SERINA POV
The Dead Forest earned its name.
I'd been walking for six hours and hadn't seen a single living thing. No birds. No insects. Not even weeds growing between the twisted black trees. Just silence so heavy it pressed against my ears like water.
The map said I was close. Another mile, maybe less.
That's when I heard the screaming.
I dropped into a crouch behind a boulder, hand on my knife. Through the dead trees, I saw three Academy soldiers dragging a girl my age toward a clearing. She fought like a wildcat, but they were all Rank Sevens. She didn't stand a chance.
"Please!" the girl sobbed. "I didn't do anything! I'm just a Four!"
"Exactly," one soldier laughed. "Perfect test subject. The Headmaster wants to know if the shrine's wards have weakened. You get to find out for us."
They were going to throw her into the shrine to see if it killed her.
I should've stayed hidden. Should've kept walking. I had sixty hours left to save Kael, and getting involved in someone else's problem was stupid.
But I'd spent nineteen years watching people with power hurt people without it. Spent nineteen years being the person everyone threw away.
I was so tired of watching.
I picked up a rock and threw it hard at the closest soldier's head. It hit with a satisfying crack. He went down, and the other two spun toward me.
"Run!" I shouted at the girl.
She didn't need to be told twice. She bolted into the trees while the soldiers charged at me. I ran too, leading them away from her, deeper into the forest where the trees grew so thick they could barely follow.
One soldier was faster than the others. He caught up, grabbed my coat, and yanked me backward. I twisted, drove my elbow into his throat, and kicked his knee. He stumbled but didn't go down—Rank Sevens were enhanced with magic that made them stronger, faster, harder to hurt.
His fist caught me in the ribs. Pain exploded through my chest. I tasted blood.
"Stupid Zero," he snarled, pulling back for another hit.
Then the ground beneath us started glowing.
We'd run right into the shrine's territory. Purple light blazed from cracks in the earth, spreading like veins. The soldier's eyes went wide with terror.
"No, no, NO—"
The light touched his boots and he started screaming. His body flickered like a dying candle flame. One second he was solid, the next he was transparent. Then he was just... gone. Erased. Like he'd never existed at all.
The other soldiers skidded to a stop at the edge of the glowing area, staring in horror.
"She's inside the wards!" one shouted. "She's dead!"
They turned and ran.
But I wasn't dead.
The purple light crawled up my legs, wrapping around my body like living smoke. It should've hurt. Should've been unmaking me the same way it unmade that soldier. Instead, it felt... warm. Almost familiar.
When it touched my Zero tattoo, the mark started burning. I gasped and fell to my knees, clutching my wrist. The black ink was moving, writhing like something alive underneath my skin. For just a second, I saw what was hidden beneath the Zero—complex violet patterns that looked like dragon wings spreading across my forearm.
Then the burning stopped. The light faded. My tattoo looked normal again.
But I was still alive. Still breathing. Still whole.
The shrine's wards hadn't killed me. They'd let me pass.
I stood on shaking legs and looked ahead. Through the dead trees, I could see it—massive obsidian doors carved with warnings in a language I shouldn't have been able to read but somehow understood perfectly:
HERE SLEEPS DRAKTHAR NYX VOID-BORNWORLD-END DRAGON
WAKE HIM AND BURN WITH THE KINGDOMS HE DESTROYSONLY BLOOD OF THE WORTHY MAY PASS
The doors were thirty feet tall, covered in golden chains that pulsed with trapped magic. Even from here, I could feel the power radiating from inside. It made my teeth ache and my bones vibrate.
This was insane. I should turn back. Find another way to save Kael.
But there was no other way. This was it. My only chance.
I walked toward the doors, each step feeling heavier than the last. The air grew thick, like moving through honey. Pressure built in my skull until I thought my head might split open.
When I reached the doors, I pressed both palms against the cold obsidian.
Nothing happened.
"Please," I whispered. "I need to save my brother. I need something valuable enough to trade for his life. I need—"
The doors began to open.
Ancient hinges groaned like the earth itself was crying out. Golden light spilled from the widening crack, so bright I had to shield my eyes. The air that rushed out was hot and smelled like smoke and something else—something old and wild and dangerous.
Inside, I could see an altar made of black stone, wrapped in chains that glowed like captured starlight. And beyond that, in the shadows at the back of the shrine, something massive was breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
Each breath made the ground tremble slightly. Made the chains rattle. Made my heart pound so hard I thought it might break through my ribs.
I took one step inside. Then another.
The doors slammed shut behind me with a sound like thunder.
For a moment, I stood in darkness so complete I couldn't see my own hands. Then the altar began to glow, and I saw the instructions carved into its surface in that same language I could impossibly read:
BLOOD OF THE WORTHY SHALL WAKE WHAT SLEEPSLIFE FOR LIFEBIND OR BE BOUNDCHOOSE
I didn't understand what it meant. Didn't understand any of this. But I understood one thing: those chains wrapped around the altar were made of pure condensed magic. If I could break off even one link, I could sell it for enough to save Kael ten times over.
I pulled out my knife and tried to pry at a chain link. It didn't budge. I hit it harder. Nothing.
Blood of the worthy, the altar said.
Fifty-nine hours left. Kael was running out of time.
I pressed my knife against my palm and cut deep. Blood welled up, hot and red. I pressed my bleeding hand against the altar.
The effect was immediate and catastrophic.
The chains exploded outward in a shower of golden light. The altar cracked down the middle. The entire shrine shook like a giant had kicked it. And from the shadows at the back, something moved.
A voice spoke—deep, ancient, furious, and absolutely terrifying:
"WHO DARES SUMMON ME?"
Two enormous eyes opened in the darkness. They glowed like molten gold, brighter than the sun, and they were looking right at me.
Oh gods. Oh gods, what had I done?
The breathing I'd heard wasn't sleeping. It was waiting.
And I'd just woken up the World-End Dragon.