Ark 01

Thirty years. A generation had been born into the scarred world, knowing the jagged silhouette of the horizon not as a natural marvel, but as a monument to the Great Catalyst. Humanity, that resilient and stubborn species, had adapted. Nations had clawed their way back from the brink, raising new cities from the poisoned soil and shattered concrete. Life, in a frantic, desperate mimicry of before, went on. But it was a performance under a sickly sun. The world hadn’t ended; it had metastasized.

The Black Matter did not recede. It spread, a slow, patient cancer in the planet’s veins. And with it, the transformations—the Turning—increased every year. A farmer tending a grey-tinged field might feel a coldness in his heart that had nothing to do with the wind, and by dusk, his family would be fleeing from the shambling, shrieking thing he had become. Cities built walls not just of steel, but of light-projectors and sonic dampeners, a fragile cordon against the corruption that bloomed from within as much as it encroached from without.

In response, humanity engineered a miracle of denial. Paragon Island. An artificial leviathan of graphene and hope, anchored in the purer seas east of Africa. It was a declaration: here, we are safe. Here, the past is quarantined. Its capital, Eidolon, was a dazzling jewel of neon and nano-glass, a vibrant heart pumping with innovation, commerce, and a desperate, giddy unity. It was a dream floating on an unforgiving ocean.

And at the intellectual core of this dream stood Aegis Academy. One of many elite institutions across the globe, it was a forge. Here, the best and brightest of the new generation were not trained for mundane professions. They were hammered and tempered into World Seekers.

World Seekers. The title carried the weight of a sacred oath. They were the scouts, the archaeologists of the apocalypse, the surgeons for a dying world. Their tasks: to plunge into the Changed Zones—those vast, terrifying territories warped by the Catalyst—to map the incomprehensible, uncover fragments of lost knowledge, and, if possible, cleanse pockets of Black Matter. To be a Seeker was to walk the razor’s edge between salvation and annihilation. It required more than courage; it required power. The power to harness Mythcore.

Mythcore was the answer life had evolved to the Black Matter. It was the latent energy field within every living thing, a luminous counterpoint to the corrupting dark. To sense it was a gift. To channel it—to solidify it into shields, propel it as force, sharpen it into weapons—was a discipline that demanded every ounce of a person’s will. Your Mythcore reserves defined your potential. Your control over it defined your survival.

The air in Aegis Academy’s main coliseum thrummed with a different kind of energy today: the chaotic, roaring buzz of hundreds of students. The cavernous space, with its vaulted ceilings lined with dampening runes and its central arena floor of polished impact-absorbent alloy, was packed. On the giant holoscreen hovering above the arena, two names pulsed to the rhythm of the crowd’s stomping feet: NIA vs. AMANI.

“It’s the beautiful Nia! We’re going to see a masterpiece!” a voice shrieked from the cacophony, eliciting a wave of cheers and whistles.

Down in the arena’s calm eye, Instructor Kyle, a man with a frame like weathered granite and eyes that had seen too many students not return from their first Seek, raised a hand. His voice, amplified and calm, cut through the noise. “This is a demonstration bout. A controlled exercise in Mythcore application and combat strategy. Observe, learn. And do not forget—” his gaze swept the rows of eager, nervous faces, “—your final examinations for the World Seeker certification begin in seven days. This is not entertainment. It is your future.”

A corridor hatch hissed open. A collective intake of breath swept the coliseum as Nia emerged. She moved with an effortless, lethal grace. Her fighting attire was a sleek fusion of form and function: deep lion-blue with black accents that seemed to drink the light, the fabric subtly reinforced at the joints and vitals. Her hair, a sleek cascade of metallic silver-grey, framed a face of sharp, elegant lines and eyes the colour of a glacial lake—calm, deep, and unnervingly focused. She was Aegis’s prodigy, her Mythcore reserves rumoured to be bottomless, her control, sublime.

She stopped in the center, offering a small, formal bow to Instructor Kyle before turning to the opposite entrance. “Hey, Amani. We’ve been childhood friends,” she said, her voice carrying clearly, not a shout, but a statement that silenced the crowd. “But I won’t hold back. I hope you’re ready.”

As if summoned by her challenge, the second hatch exploded open—not with a hiss, but with a vibrant, almost reckless energy. Amani Tabari launched himself into the arena with a flip, landing in a slight crouch that sent a minor shockwave of blue energy crackling across the floor. His dark skin gleamed under the stadium lights, a stark contrast to his shock of bright cerulean hair. His fighting gear was a simpler, more utilitarian blue.

