The moon hung low and heavy in the sky, casting pale light through the high windows of the academy dormitory. Aevion stood by the window in silence, dressed in his academy cloak, his expression unreadable. Behind him, two sets of footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Liora entered first, brushing windblown strands of silver-pink hair from her eyes. Mira followed, arms folded, eyes slightly narrowed.
"You sure this is a good idea?" Mira asked.
Liora gave Aevion a nod, answering in his place. "We went there once before. The guardians didn't stop us then. They only glared."
Aevion's eyes remained fixed on the moonlight outside. "Because we had the instructor with us. This time... we don't."
Mira glanced at him. "Then why are we going?"
"Because the answers are there," he replied simply.
The three of them moved through the academy's corridors with practiced stealth, cloaking their Nexis signatures and avoiding the night patrols. The stone portal chamber was dimly lit with an everburning flame—flickering red on the walls, almost like blood. Aevion held out his hand, and the seal sigil for the Library of the End formed silently in the air.
The portal opened.
No alarms. No guardians.
Just silence.
They stepped through.
The Library of the End was just as they had left it: a world beyond comprehension. Endless towers of books spiraled into skies made of parchment and stars, and gravity bent where it wished. It was a place of final records—a living archive of secrets that should not exist.
They moved cautiously. Liora kept close to Mira, the weight of the atmosphere pressing down on them with every step.
"Still no sign of guardians," Mira murmured, glancing around. "We're lucky."
Aevion wasn't so sure.
They reached the isle where Aevion had found the forbidden tome just weeks prior—the book that altered everything. It was still gone, of course. The space it once occupied seemed darker than the rest of the library.
Suddenly, a gust of unnatural wind blew through the endless hall.
Liora's breath hitched.
Then they appeared.
Six figures. Cloaked in black ink, faces made of shifting parchment. They stood at different angles of space, some walking upside down, others floating sideways, but all of them stared directly at Aevion.
The Guardians of the End.
Aevion stepped forward. "We're not here to steal anything."
The guardians said nothing. But the space between them cracked.
One raised its hand.
The air exploded.
Mira was the first to react, launching a barrier of golden Nexis around them. The ground beneath them trembled as pure force smashed against her shield.
"They're attacking?! Why?!" she shouted.
Liora's eyes widened. "No instructor. No permission. They see us as trespassers."
Aevion drew a blade from thin air—a construct of his Nexis—and deflected a strike aimed directly for Liora's chest.
The battle began.
It wasn't a battle. It was a massacre.
Mira fought fiercely. Her spells were radiant, searing, desperate. One guardian fell to her barrage, but it reformed instantly.
Liora held the rear, firing arcing beams of control Nexis to delay their movement. Aevion moved like a storm—fast, silent, vicious. But even he couldn't land a lasting blow.
The guardians were concepts. Enforcers of the final order.
Aevion shouted, "Back to the portal! Now!"
They ran.
The portal was distant, flickering, barely holding.
Aevion grabbed them by the wrist and pulled them through the collapsing shelves.
"We can't fight them!" he shouted.
The portal was nearly closed. Aevion pushed Liora and Mira forward. "Go!"
They jumped.
The portal swallowed them—
—And twisted.
A shockwave passed through the dimensional tunnel. A fracture opened in the path.
A black hole—small, devouring, hungry—ripped through the space beside them.
Liora and Mira were being sucked in.
He caught both their hands—
But something pulled them.
Their screams echoed as both of them were dragged, their fingers slipping from his grasp.
Gone.
The portal snapped shut.
Aevion fell to his knees in the academy's portal chamber.
The silence was unbearable.
Blood on his cloak. Dust in his mouth.
Two presences gone.
He stood slowly and walked through the academy, silent, not stopping once—not even when the night guards spotted him.
He knocked once on the Grandmaster's door.
It opened immediately.
The Grandmaster's piercing gold eyes examined him. "What happened?"
Aevion stared at the floor for a long moment.
Then he looked up.
Liora and Mira... wers pulled into a dimensional rift. I couldn't save them."
The Grandmaster's expression didn't change.
But the atmosphere did.
Aevion stood, silent, waiting.
And the academy—forever changed—entered a new silence.
The silence of grief.
The academy's halls buzzed with life, laughter, and the steady rhythm of footsteps, but none of it reached Aevion's ears. To him, the world was nothing but the pounding of his heart and the burning ache coursing through his muscles.
Days passed unmarked. Time was meaningless here—only the endless repetition of movement, sweat, and pain.
He rose before dawn, his eyes hollow but burning with quiet fury. His body ached with exhaustion, bruised and torn, but he welcomed every wound like a bitter reminder that he was still fighting. Still moving.
In the training yard, surrounded by towering stone walls and the distant spires of the academy, Aevion stood alone beneath the pale light of the early morning.
His hands gripped his sword—a blade shimmering with pure purple and white Nexis. The weight was familiar, comforting, and yet a harsh reminder of his failures.
He began his movements with slow precision—each swing a careful arc, each step deliberate. But within moments, his strikes became fierce and wild, fueled by frustration and grief. His sword cut through the air with a whispered hiss, leaving streaks of violet light glowing in the fading dawn.
Strike after strike, he pushed himself harder.
A blow to the training dummy. Another.
Each impact echoed with the sound of his unspoken pain.
Mira's smile haunted his thoughts, radiant and full of life. The way she had laughed, her carefree spirit a balm to the aching emptiness he now felt. And then the horror—her life snatched away by merciless hands, leaving a wound that refused to heal.
Liora—his other half, his friend—lost in the twisted labyrinth of dimensions. Pulled from his grasp by cruel fate. Her disappearance a cold shadow that pressed on his chest, threatening to suffocate what little hope remained.
He forced those memories down, burying them beneath his fury and his desperate need to become stronger. He could not afford weakness. Not now.
His training grew brutal. His movements sharper, faster, more precise. The world around him blurred, and all that existed was the sharp clash of blade against air, the burn of Nexis coursing through his veins, and the relentless pounding of his heartbeat.
Hours slipped away unnoticed. The sun climbed higher, then dipped lower, painting the sky in fiery reds and deep purples.
Aevion didn't stop.
He thrust his blade into the earth again and again, sweat stinging his eyes, muscles trembling with exhaustion. But his spirit did not waver.
He dropped to his knees, chest heaving, hands trembling as the sword slipped from his grip. His breath came in ragged gasps, pain radiating from every fiber of his body.
But even in that moment of collapse, a spark of resolve glimmered in his eyes.
He would find her. He would bring Liora and Mira back.
And he would never let anyone else suffer because of him again.
The academy's distant sounds faded further, until all that remained was the steady rhythm of his breath and the slow pulse of Nexis glowing faintly beneath his skin.
Alone beneath the endless sky, Aevion rose once more.
And with a grim determination, he stepped back into the fire.