PART I — The School That Saw Darkness
Saya District's North Meridian Academy was known for its safety.
Blue Rose sprinklers, iron-framed windows, and two emergency bunkers.
Children ran across the courtyard laughing, unaware that fate was sharpening its claws.
At 12:14 PM, the midday bell rang.
At 12:15 PM, the world tore open.
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💥 The Breach
A sickening CRACK boomed through the campus walls.
Dust exploded upward as a side building collapsed inward like wet paper.
Then they came.
C-class Crawlers skittered across the floor — twisted, wolf-sized creatures with multiple eyes and clawed limbs.
D-class Drifters slithered along walls like living shadows, their jaws extending unnaturally wide.
Students screamed.
Teachers pushed children toward evacuation routes.
But the demons were faster.
A Drifter lunged at a girl near the assembly hall — until a math teacher swung an iron fire extinguisher, knocking the creature sideways. Her hands shook violently, but her voice was steady:
> "RUN! GO!"
Children sprinted. Some cried. Some stumbled. Some froze until friends dragged them along.
A crawler tore through a classroom window, landing on desks.
Three boys fought it with chairs until the beast drove them back, its saliva sizzling on the floor.
The monster leapt—
And a beam of blue fire incinerated it mid-air.
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⚔️ The Slayers Arrive
Three armored transports screeched into the campus, barriers exploding outward as Slayers surged from the vehicles.
Blue Rose rifles.
Iron-sheathed gauntlets.
Smoke-charged bombs.
The demons screeched in response — but they were outmatched.
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🔥 The Battle for North Meridian Academy
Slayer Unit Viper led the charge.
Their captain, Harlan Keese, drove an armored fist straight through a crawler's head, iron vapor sizzling on impact.
A cluster of Drifters poured from the cafeteria roof — but Viper Squad detonated a ring of micro-blue grenades, dissolving them into ash.
Children watched from behind barriers as disciplined lines of Slayers swept the campus.
One tactical unit smashed in doors, clearing rooms.
Another escorted wounded students.
A final unit hunted stragglers in the gym, drones scanning rafters for heat signatures.
A teacher shielded a student with her body as a crawler closed in —
But a Slayer grappled from a rooftop, slicing the beast in half with a sweeping iron-edged blade.
For 29 minutes, chaos ruled.
For the 30th minute… silence fell.
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✨ Victory
The last demon crumpled under a burst of iron flechettes.
Slayers checked the bodies.
Teachers hugged terrified children.
Students sobbed into their uniforms.
Someone cried out:
> "Thank you! Thank you!"
And for once… the Slayers smiled back.
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PART II — The Next Evolution of Training
⚙️ Iron Veil Academy – Phase II to IV
While the city healed, Aiden, Adolf, and Fushiguro began their most intensive month yet.
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⚙️ SECOND LEVEL – "The Body as a Weapon"
The cadets were brought into the Kataforge Hall, a massive arena lined with pressure-reactive mats and drone observers.
🥋 Martial Arts Mastery
They learned four Iron Veil forms:
Form I: Steel Palm — disabling strikes, joint locks
Form II: Iron Sweep — leg takedowns, low center-of-gravity combat
Form III: Blue Fang — sharp, precise, lethal
Form IV: Demon Grapple — specialized moves for overpowering C-class demons
Aiden excelled in precision.
Adolf in brute power.
Fushiguro in counter-strikes.
Aiden's instructor whispered:
> "Your mind guides your body like a machine. Good. Use that."
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⚙️ THIRD LEVEL – "Tools of Survival"
Weapons training.
The armory filled with:
Iron-infused blades
Blue Rose rifles
Arc-pulse pistols
Drone interfacing gear
Combat batons
Shock-knuckle units
Cadets rotated through stations.
Aiden's aim improved.
Fushiguro mastered drone-command rifles.
Adolf claimed he "fell in love" with heavy shock maces.
They ran obstacle courses under live fire simulations — some cried, some vomited, but all endured.
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⚙️ FOURTH LEVEL – "Mind, Reflex, Team"
The NeuroGrid Dome activated.
A globe of shimmering light.
A world fabricated entirely from Iron Veil's tactical simulations.
🧠 Cognitive Trials
Puzzles. Ethical dilemmas.
Split-second reaction tests.
Decision trees where one wrong answer caused "casualty" effects.
Aiden thrived.
His brain processed patterns like circuitry.
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⚡ Reflex Gauntlets
Razor-fast drones launched iron pellets at random angles.
Cadets dodged, caught, deflected — or were blasted.
Adolf got hit 17 times.
He still strutted proudly.
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🤝 Team Compatibility
The NeuroGrid pushed them into combat scenarios:
Siege of a village
Ambush in a sewer system
Tunnel collapse rescue
Demon nest incursion
Their synchronization score rose from 82% to 93%.
Captain Lin nodded in approval.
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🔥 B-Class Trial World
Finally, the dome dissolved into a massive battlefield filled with projection-demons:
B-class ravagers
C-class stalkers
D-class spitters
E-class pests
F-class swarms
The trainees fought as one unit:
Aiden sniping weak spots.
Fushiguro directing attack drones.
Adolf smashing through frontline enemies like a hammer.
After an hour, drenched in sweat, bruised but unbroken, they stood victorious.
> "Forge Division potential: High,"
the evaluation drones concluded.
Aiden allowed himself a rare smile.
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PART III — The Awakening Beneath the World
Far from any city, deep below Sector 59, the earth rumbled.
Tremors shook the wasteland.
Birds fled into the sky.
The soil cracked open in wide, trembling fractures.
Something ancient… moved beneath the crust.
A tremor surged—
rocks split apart—
and a titanic maw erupted from the ground.
Ragnar Vermis.
The Titanic Worm.
Unintelligent.
S-Class.
Calamity class.
Its body stretched over 500 meters, armored in obsidian chitin, steaming acid dripping from its crushing fangs.
It screeched, a sound so deep it made the air shake and the ground ripple.
A caravan passing nearby was swallowed whole.
An abandoned outpost collapsed in seconds.
The surrounding forest disintegrated into dust under the worm's acidic spray.
It moved without goal.
Without hunger.
Without intelligence.
Just raw destruction.
The first S-Class beast to awaken in decades.