Kite sat silently by the window of the Hypertrain, her forehead lightly pressed against the glass as the cityscape blurred past in streaks of neon and steel. She had opted for public transit this time—not out of convenience, but out of exhaustion. Her ability made transportation easy, but the constant shadow movement was draining, especially after her recent mission. She needed the break. Her Sequence was still in progress, and every ounce of energy counted.
Seated beside her, awkward yet determined, was none other than Kayden Tenet. He hadn't exactly been invited. After the chaos at the lab, he'd simply stuck close to her like a shadow with nowhere else to go. Kite had considered ditching him more than once, but something held her back. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was desperation. Or maybe it was the glimmer of power she'd seen in him—a dormant strength waiting to erupt.
Kayden was strong. He could fight. And more importantly, he was Awakened. In this era, that alone made him valuable. Kite had a Sequence to complete, and she was running out of time and resources. Her promotion—and the massive bump in pay and privileges it would bring—depended on it. The Pillar System didn't wait for anyone, and her current rank barely covered the cost of survival, let alone the expenses she'd incurred preparing for the mission.
So when Kayden insisted on tagging along, she reluctantly allowed it. He could be useful. A walking anomaly like him could help her clear the tougher challenges in her Sequence, maybe even give her an edge no one else had. But she hadn't accounted for how expensive dragging around a lost amnesiac would be.
His train fare alone had nearly emptied her last credchip. The few bills she had left in her account wouldn't be enough for another recharge of her equipment, let alone a night's rest at the guild outpost.
Kite sighed, folding her arms tightly across her chest as the Hypertrain rumbled beneath them, the steady hum a low reminder of how far from rest she truly was.
He had better be worth it.
The ride wasn't quiet—not for a moment. Kayden, ever curious and completely unbothered by her exhaustion, had spent the journey peppering her with questions. It was like traveling with an eager child in the body of a soldier.
"Where are we now?""What's Veltria?""What's a Pillar council?""What do you mean shattered pillar?"
Kite answered with clipped explanations at first, but slowly, as the city lights of Arkenfall approached in the distance like a rising constellation, her tone softened—just slightly. He really didn't know anything. Not about the world. Not about the Pillars. Not even about himself. It was almost pitiful.
"We're in Arkenfall," she muttered, watching his expression change as the skyline came into view. Towering spires laced with glowing runes pierced the clouds, and massive ring-like constructs floated overhead like artificial halos. "Capital of Veltria. One of the strongest nations in the new world order."
The name didn't mean much to Kayden, so she pointed past the window. "See that?" she said, nodding toward a colossal ruin in the heart of the city—a broken spire, jagged and twisted, half-sunken into the earth like the finger of a dead god. Around it, highways spiraled like veins, and power conduits arced with bluish light.
"That's Arken-01," she explained. "It used to be one of the original Pillars—the first, actually. Now it's the core of the city. Veltria built everything around it after the Descent. It still feeds the tech we use today—trains, weapons, even Sequence gear."
Kayden stared, slack-jawed, as the gravity of her words settled in.
She continued, a little more animated now. "Veltria isn't ruled by a single emperor or president. We have the Pillar Council—a group of elite Awakened. Supreme or Monarch rank only. They're selected by Sequence merit—how far you've gotten in your Sequence, how many trials you've cleared. Doesn't matter if you're sixteen or sixty."
She gave him a sidelong glance. "That's the game here. You rise through the Sequences, you earn power. Real power. Political, economic, military. Even someone like me, just seventeen, can climb to the top if I survive long enough."
Kayden nodded slowly, but his brow furrowed at her final words. "And who's at the top right now?"
Kite looked away. Her expression darkened.
"You don't want to know," she murmured. "Monsters in human skin. The kind of Awakened that don't walk—they ascend. I'm not aiming to join them. I just need to climb high enough to get what I want and get out."
She fell silent after that, eyes locked on the approaching terminal.
