---
Night in Valdris never truly slept.
It only pretended.
The market torches guttered low, shop shutters rattled in the cold breeze, and the narrow labyrinth of alleyways turned into veins of quiet danger. The air tasted of wet stone and dying embers—a city exhausted from surviving itself.
And Lyle Raft walked through it as if he owned every shadow.
He kept his noble cloak tight, the deep hood hiding his golden hair and sharp aristocratic angles. His boots made no echo. His breathing never fogged. His eyes—normally bright with performative charm—now glinted with something harder, hungrier.
Raygen.
He replayed the name in his mind with an almost tender malice.
"That boy," he murmured to no one, "doesn't move like a C-ranker."
He had tested him. Pushed him. Needled him. Drove him to the edge of reacting.
And Raygen hadn't snapped.
Not because he was too weak.
But because he was too controlled.
That… intrigued Lyle.
He paused at a crossroads of alleys, lifting his gaze just enough to look at the orphanage. A faint light glimmered behind one of the windows. The very window he had been watching earlier.
He smiled thinly.
"You're worth examining."
---
Inside the room, the air refused to calm.
Raygen sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head bowed. Asa had finally slumped into the rickety chair, boots kicked off, arms dangling loosely as if exhaustion hit her all at once.
And Alac…
Alac didn't sit.
He didn't lean.
He simply was.
A silent presence in the dim room, hands clasped behind his back, gaze directed outward through the window as though watching something beyond mortal sight.
Asa rubbed her temples with both hands.
"I'm not drunk enough for this," she muttered.
"You're not drunk at all," Raygen said quietly.
"Exactly." She glared halfheartedly. "Which is the problem."
Raygen managed a small exhale that wasn't quite a laugh. The weight of Alac's presence made humor feel like contraband.
Asa turned toward him, eyes narrowing with sisterly suspicion. "Okay. Ground rules. Start talking about what I can know, since apparently there's a giant cosmic mute button on everything important."
Alac did not turn, but his voice answered:
"She may know emotions, intent, outcomes… but the System itself will remain hidden until she grows into her role."
Asa lifted a hand.
"See—THAT right there. That's the kind of cryptic nonsense that makes me want to headbutt cosmic entities."
"You would fracture your skull," Alac said mildly.
"Don't tempt me."
Raygen stood up. "Asa, I promise—when I can tell you more, I will."
She studied him.
Not with anger.
With worry.
And worry, for Asa, always disguised itself as something louder.
"Raygen…" she started. Her voice softened. "Little idiot… you changed today. Not the 'new skill, new scar, new trauma' kind of change. Something deeper."
Raygen's jaw tightened. "I know."
Asa looked at Alac. "And you—Mr. Darkness-and-Light-Stitched-Together—what exactly did you change in him?"
Alac turned.
The shadows moved with him like obedient servants.
"I did not change him," Alac said. "I awakened what was already growing. And I granted form to what clung to him."
Raygen's eyes flickered.
"The shard."
Asa stiffened. "Shard? What shard? Why does that sound like something expensive and catastrophic?"
But Raygen couldn't answer.
The moment he tried, the words evaporated on his tongue.
Asa clicked her tongue in irritation. "Nope. Hate that. Hate cosmic censorship. Top of my hate list."
Raygen opened his mouth again—only to have silence fall.
Not normal silence.
A shuddering silence.
Alac's head snapped toward the window.
Raygen felt it a second later.
A pulse.
A ripple.
A disturbance in the invisible field around the building.
Asa's eyes sharpened instantly. "Someone outside?"
"Yes," Alac said. "A watcher. One who tasted your resonance today and now seeks more."
Raygen felt his pulse jump.
"…Lyle."
Asa's face twisted. "The noble brat? The one I almost smashed a chair over? He's a watcher? Of what?"
Alac answered without taking his eyes off the darkness beyond the window.
"Patterns. Potentials. Weak points in fate. He is born from lineage steeped in observation and precision. They train their young to analyze until madness becomes second nature."
Raygen frowned. "You're saying nobles can do that?"
"No."
Alac's voice deepened, cold enough to frost breath.
"I am saying his bloodline can."
Asa drew a dagger. "I'll carve his bloodline right out of him."
Raygen placed a hand on her arm. "Wait. If he followed us here—he wants something."
"Yeah," Asa said. "He wants to get stabbed."
"No," Raygen said. "He wants answers. He's testing."
Alac nodded. "Correct."
Raygen swallowed. "Does he know anything? About me? About… the system?"
"No," Alac said. "But he knows you are wrong."
"…Wrong?"