“Yeah, Amani is in the place!” he declared, a confident grin on his face, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes, which burned with a fierce, hungry intensity. “I’ve trained until my bones ached. So you better be on your guard, Nia.”

A snicker rippled through the cavea. “Is he going to defeat her this time, or lose like always?” a boy mocked.

“He’s gonna get flattened. He’s got the Mythcore reserves of a stunned gnat,” another laughed, the cruelty casual, accepted.

Amani’s jaw tightened. The comments were old scars constantly picked open. The ‘genius with an empty tank’. The one with flawless technique hamstrung by a feeble inner light. He saw the doubt, the pity, the amusement in a hundred faces. Then, his eyes found Nia’s. She didn’t smile. She simply met his gaze and made a small, deliberate gesture—a clenched fist tapped over her heart, then extended towards him. Focus. On me. On here.

The gesture was a lifeline. The noise of the crowd faded to a distant buzz. Annoyance hardened into cold resolve.

“Combatants, assume readiness!” Kyle boomed.

Nia settled into her stance,a picture of serene balance, energy already whispering around her fingertips.

Amani mirrored her,his posture lower, tighter, like a coiled spring.

“Prepare to fight!Nia, Amani… FIGHT!”

The match ignited.

Nia didn’t move. She appeared. One moment she was twenty feet away, the next she was a blur of blue and grey, her foot arcing towards Amani’s head in a vicious axe kick. He barely got his forearms up in time. The impact was a thunderclap of condensed force, not just physical, but Mythcore-enhanced. It didn’t just hit; it sank, driving him down, buckling the alloy floor under his boots. Pain, bright and sharp, lanced up his arms.

“Too slow, Amani. I’m here,” her voice came from above. He looked up, eyes widening. She had used the impact to propel herself high into the air, hanging for a surreal moment against the vastness of the coliseum ceiling. She looked down at him, not with malice, but with the detached focus of a mathematician solving an equation. “Take this.”

Her palms glowed with a terrifying, gathering light. The air itself whined in protest. She didn’t throw the energy blast; she released it. A screaming sphere of condensed azure fury descended like a fallen star.

Amani had a microsecond. No time for a fancy counter. No time for fear. Only instinct, drilled into him over ten thousand gruelling hours. He poured every ounce of his Mythcore not into defense, but into motion. A backwards dash-step, a technique so basic it was often overlooked, amplified to its absolute limit.

The blast hit.

The world dissolved into sound and fury. The explosion was deafening, a physical wall of noise and light that shook the entire coliseum. A mushroom cloud of dust and vaporized arena plating bloomed outwards, slamming against the kinetic dampeners on the walls with a sickening thrum. The crowd, which had been roaring, was now utterly silent, hands over ears, eyes wide with shock.

“He’s done. Like always,” someone murmured, the words swallowed by the ringing silence.

“Wait… look! Inside the smoke!”

A figure emerged, stumbling but upright. Amani. His attire was scorched, a fine trickle of blood from his hairline painting a crimson line down the side of his face. His breath came in ragged gasps, but his eyes, narrowed against the dust, were locked on Nia as she descended gracefully.

He had survived. But he was hurt, and his already-small Mythcore reserves were critically depleted. The predictable path was a desperate, futile defense. Amani chose the unpredictable.

He settled into a strange, calm stance. His right hand came up, his first two fingers extended, the thumb cocked back—a child’s pantomime of a gun. He aimed it directly at the descending Nia.

A ripple of confused murmurs ran through the students. Nia, still aloft, tilted her head. What is he planning? This was no recognized Academy form. It was crude. Primitive.

Amani’s world shrank to three points: his heart, his fingers, and his target. He exhaled, and the last of his accessible Mythcore flowed not in a broad wave, but in a needle-thin, hyper-condensed stream. “Spiraling Bullet.”

A pinpoint of blue light, almost painfully bright, flashed at his fingertips. And then it was gone. There was no beam, no projectile visible to the naked eye. Only a faint, spiraling distortion in the air, like heat haze, for the briefest moment.

Nia’s instincts, honed to perfection, screamed. With no visible threat to evade, she instinctively shifted her weight mid-air, using a tiny, controlled burst of energy from her left palm to jerk her body to the right.

Just as planned, Amani thought, a ghost of a smile touching his bloodied lips.

