"People so easily mistake noise for vitality." Ren has mastered the art of existing without being perceived. At nineteen, his entire universe fits perfectly within an eight-tatami room in Kyoto—accompanied only by hot sencha, the gentle hum of his laptop, and the sacred, uninterrupted silence of...

You are mud, Kael... and no man can kill the mud." Branded as Consumable No. 409 by a corrupt Church, fifteen-year-old Kael is thrown into the Crucible Academy—a military meat-grinder built over the gaping maw of the Great Nexus Dungeon. Highborn lords feast on stolen grain while commoner yout...