Raze tapped his fingers against the holographic map, highlighting a blurred section among the mountains.

  "Reconnaissance and cleanup. Three maintenance robots disappeared in this sector.The system's detecting anomalous energy spikes. You'll investigate and determine the cause."

  He handed us two days' worth of rations and navigation gear.

  "A training mission doesn't require heavy armament." Raze's tone stayed dry, but I noticed his shoulders tense as he spoke.

  Something felt wrong.

  "Why send us instead of professional soldiers? This zone isn't even marked on the standard maps of the re—"

  Raze cut Mira off mid-sentence.

  "Exactly why. The academy must prepare you for the unknown. Especially students as... special as yourselves."

  The last word dripped with mockery. We were the dregs. Broken toys. Easy to discard. No paperwork.

  The climb into the mountains took most of the day. With every hundred meters, the air thinned, but tension grew. Tara felt it first.

  "Something's wrong with my infusions..."

  She shook a flask of restorative potion. The liquid had gone from bright emerald to muddy sludge.

  "They're destabilizing."

  The tournament came back to me. Back then, everyone's magic had vanished at once too. Back then, everyone became helpless. And then the demon appeared and started killing.

  Val made a cut on his palm, trying to form his signature blood shield. Instead of a solid crimson wall, only a pitiful mist seeped from the wound, dissolving in the air before he finished the incantation.

  "The further we go, the weaker the magic gets." He stared at his bleeding hand. "Like something's draining the energy."

  Aris looked worst of all: pale, forehead slick with sweat. After the tournament, his shadows had never fully recovered, and here they thrashed like panicked animals.

  "This place... it's all wrong. Like reality got twisted."

  Strange, but I was the only one feeling no discomfort. The opposite, actually. With each step toward the summit, something dormant inside me was waking, gathering strength as we approached. My lungs worked easier. Muscles filled with power. That scared me more than it should.

  We reached the plateau at sunset. Before us spread ruins of incredible age: time-blackened columns arranged in an irregular circle around a strange depression in the center, resembling an abandoned well. The stones were covered in strange symbols—not runes, not letters. Something older. Primal.

  "This shouldn't be here."

  Mira slowly circled the perimeter, carefully touching her fingers to the age-darkened stones.

  "Magic everywhere. It's like air."

  Kyle pointed at indentations in the ground leading to the center of the circle.

  "Robot tracks. Three, like Raze said. But why were they heading toward the center? Maintenance bots aren't programmed for exploration."

  I stayed silent, studying the symbols. They seemed... alive. Pulsing with energy like a sleeping creature's heartbeat. And with each passing second, I felt more certain that I understood them. Not with my mind. Deeper. In my soul.

  "No demon traces here." Val kept scanning the area, nervously gripping his knife handle. "And magic barely works. This place... it's like it sucks the power out of you."

  Tara swayed, grabbing Mira's shoulder for support.

  "I feel sick. My head... spinning."

  The sun disappeared beyond the horizon, and everything changed. The symbols on the stones began glowing faintly red. Not all of them—only some, forming a strange pattern. Almost like a constellation.

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  "We need to leave." Aris was shaking, his shadows writhing in panic. "This place... it knows we're here."

  I approached the nearest column where a particularly bright symbol glowed. It resembled a figure eight lying on its side, but fractured down the middle. An infinity sign, warped and broken.

  "Luten, don't touch it!"

  Something inside me reached for that symbol. Demanded contact.

  As if hypnotized, I touched the rough surface. The moment of contact, the symbol blazed with blinding light, and reality around me began to warp.

  Colors vanished first.

  The vivid sunset hues, the reddish glints on the stones, even the blood on Val's palm—all of it faded to gray, as if life had been drained from the world. Then sound. Tara's frightened cry broke off mid-breath, dissolving into thick silence.

  One heartbeat, and time stopped. My companions froze: Mira with her hand outstretched in a desperate gesture, Kyle frozen mid-turn, Val with clots of blood hanging motionless in the air before him.

  "What—"

  My voice sounded strange, like someone else was speaking. Muffled. No echo.

  This was familiar. I'd been here before, in this gray space between everything. During the entrance exam at the academy. Again, in the final battle, when the Gatekeeper tried to seize my body.

  First I saw only a vague ripple in the air—an unclear outline, wavering like a reflection in water. Then it took shape. Long. Sinuous. Hovering. I couldn't make out details, just a shimmering silhouette, translucent, containing the impossible.

  In its contours I sensed something ancient, powerful, not belonging to this world. Four wings of pure light spread wide like blazing fans, emanating from the blurred form, creating an impression of otherworldly majesty.

  I couldn't see the creature's eyes—just two glowing voids for eyes. But I felt its gaze: heavy, assessing, ancient.

  This voice wasn't sound. It arose directly in my consciousness, bypassing hearing entirely.

  "Who are you?"

  I didn't recognize my own voice, so weak amid this emptiness.

  The silhouette wavered, sometimes growing clearer, sometimes dissolving to mist. The wings of light pulsed in a complex rhythm, creating waves in the texture of reality.

  "What is this place?"

  The creature curved, surrounding me in a spiral of its body, but not approaching. I stood at the center of a living ring, feeling strange safety and entrapment at once.

  "What are you talking about?"

  Something inside me responded: cold, heavy, sleeping deep beneath my skin.

  "What's happening to me? What's inside me?"

  The creature brought what seemed to be its head closer to my face. I couldn't see details—just the blurred silhouette—but I sensed the ancientness radiating from it, like cold from eternal ice.

  It drew back. Its form grew less distinct, as if dispersing.

  I stepped back.

  No, not again.

  "My friends need me. I'm not leaving them."

  I retreated another step, feeling a chill run down my spine. Too familiar. The Gatekeeper said things like this.

  "Last time I trusted a creature from this place, a good man died."

  My voice trembled with restrained bitterness.

  "I don't make hasty choices anymore."

  Wise sorrow slipped through its tone.

  "I won't leave them. And I won't trust you so easily."

  The creature stilled,studying me thoughtfully in what seemed simple.

  It spread its wings of light, filling the gray world with light.

  "Understanding what?"

  Its form dissolved into the gray haze, and the final words reached me as if from infinite distance.

  Reality crashed back in one sharp blow. Colors returned. Sound followed slowly. I found myself in the same position by the column, fingers still pressed to the symbol. But now it was dead—just a burned black groove where the glow had been.

  Time resumed its flow, and I watched in horror as my companions collapsed one by one, crumpling to the ground like puppets whose strings had been cut.