The first shot had been a feint, a phantom. A distraction to trigger her evasion. The true attack, the real “bullet,” was calibrated not for where she was, but for where she would be. It was a technique of misdirection and precise prediction, born from a mind that had to strategize around poverty of power.

The invisible bolt struck Nia square in the solar plexus as she completed her defensive shift.

There was no explosive impact. It was a sinister, invasive pulse. It hit her with the force of a strong punch, knocking the wind from her lungs and sending her crashing to the arena floor in an uncharacteristically clumsy heap.

The silence in the coliseum was absolute. Stunned. The arrogant boy from the crowd gaped, his smirk frozen. Instructor Kyle leaned forward, his analytical eyes wide.

Nia pushed herself up, one hand pressed to her sternum. A strange, cold numbness was spreading from the point of impact, not through her body, but through her energy. “Well done, Amani Tabari,” she said, her voice slightly strained. “I never imagined you capable of such a move. A masterful misdirection. But now, I will wrap this up.”

The crowd expected her to unleash her full, devastating power. So did Amani. He braced himself, digging deep for dregs of Mythcore he didn’t have.

Nia settled back into her primary stance. A terrifying aura began to radiate from her. The air grew heavy. The fine dust on the arena floor started to tremble and levitate. Her silver hair lifted as if in an invisible wind, her blue eyes blazing with internal light. She was drawing on her vast reserves, pulling Mythcore into her frame for a single, overwhelming technique that would end the match with finality.

She released it.

A wave of pure, raw power erupted from her—a visible cascade of shimmering, sapphire energy that filled the arena with its blinding light and crushing pressure. The crowd recoiled. Amani raised his arms, knowing it was futile.

And then… nothing.

The colossal energy vanished. Not dispersed, not blocked. It simply… winked out. The terrifying pressure evaporated. Nia stumbled, the blazing light in her eyes guttering like a snuffed candle. She looked at her hands, confusion and dawning horror on her face. She tried to summon even a flicker of Mythcore. Nothing. A perfect, absolute void where an ocean of power had just raged.

Everyone felt it. The titanic release of energy, and its subsequent, impossible disappearance. The coliseum held its breath.

Then, a laugh cut through the silence.

It started as a low chuckle, then grew into full, unrestrained, almost hysterical laughter. It was Amani. He was bent over, hands on his knees, laughing as blood dripped from his chin to the scarred floor.

Instructor Kyle’s brow furrowed with concern. “Amani! Control yourself! What is the meaning of this? Your mental state—”

“Don’t worry, sir!” Amani managed between gasps, straightening up, his face alight with a triumph so profound it bordered on madness. He wiped the blood away. “The bullet that struck her… ‘Spiraling Bullet’… its purpose wasn’t physical damage.” He turned to Nia, whose eyes were wide with realization. “It was engineered to interfere with the normal flow of Mythcore. A temporary jammer, woven into the energy construct itself.”

“That means it was induced into me,” Nia whispered, the tactical brilliance—and immense difficulty—of it dawning on her. “A parasitic energy pattern… That’s a high-grade interference technique. Only Triumvirate-rank Seekers and their masters are supposed to be capable of that.”

Amani’s grin was fierce, proud, born of countless nights of secret, agonizing practice. “Yes. Since I have small reserves, I had to train my control until it was surgical. I had to learn to make one perfect shot count.”

“From what I feel… it can last a minute, isn’t it?” Nia asked, analytically probing the strange null-space within her.

“A minute is the maximum I can sustain it,” Amani confirmed. Then, he pointed a triumphant finger upwards. “And I’ve won. Time’s out.”

All eyes snapped to the large holoscreen. The battle clock, which everyone had forgotten in the shock of the last exchange, read 00:00. A sharp, definitive buzz echoed through the coliseum.

The five-minute match was over.

Silence.

Then,a disbelieving murmur. “Amani… won?”

It wasn’t a question of fact,but of paradigm. The unshakeable order of their world had just tilted.

Instructor Kyle’s voice,thick with surprise and a newfound respect, broke the spell. “Match end! The winner… is Amani Tabari!”

The coliseum erupted. The same crowd that had mocked him now rose in a roaring, foot-stomming, seismic wave of applause. His name became a chant, shaking the very foundations of Aegis Academy. “A-MA-NI! A-MA-NI! A-MA-NI!”

