'
It was almost funny. Almost.
His vision began to darken at the edges. The flickering streetlight above him faded into a tiny, distant star. The pain was slowly numbing out, replaced by a strange, floating sensation.
He felt tired. So incredibly tired.
'Sorry, Sis,' he thought, letting his eyes slide shut.
'Guess I won't be finding you after all.'
He let out one final, ragged breath, surrendering to the creeping darkness.
But just as his consciousness was about to slip away completely... a sound echoed.
It didn't come from the empty street. It didn't come from the rain. It rang directly inside the center of his brain—sharp, mechanical, and completely indifferent.
[Ding!]
Sam couldn't open his eyes, but faint, glowing blue text suddenly projected itself onto the back of his eyelids.
[System is analysing the Creature...]
'Creature?' Sam's fading mind supplied weakly. 'Who are you calling... a creature?'
[System has found the Creature is Suitable for the power....]
[Ding!]
[System is Synchronizing with the Host!....]
Suddenly, the cold numbness in his body was violently interrupted by a jolt of energy, like a live wire had been plunged directly into his crushed heart.
[8%... 15%... 25%... 70%.... 95%...]
The numbers ticked upward at breakneck speed, accompanied by a strange, burning warmth that began to battle the freezing rain and his pooling blood.
[Ding!]
[System Synchronization Completed!...]
[BEHOLD, THE CELESTIAL SUMMONING SYSTEM HAS EMERGED!]
[PATH OF THE SUPREME BEGINS....]