"Incorrect. Off-pattern. Something that should not be where you are."
Asa muttered, "Well, that's rude."
Raygen's mind churned.
"So what do I do?"
Alac turned fully now, stepping toward Raygen until they were close enough for Raygen to see lightning veins under his skin.
"What you must always do," Alac said. "Hide. Grow. Watch."
"And if he becomes a problem?" Asa said.
Alac's eyes glowed faintly.
"He will."
That was not a prediction.
That was a guarantee.
Asa shook out her arms, warming her muscles. "So what, we go out there and scare him off?"
"No," Alac said. "He would welcome that. Engagement confirms suspicion."
Raygen nodded slowly. "So we let him watch."
Alac lowered his chin in agreement.
"For now."
Asa bristled. "This feels like letting a rat live in the pantry."
"That rat," Alac said, "has teeth sharper than most monsters you have fought."
"Still a rat," Asa snapped. "I've killed worse."
Raygen gave her a tired look.
"You punched a wyvern once."
"Yeah," she said. "And I'd do it again."
Alac blinked, as if genuinely unsure whether she was joking.
Raygen sighed.
"Asa, we need to be smart."
She rolled her eyes but lowered her dagger.
"Fine. But if he tries to break in, I'm removing his kneecaps."
Raygen smiled despite everything.
"…Thanks."
"Don't thank me," she replied. "I do this because I refuse to let some snooty noble brat kill my little brother. If anyone is going to traumatize you, it'll be me."
Raygen chuckled.
But Alac did not.
His eyes narrowed.
"There is more."
Raygen tensed. "More?"
Alac stepped closer to Asa—slowly, carefully, as if approaching a volatile relic.
"You," he said.
Asa froze.
"…Me?"
Raygen looked between them. "Alac?"
Alac extended his hand—not touching, but hovering near her shoulder.
"You carry something ancient," he murmured. "A fragment of a law that was lost. It clings to you because you named me. Because you resonated with the void's last cry. Because fate bent toward you… and you bent back."
Raygen's mind went cold.
The shard.
But not his.
Asa's.
Asa blinked, confusion melting into suspicion. "What are you talking about? I'm barely scraping B-rank on a good day."
"You misunderstand," Alac said softly. "Rank means nothing to the law embedded within you."
Raygen's breath caught.
"So she's… like me?"
"No," Alac said. "Not like you. Not like any system user."
He looked at Asa with something that resembled respect.
"You are a bearer of Destruction."
Asa blinked. "I'm sorry—WHAT?"
Raygen nearly choked.
"Destruction?! As in—cosmic-ending destruction?!"
Asa pointed at herself. "Me?! I can't even destroy my laundry pile!"
Alac's expression did not change.
"Destruction manifests not as violence, but as inevitability. You end things simply by being their terminus."
Asa stared.
"I need… someone to explain that using small words."
Raygen translated.
"It means you don't blow things up. You… end them."
"…Still not helpful."
"It means," Alac clarified, "your destiny is to sever. To conclude. To collapse what must fall. You are the final cut in a world afraid to resolve its wounds."
Asa stared at him.
Then at Raygen.
Then at her own hands.
Then sighed.
"…Great. So I'm a walking finale. Amazing. Fantastic. Love that for me."
Raygen stepped toward her. "Asa—"
"No," she said. "I'm fine. I just… I just need a second to comprehend the fact that apparently I'm holding the cosmic equivalent of a dead god's rib bone."
Raygen winced.
"Okay, that's… not incorrect."
Asa sank back into her chair.
"I hate this world," she whispered.
Alac tilted his head. "You are handling this news remarkably well."
"I am suppressing a breakdown," she replied. "On purpose."
Raygen rubbed the back of his neck.
"Asa… I'm here. Whatever this means—we deal with it together."
Asa looked up at him.
And her irritation cracked just enough for something soft to show.
"…Yeah. I know, little idiot."
Alac stepped away, gaze returning to the window.
"The watcher still lingers."
Raygen frowned.
"What is he waiting for?"
Alac closed his eyes.
"He is waiting," he said, "for a mistake."
---
Outside, in the alley below, Lyle Raft pressed a hand to the wall.
The stones vibrated faintly.
Something inside that room unsettled the patterns he relied on.
Something inside that room was not normal.
He smiled.
Not cruelly.
Not warmly.
But with the anticipation of a scholar who has finally found a new specimen.
"Raygen…" he murmured.
And then his eyes opened—revealing irises shaped like concentric gears.
"I will learn what you are."
The gears rotated once.
The wall of the building flickered.
And Lyle Raft vanished into the night.
---