Through the roaring haze of victory, Amani saw Nia walk towards him. He expected a handshake, maybe a terse word of respect. Instead, she stepped forward and wrapped him in a firm, genuine hug. “You were amazing,” she said directly into his ear, her voice thick with emotion. “Truly.”

For Amani, in that moment, the world was perfect. The pain vanished. The years of sidelong glances and whispered limitations evaporated. He had done it. He had finally, finally, won. Not through brute force, but through the cunning and precision they said he’d never possess.

The celebration was a beautiful, swelling wave. It was also fragile.

It was shattered by the violent crash of the main coliseum doors being thrown open, smashing against the walls. A figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, chest heaving.

Amani’s face lit up. “Adil! Hey, bro! I won!” he shouted, laughter still in his voice.

But his grin died as he saw his friend’s face. Adil, usually so composed, was pale, his eyes wide with a primal terror Amani had never seen. His clothes—an orange t-shirt over black tactical gear—were smudged with soot. He wasn’t here to celebrate.

Adil’s voice ripped through the celebratory noise, raw and strangled with panic. “THEY’RE HERE! THE BLACKSANDS! RUN! GET OUT, NOW!”

The words hung in the air for a single, suspended heartbeat.

Then,the world dissolved into chaos.

The academy’s emergency sirens, a sound drilled into them but never truly heard, erupted in a deafening, pulsating wail. Crimson light strobed across the coliseum, turning the cheering faces into grotesque, flickering masks of confusion and dawning terror.

“By the Light…” Instructor Kyle breathed, his communicator already buzzing with frantic, overlapping reports. His voice, magnified by the PA, thundered with command. “ALL STUDENTS! EVACUATION PROTOCOL ALPHA! Proceed in orderly fashion to the underground shelters! NOW! Instructors and security, form defensive perimeters! Move!”

The orderly crowd became a stampede. Screams replaced cheers. Amani, his victory forgotten, was shoved by the rushing tide of bodies. He grabbed Nia’s wrist, his eyes scanning the panicked fray for Adil. He saw his friend, not fleeing with the stream towards the shelter exits, but fighting his way towards them, his mouth forming silent words lost in the siren’s scream.

“The shelter is the other way, you idiot!” Amani yelled as Adil reached them, gripping his shoulder.

“Not for us!” Adil shouted back, his voice barely audible. “We’re Seekers! Or about to be! We don’t hide! We need to see! We need to fight!”

Before Adil or Nia could argue, Amani was pulling them against the current, towards a service corridor leading to the academy’s eastern vista. They stumbled through the chaotic halls, past teachers trying to herd sobbing students, past security teams sealing blast doors, their faces grim.

They burst out of a secondary entrance, not into the ordered plaza of Eidolon, but onto a high overlook meant for meteorological scans.

The sight stole the breath from their lungs.

Eidolon, the symbol of hope, the city untouched by darkness, was burning.

Not with the clean fire of accidents, but with the strange, sickly green-tinged flames that were said to feed on corrupted matter. The elegant spires were broken teeth against a sky stained with oily smoke. The familiar hum of the city was gone, replaced by the distant, awful symphony of explosions, collapsing buildings, and screams that carried on the wind like a dirge.

But worse than the fires were the shapes moving through the ruins. Not the shambling, mindless Turned they learned about in textbooks. These were faster. Organized. They moved in predatory packs, their forms shifting and blurring, made of swirling darkness and jagged, solidified hate. Sinshades. A military term for highly mobile, intelligent corrupted entities. They weren’t just monsters; they were an invading army.

And they were inside the perimeter. Inside Paragon.

As they watched, frozen in horror, a transport shuttle lost control, its anti-grav drives sputtering with black energy, and plowed into the crystalline dome of the Council Spire in a fireball that lit up the twilight.

“The shelters…” Nia whispered, her voice hollow. “They’re designed for containment breaches, not… not for this.”

Adil pointed a trembling finger towards the academy grounds below. Near the perimeter fence, a security detail was making a stand, their luminous Mythcore barriers forming a bright wall. A Sinshade entity, resembling a giant, multi-limbed shadow, flowed over the barrier. It touched a guard. The man didn’t just die; he unmade. His body contorted, his own Mythcore flickering, then inverting into a burst of black energy before he collapsed, only to rise seconds later as a jerking, servile puppet of the dark.

Amani saw a face peer out from a lower window of the academy, a younger student he recognized from a junior class. The boy’s expression of curiosity turned to absolute terror as a tendril of black matter smashed him.