"And that man I fought with…" Kayden began, his voice low as the memory resurfaced.
"Agent Vex," Kite said flatly.
"Yeah, him. What's his deal?"
Kite shook her head. "He's with Enforcement Bureau Zero—EB-Zero for short."
Kayden frowned. "Enforcement Bureau…?"
"They're the shadow arm of the Central Authority," Kite explained, her tone turning sharper, more cautious. "The executive and enforcement division of the Pillar Council. While the Council debates policy and maintains Sequence oversight, EB-Zero does the dirty work."
"Dirty work?"
"Real-world operations. Crisis response. Suppression orders. Assassinations when needed. If someone goes rogue, opens a Rift without authorization, or breaks Sequence law—they send EB-Zero."
Kayden went quiet.
Kite glanced at him. "They're not guild. They don't answer to public contracts. They answer only to the Council—and the people at the top."
"You mean the monsters you don't like talking about," Kayden muttered.
"Exactly," she said, her expression grim. "And Agent Vex? He's one of their best. If he showed up at that lab, it means you just stepped into something big."
Kayden's fists clenched slightly. Not out of fear, but out of the gnawing sense that his past—whatever it was—was dragging him into something far larger than he was ready for. Kite could see it. She didn't say anything else. There was no need. EB-Zero was watching now. And they didn't miss twice.
The Hypertrain began to slow. Arkenfall awaited. So did the next step in her Sequence. And whatever the hell Kayden Tenet was becoming.
"What are guilds?" Kayden asked, his voice low but curious, eyes still scanning the blur of the city as the Hypertrain glided along its track.
Kite exhaled through her nose. Another question. Still, it was a fair one.
"Guilds," she began, "are specialized organizations—part military, part mercenary, part business. They're the backbone of how Awakened operate in this world."
She leaned back in her seat, arms crossed again, her voice steady with practiced explanation. "Their main job is handling the big threats: Riftgates, Catastrophes, and anything else that spills out of the other side when reality decides to tear open. When a Rift appears, it's usually the guilds who respond first—not the military, not the council. Us."
Kayden listened intently, eyebrows knit together. She could tell the word Riftgate meant little to him, so she kept going.
"Then there's Force shards. You've probably felt it already—Force is the energy we Awakened manipulate. When Catastrophes are neutralized, or Rift creatures are killed, they sometimes leave behind shards of raw Force. Guilds collect them, refine them, and either use them or sell them to keep things running. They're valuable—used for crafting, fueling tech, even evolving abilities."
Kayden tilted his head. "So… they're like mercenary companies?"
Kite shrugged. "Some are. Others are like corporations. Some act like religious cults. Depends on who's running them and what their mission is. But all of them compete for contracts, resources, and political favor. They run the economy behind the scenes—especially in nations like Veltria. Without guilds, the world would fall apart within weeks."
"And normal people?" Kayden asked.
"They call them the Mundane community," Kite replied, almost bitterly. "Most of them live outside the Awakened world, working jobs that don't involve Force or Sequences. But guilds are where Awakened go when they want to make a living—or survive. Unless you've got noble blood or a patron god watching your back, you join a guild."
Kayden sat back, taking it all in. The way she spoke it wasn't just an explanation. It was a lived experience.
Kite turned her gaze toward the window again, her reflection staring back at her in the glass.
"My guild's not the biggest. Not the richest. But we do our part," she added. "At least… we try."
The train began its descent into the underground terminal, the rhythmic hum shifting into a sharper mechanical whine as the brakes engaged. Through the window, the glowing veins of Arkenfall pulsed with increasing intensity—arteries of energy, data, and life converging in the capital's beating heart.
The city was close now. Not just in distance, but in presence. Kayden could feel it in his bones—an invisible weight settling over his shoulders. This was where things changed. Where stories either began… or ended.
For Kite, it was both.
