A Knife Beneath the Stars

The Academy looked peaceful.

Which was a lie.

After the incident in the courtyard, a fragile stillness had settled like mist over its walls. Professors moved in hushed tones. Students whispered rumors—some claiming the Reaver was summoned by rebels, others blaming Riven or Lira. No one said her name aloud, as if the world itself feared remembering.

But the Sleepless Ones did not fear.

They fed on forgotten things.

Two Nights Later

Riven sat alone in the old spell-forging classroom. Everyone else had cleared out after curfew, but he couldn't sleep. Not since that system message:

[Warning: You are being tracked]

The words haunted him more than any nightmare.

He stared at the half-melted blade in his hand—his own attempt at reforging the class-bound relic he'd found weeks ago. The metal hummed with residual necrotic energy… but now, it pulsed strangely in his grip.

He was changing.

He could feel it—not just in his body, but in the System's silence, in the way mana warped slightly around him. His aura was no longer holy or unholy.

It was both.

[Alignment Shift Detected. Dual Core Sync: 37%. Status: Instability Present.][Access to Chaosborn Sub-Tree Unlocked]

Riven blinked.

New Ability Unlocked: [Eclipse Veil] – Mask your presence from tracking skills, detection wards, and System-bound observatories for 33 seconds. Cooldown: 6 hours.]

"Perfect," he muttered. "Now tell me why I need to hide."

The lightbulb overhead flickered.

His eyes narrowed. "...Hello?"

The classroom door creaked open.

No footsteps.

No aura.

No presence.

Just cold.

Something walked in—and shouldn't have existed.

Outside, near the sealed forest

Lira's dream was breaking.

She stood in a memory not her own—an ancient, sunless forest filled with statues carved from memory itself. Each one bore a name she almost recognized.

She walked past them, barefoot, her hair glowing silver under an unseen moon.

A voice followed her.

"You were never supposed to wake up."

She turned.

Nothing.

Then—

A scream.

Silent.

Piercing.

She opened her eyes.

Back in the classroom

Riven dropped the molten relic and leapt backward, instinct reacting before his thoughts caught up.

The thing standing across from him had no eyes, no mouth—only a stitched mask of black bandages. Limbs bent wrong. It moved without weight, like wind given form.

[Sleepless One Detected – Tier: Unclassified][Threat Level: ???]

It moved.

So did Riven.

He activated Eclipse Veil just as it struck.

The thing passed through him, snarling silently, claws leaving behind a smear of darkness on the air. Riven rolled, grabbed a rusted holy lance from the wall, and lunged—

Only for the creature to vanish mid-swing.

He stood, breathing hard, System pulsing in warning colors.

[Message Received – Codex Authority Seal Broken][To: Chaosborn Candidate Riven Arkan]["You've been marked. We are coming. Protect the girl. Or fall like the rest."]

Elsewhere, in the Demon King's Hall

The Sleepless One returned.

Empty-handed.

The Demon King tilted his head. "It touched the boy?"

The Sleepless One nodded once, slow and painful.

The King leaned back, smiling like a corpse given mirth.

"Then it begins."

Final Scene — Lira's Room

Riven burst into her room and found her awake, eyes glowing faintly.

"You saw it too," he said.

She nodded. "They're not from this world."

"No," he said, gripping the hilt of the half-forged blade. "They're from what came before it."