Pain.
That was the first thing Vane knew. It was not the sharp sting of a cut or the throb of a bruise. It was a dull, grinding agony that felt like his skeleton had been disassembled and put back together by a drunkard working in the dark.
He opened his eyes.
He was lying in the remains of the cellar. Sunlight was streaming down through a massive, jagged hole in the floor above him, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. The air tasted of pulverized stone, ozone, and copper.
Vane tried to move his legs. He could not. He looked down. His left leg was twisted at an angle that made his stomach turn, pinned beneath a heavy oak beam.
He coughed, spitting out grey dust.
"Mother?" he rasped.
The silence that answered him was heavy. It was not the quiet of an empty room. It was the stillness of a grave.
Vane dragged himself forward. His fingers dug into the debris, leaving bloody streaks on the broken stone. He ignored the screaming protests of his shattered leg. He climbed up the mound of rubble that used to be the east wing.
He found the wheelchair first. It was twisted metal, flattened like a coin on a train track.
Then he found her.
She was half-buried under a section of the roof. There was no blood. Just the stillness of a puppet that had been discarded. Her eyes were open, staring up at the grey sky she had hated so much. The dust had settled on her lashes like snow.
Vane froze.
He reached out. His hand trembled uncontrollably. He triggered [Thermal Equilibrium (Grade F)]. He tried to find a heat signature. A spark. Anything.
[Target Temp: Ambient.]
She was gone.
She had not even been the target. Gareth had not aimed at her. He had not even looked at the house. She was just collateral damage. An ant stepped on by a giant who did not even look down to check his boot.
A crunch of boots on gravel made him turn.
Gareth was standing at the edge of the crater. The Knight looked immaculate. His white armor gleamed in the sunlight, unstained by the destruction he had wrought. He was not even breathing hard.
He walked down the slope of debris. He ignored Vane. He ignored the body of the woman. He walked to a pile of shattered furniture and bent down.
He picked up something golden.
The envelope.
Gareth brushed the dust off the wax seal. He froze.
"The Zenith Seal?" Gareth muttered.
He looked at the letter, then at Vane, who was trembling in the dirt, clutching his mother's cold hand.
"A Protected Admission?" Gareth sounded annoyed. Not guilty. Just annoyed. Like he had filed a form incorrectly. "Headmistress Evangeline's personal seal."
He tossed the letter onto Vane's chest. It landed with a soft thud.
"You should have led with that," Gareth said. "Would have saved me the mana."
He turned around. His cloak swirled, pristine white against the grey ruin.
"Wait," Vane whispered. His voice was a broken thing.
Gareth did not stop. He activated a flight spell, rising into the air with a hum of power.
"Wait!" Vane screamed, his voice cracking. "You killed her! You killed her!"
Gareth paused, hovering twenty feet in the air. He looked down. His face was hidden behind the visor, but his posture spoke of mild irritation.
"She was in the way," the Knight said simply.
Then he flew away, disappearing into the grey clouds toward the capital.
Vane lay in the ruins of his life. The silence rushed back in, louder than the explosion had been.
He tried to wipe the dust from Helena's face. It just smeared the grime. He grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her free, but the beam was too heavy. Even with his Rank 3 strength, broken as he was, he could not move it.
"Wake up," he pleaded. "I have a healing skill. I have Grade E mending. Just wake up."
She did not move.
Vane collapsed back against the rubble. He looked at the golden letter resting on his chest. The blood from his cough had smeared over the gold leaf, dulling its shine.
'Frog in a well,' she had said. 'You have never seen the ocean.'
Vane laughed. It was a wet, gurgling sound that turned into a sob.
She was right. He had been playing at power. He had been satisfied with being the biggest fish in a mud puddle, surrounded by people weaker than him. He had thought forty-three skills made him invincible.
But against absolute power, versatility was just a joke.
He gripped the letter. The memory of the woman who gave it to him crashed into his mind, triggered by the smell of ozone and failure.
Three months ago.
Headmistress Evangeline stood in his office. She had just frozen his guards in time. She looked at Vane, who was clutching a stolen dagger, sweating.
"I saw you in the street," Evangeline said. Her eyes were like collapsing stars. "You copied a skill from a thief. A little burst of speed. It hurt you, did it not?"
"I can handle it," Vane had growled.
"You handle the pain of insects," she corrected. "You copy Grade F and Grade E skills because the trauma attached to them is small. A beaten child. A hungry beggar. You can digest that."
She stepped closer. The pressure of her presence made Vane's knees buckle.
"But you want to be a King. To do that, you need Grade S skills. Grade EX skills. Do you know what happens if you try to copy my sword art, Vane?"
Vane shook his head, unable to speak.
"To copy a skill, you must absorb the memory of its training. To copy my sword art, your mind would have to absorb eighty years of torture, discipline, and bloodshed in a single second. Your brain would liquefy. You are mortal. You cannot steal time."
She dropped the golden letter on his desk.
"But Authorities... those are different. Authorities are not learned. They are born from a single, defining fracture in the soul. A specific nightmare."
She smiled. It was the smile of a wolf looking at a promising pup.
"You cannot steal time, Vane. But you can steal pain. Come to Zenith. Find the monsters who hold the Authorities of this world. Survive their nightmares. That is the only shortcut to godhood."
Vane opened his eyes.
The memory faded, leaving him cold.
He looked at his hand. He looked at his 43 skills.
Evangeline was right. He could never beat Gareth by copying skills. Gareth had spent decades refining his Aura. If Vane tried to copy that, his mind would shatter under the weight of those years.
He did not need skills. He needed Authorities.
He needed to find people who held EX-Rank concepts. He needed to dive into their minds and survive the apocalypse that created them.
It was suicide. It was madness.
But looking at his mother's dead face, Vane realized he was already dead. The boy who wanted to protect Oakhaven died under this roof.
He gripped the letter. The paper crinkled under his bloodied fingers.
He was not going to Zenith to learn. He was not going to Zenith to become important. He was not going to be a student.
He was going there to find a weapon. A weapon big enough to kill a Sentinel. A weapon big enough to kill a God.
"I accept," Vane whispered to the empty air.
He ripped the seal.
Golden light engulfed him, swallowing the ruins, the body, and the failure.
The King of Puddles died in the rubble. The Usurper was born.