When the doors hissed open, she stepped out without a word, expecting Kayden to follow. He did. They pushed through the crowded platform, surrounded by a rush of commuters—Awakened and Mundane alike—going about their lives under the shadow of the shattered Pillar.
Kite moved with confidence, cutting through the throng and leading him into the street-level chaos of Arkenfall's middle sector. Neon signs blinked overhead, projecting holographic ads for skill potions, gear enchantments, and Riftgate insurance. Drones buzzed past like oversized fireflies. The city was alive, burning bright in both wonder and machinery.
Kayden expected a towering skyscraper, a glowing headquarters, maybe a fortress tucked into the bones of the old pillar.
Instead, they turned a corner—and stopped in front of a fried chicken shop.
Its flickering sign read "Cluck & Crush – Wings Worth Fighting For" in bold red letters. A holographic chicken in battle armor did a spinning axe kick above the door, feathers flying in all directions.
Kayden blinked. "Wait. This is your guild?"
Kite didn't even flinch. "Yeah. Basement entrance's through the kitchen."
He stared at her, then at the chicken mascot kicking nothingness. "You're serious?"
"I wouldn't joke about chicken," she muttered.
As they stepped inside, the scent of grease and spice hit them like a punch. Customers filled the tables—civilians scarfing down wings, delivery workers on break, and a few bored Awakened low-rankers still in armor, sauce smeared on their gauntlets.
The girl behind the counter, chewing gum and watching a Sequence broadcast on a floating screen, gave Kite a lazy nod. "Back already? Your Sequence crash or something?"
Kite ignored her and pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. Kayden followed, still trying to reconcile the fact that this was somehow part of the world's lifeline against apocalyptic horrors.
At the far corner of the cramped, spice-choked kitchen was a reinforced door, hidden behind crates of cooking oil and a mop bucket. Kite entered a code on a barely visible keypad, and the door hissed open with a click that felt entirely out of place here.
"Welcome to my guild, Dark Swarm," she said, her voice heavy with equal parts pride and resignation. Kayden stepped through, and the door shut behind them. A trial awaited—not in a temple or battlefield—but below a fried chicken joint. And somehow, that felt exactly right.
****
The moment Kayden stepped through the door, the scent of grease and chicken vanished—replaced by sterile air tinged with faint metal and ozone. The lighting changed too, shifting from warm yellow to a cold, pale blue that hummed quietly overhead. The corridor ahead sloped downward at a slight incline, the walls lined with matte-black plating and faintly glowing strips of runic script that pulsed in rhythm with unseen security wards.
Gone was the chaotic charm of the chicken shop. Here, silence ruled.
"This is the real guild," Kite repeated, her boots echoing softly on the reinforced floor. "We call ourselves Dark Swarm. Not a flashy name. But we're good at what we do."
"What is it exactly that you do?" Kayden asked, his voice naturally lowering as if the air itself demanded discretion.
"Information. Assassination. Silent wars," she said flatly. "We're the eyes and knives of Veltria's shadow. When the Pillar Council wants something done quietly—something that can't make it into the Sequence reports or newsfeeds—they don't send a task force. They send one of us."
Kayden looked around, taking in the subtle layers of surveillance and restraint built into the walls. Every five feet, there was a subtle indentation—micro-barriers, likely able to seal off the hallway in an emergency. Faint shimmer lines suggested cloaking fields. Even here, in their own domain, the guild lived like prey among predators.
They emerged into a central atrium several floors below the surface. Unlike the surface world of polished chrome and digital splendor, this space was carved out of smooth obsidian walls with modular platforms suspended in the air by gravitational tethers. There were no wide-open plazas—just segmented zones, connected by narrow walkways and cloaked transit lifts.
Floating screens projected mission logs, surveillance footage, and Rift gate activity. Several guild members in sleek dark armor—faces half-covered by masks—moved from terminal to terminal in coordinated silence. Others sat in private chambers, visible only through semi-transparent glass, analyzing data or relaying information across mana-coded networks.
In the center of the atrium was a raised command platform, atop which sat a throne-like chair made of black alloy and bonewood. It faced a massive holomap of the continent, red dots blinking over active targets and Rift gate anomalies.
"No guild hall trophies. No banners. No taverns," Kite muttered as they moved. "This isn't a place for glory. We don't take credit. We don't leave witnesses. Half the people you saw upstairs don't even know we're down here."
Kayden slowed as they passed a large observation window embedded into the corridor wall. Behind the reinforced glass, two Awakened clashed in a flurry of brutal, silent motion. Dull blades sparked as they collided—each strike a blur, every movement honed with surgical precision. Their expressions never shifted. No shouts. No grunts. Just breath, movement, and intent.
It was sparring, but it felt more like a silent war.
The room itself was soundproofed, its walls sterile and white under clinical lighting. Not a drop of blood had been spilled, yet something about it felt far more violent than any battlefield Kayden had seen in his fragmented memories.
He stared for a moment too long.
"This place feels… dead," he muttered, his voice hushed.
Kite didn't even glance at him. "Good," she said. "Means no one's screaming."
Kayden looked at her, brow furrowing slightly. "Do you… torture people here?"
She stopped walking. Her expression didn't change, but something shifted in her posture. "Torture," she said quietly, "is just one of many ways to gather intelligence. A sick way, yeah… but a way nonetheless."
Her eyes flicked to the room, then back to him. "We're not heroes, Kayden. Not even close. We're knives in the dark. You don't come here to make the world better—you come here to make it quieter."
He swallowed hard, the weight of her words sinking in. He hadn't expected comfort here, but he hadn't expected honesty like that either.
Kite turned again, walking deeper into the hall. "Come on," she said. "You need to meet my Master."
Kayden blinked. "Your Master?"
"Velin Dario," Kite said, her tone shifting to something more respectful, almost reverent. "Guildmaster of Dark Swarm. She's the one who trained me—who taught me how to survive when all I had was pain, Force, and a mission."
"Alright," Kayden said. Kite nodded and continued down the hall towards where her master awaited her return.
Deep beneath Arkenfall, in the strategic operations chamber of Dark Swarm Division Nine, the air was still—almost reverent. The walls were lined with floating display nodes and illuminated crystal memory banks, each quietly pulsing with secured data threads. Holographic feeds played silently across a massive curved table at the room's center, projecting maps, mission reports, and threat level spikes across the continent.
At the head of the table sat Velin Dario.
She was draped in a cloak of muted indigo and matte black, her posture regal, unmoving. Short silver hair framed a face lined with sharp elegance and cold clarity. Her eyes—one mechanical and glowing with faint runes, the other ice-blue and unsettlingly human—scanned the projected document hovering inches above her gloved fingers.
The title of the report pulsed softly: "Incident Summary: Gravemarch Rift Gate Breach."
Blood. Fire. Force Residue. An unregistered Awakened. Unregistered Rift gate activity. Pillar interference.
She read silently, absorbing every detail with unnerving calm. Standing before her were two of her top operatives: Aster, a hulking man with a half-scorched mask fused to his jaw, and Arlen, a wiry woman cloaked in shadow thread weave, her eyes always scanning, calculating. Neither dared speak while Velin read. They had seen what happened to those who interrupted her mid-briefing.
Finally, Velin lowered her hand, and the report dissolved into mist, its contents archived in the ether of the command table.
She stood slowly, her movements precise, deliberate—like a blade being drawn.
"Did you see it?" she asked, her voice low, resonant, and measured.
Aster tilted his head slightly, the scar under his eye twitching as he parsed her meaning. "The anomaly in the Rift gate data?"
"Yes," Velin said, stepping away from the projection. Her heels clicked once on the obsidian floor. "The boy."
Arlen moved forward, stopping just short of the table's edge. Her fingers hovered over a smaller data node, recalling images, graphs, and glowing sigil matrices. "We pulled satellite rune data from the Gravemarch region just after the incident. His awakening didn't register on the standard Pillar node frequency—no traceable Sequence ripple, no initialization pulse. From our scan… the Force signature was untethered."
She hesitated.
Velin turned her full gaze on her.
Arlen straightened. "Ma'am, I believe this boy is a threat. His Force was wild, unlinked to the System. Uncatalogued. It behaved like... a primal resonance. Not like anything we've recorded since the Descent."
"For someone who supposedly just awakened," Aster added with a half-smirk, "he handled Agent Vex of the EB-Zero rather nicely. Dropped her in under a minute. That's not rookie-level instinct."
Arlen shot him a glare. "That's not the point. Ma'am, we cannot allow an unknown entity inside this guild—especially one with unknown origin, no node imprint, no Pillar designation. He bypassed surveillance protocols without effort. That's not just dangerous—it's destabilizing."
Velin said nothing for a moment. Then she turned back to the center of the room, her eyes narrowing at the last flickering projection still suspended in the air: a grainy image of the ruptured Rift gate from the Gravemarch lab, frozen mid-collapse.
"What I want to know," she said coldly, "is how that scientist managed to open a Rift gate at all. Rift gate manipulation is a classified discipline. No one except for the Pillar or the Pillar Sovereigns should have access to that power,"
Arlen nodded slowly, her expression tightening. "It looked like Pillar tech—but not the current model. From the schematic overlays we recovered, it was an older version. Probably early Descent era. Possibly a prototype."
Velin's mechanical eye pulsed once. She folded her hands behind her back. Before more could be said, a soft chime echoed at the chamber's entrance. The heavy doors hissed open, and Kite stepped in, Kayden at her side.
Velin turned to face them, and the atmosphere in the room shifted immediately. Her presence didn't demand authority—it was authority. It wrapped around her like a second skin, suffocating and absolute. Even Kayden, who had no idea who she truly was, felt it in his bones.
"Kite," Velin said, her voice sharp and precise.
"Master," Kite replied with a respectful nod. She could tell they had been in the middle of a serious discussion—one with weight. Tension still clung to the air like static.
Then, unexpectedly, Kayden chuckled beside her. The sound felt out of place—too casual, too human for the cold room they stood in.
Kite glanced at him. There was no humor in his eyes.
"Your guild is something else, Kite," he said quietly. The corner of his mouth twitched in a half-smile before fading. "To think they've already gathered evidence on me."
His tone wasn't bitter. Just resigned. As if a part of him had expected it all along.
"You must be Kayden Tenet," Velin said, her tone smooth but laced with quiet scrutiny.
"Yes, I am," Kayden replied evenly.
In a blink, Velin's mechanical eye flickered to life—runes igniting in concentric rings as her Analysis skill activated. The glow from the cybernetic lens passed over Kayden's body like a scanning grid, subtle and silent. A faint pulse shimmered across the room as she assessed him.
A moment later, the light dimmed.
"Just as the report stated," Velin murmured, "Initiate rank Awakened. Barely awakened, in fact… and yet—"
"And yet he defeated a Disciple-ranked agent like he was nothing," Aster interjected with a grin.
Velin said nothing, her expression unreadable.
"Master Dario," Arlen cut in sharply, stepping forward. "As I said before, this boy is an unknown variable. We cannot afford to place trust in something we do not understand. For all we know, he is a Catastrophe in disguise. He emerged from within the Riftgate. The timing, the power, the untraceable awakening—it's too perfect."
The room tensed.
Kayden's eyes narrowed. "My soul came from the Rift," he said calmly, "but my body has always been here."
That gave everyone pause.
Kite turned toward him slowly, her expression shifting. She hadn't heard him say that before—not with such certainty. And yet, something about it rang true… and yet—
"How do you know that?" she asked quietly.
She remembered her Force scanner's initial reading when she first found him. It had blared a warning—Soulweaver-class Catastrophe detected—before rapidly recalibrating and identifying him as a standard Awakened. At the time, she thought it was a glitch. Now she wasn't so sure.
"I just do," Kayden said, his voice steady. "I don't have all my memories, not yet. But I know this body. I know this skin, this heartbeat. This is the body I was born in. The body of Kayden Tenet."
He looked directly at Velin.
"I get it. I really do. You think I'm some Rift-born abomination sent to infiltrate your ranks, maybe even a walking Catastrophe. And honestly? If I were you, I'd probably think the same."
His tone hardened—not defensive, but resolute.
"But I'm not one of those damn things. I don't know why my soul came from the Rift or what happened to me… Why I came back. But whatever I am now, I am not your enemy. Not yet at least."
Silence followed. The air turned cold at his nonchalant attitude. No one did or say anything. Even Arlen was forced to be quite. The intent from him was strong.
Velin's mechanical eye dimmed completely as she leaned back, her gaze lingering on him like a judge weighing evidence not just with logic, but with instinct.
Finally, Velin spoke.
"Well then," she said, folding her arms behind her back. "What can I do for you, Kayden Tenet?"
"I need your guild's help," Kayden replied without hesitation.
Velin tilted her head slightly. "Help with what, exactly?"
"I need intel—on myself," he said, voice steady. "Information about my past. Who I was. Where I'm from. Anything that can help me fill in the gaps."
A subtle ripple of interest passed through the room.
Kayden continued, his gaze calm but intent. "Since your guild specializes in intelligence gathering, you're my best option. You've already pulled satellite rune data, tracked Rift activity, cross-referenced surveillance reports… You have the tools and resources I don't. And more than that…"
He turned his head slowly—locking eyes with Kite.
"I believe she has something to do with my past."
Kite's breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened at the boldness of his statement. Me? Her mind raced for an explanation, a reason—anything that could make sense of it. She hadn't seen him before Gravemarch. Had she?
Across the room, Aster's smirk faded into something closer to caution. Arlen's eyes narrowed. Even they weren't expecting that.
Only Velin remained unchanged. Her face unreadable. Her mechanical eye clicked faintly.
"I see," she said after a pause. "Your reasoning is sound. If your origin is tied to Rift interference, and if you believe one of my operatives is linked to your past, then yes—Dark Swarm is uniquely positioned to uncover the truth."
She stepped forward, her voice dropping in tone.
"But that's what you want. Now tell me, Kayden Tenet… what can you do for me?"
Kayden didn't flinch.
"I can earn Sequence merit for your guild."
Silence followed.
Kite turned to him sharply. "What do you mean by that?"
Kayden looked at her, calm and composed. "From what you told me about the Pillar System and Awakened life, Sequence merit is one of the main ways guilds generate influence—and money."
Velin's eye narrowed slightly, intrigued.
Kayden continued. "Merit fuels your standing with the Pillar Council. The more Sequence missions your guild completes, the more military contracts you're granted. The more political leverage you gain. The more economic dominance you assert. It's a competitive market... and I'm a free agent."
Kite frowned. "How did you even figure that out? I barely explained the basics to you."
"You said it yourself," Kayden replied. "Sequence merit is everything. That's what you told me. So I listened. I paid attention."
He turned back to Velin.
"Let me work for you. I don't care about rank, title, or prestige. I just want answers. You give me the resources to find the truth… and I'll give you more merit than anyone else in your lower ranks."
Velin stared at him for a long moment. Then a faint, almost imperceptible smile curled at the edge of her lips.
"You're very sharp," she said. "Sharp for someone who claims to know nothing."
Her tone carried a flicker of interest now—just enough to show that Kayden had passed an invisible threshold.
"And if you're lying?" she asked softly.
Kayden met her gaze head-on. "Then kill me."
The room stilled.
Velin's mechanical eye gleamed once more.
"Very well," she said. "Welcome to Dark Swarm, Kayden Tenet. Let's see how deep your truth runs."