Two weeks passed in a blur of escalating reports and tightened protocols. It wasn't just us anymore—what happened in Sector 17 was happening everywhere. Fusioner sightings. Mission collapses. Observation targets vanishing without a trace. Entire blocks blacking out under unexplained surges of pressure.
It got to the point that the directive came down hard and fast: Cease all field operations. Resume curriculum. Let the handlers handle it.
Officially, we were told it was "precautionary"—a temporary measure to ensure cadet safety. Unofficially? We knew what it meant.
They didn't know what they were dealing with.
Every squadron reported some form of anomaly. Not just enemy aggression, but intelligence—calculated disruption that didn't match the usual Fusioner behavior. Not entirely coordinated, not random either. Like someone—or something—was testing us.
So while the heads scrambled to piece together the pattern, we were stuck running drills and reviewing outdated scenarios in reinforced simulators.
Classrooms felt smaller. Halls quieter. Eyes sharper.
Some cadets joked about it—called it "the calm before a bigger storm." Others just buried themselves in training, maybe hoping that if they acted like soldiers, they'd feel less like targets.
As for me? I stayed watchful. Ferez too. We didn't talk much about that night anymore. We didn't need to.
"Hey… isn't our graduation from cadet status coming up in three weeks?"
"Yeah. Crazy, right? Feels like we just got here—and now we're about to be thrown into the deep end."
"Who knew we wouldn't even need a full year in training."
"Not sure that's a good thing."
They both fell quiet after that. The air carried the weight of everything unspoken. Whatever came after graduation—it wouldn't be anything like what they'd been told to expect.
With graduation on the horizon, the only thing left was for our Weaver Cores to be fully initialized. Only then would we gain access to the runic spells and structural enhancements—some uniquely engraved into us at birth, others inherited through bloodline or resonance.
The initialization process unfolded in three distinct phases.
The first was the Stabilization Phase. During this, dormant runes began to pulse faintly through our systems, syncing slowly with the core to ensure it didn't collapse under the influx of energy. Stabilization could be naturally accelerated by absorbing essence during Layer Break hunts, especially through the extermination of abominations.
Next came the Numerical Assignment Phase. Think of it like assigning stats in a game. We were given five points—just five—to allocate across a variety of traits known as Procurements. These points would influence the shape and intensity of the second wave of runes to be engraved into our cores, directly affecting our future capabilities.
Finally, the Convene Phase. Once the core was fully fed and shaped, it entered a brief evolutionary state. This didn't change the type of core, but rather awakened the dormant engravings we were born with. It was here the Weaver Core became truly our own—unique, awakened, and bound to our identity.
After three days, the same disruptions that had shaken the Overseer cadets began surfacing across the other squadrons. Similar patterns—compromised missions, sudden hostilities, unfamiliar fusioner activity—forced the handlers to issue cease-action orders across the board.
Just like that, every squadron was pulled back into academy life.
But this time, it was different. Training became more rigorous, more compressed. The tempo changed. What once felt like preparation now felt like acceleration.
Whispers floated between dorm walls and mess halls: the higher-ups—those above even the handlers—had intervened. Not out of impatience, but urgency. They weren't rushing cadets into the field blindly. They were trying to equip them fast, to send them out ready.
Something was happening. Something none of us were being told.
Whatever it was, it was enough to make them bring our graduation forward. Instead of three weeks, we now had four days.
Four days until we were no longer cadets. Four days until the world truly became ours to face.
When the cadets weren't out on drills or simulations, they were locked in independent studies—some out of discipline, others because they could sense something was off. The academy halls were quieter, but the silence held a tension, like a breath waiting to be exhaled.
Seyfe, however, had his focus elsewhere.
He had returned to digging into the hidden archives in his Cellik, the encoded memory vault that only he seemed to have the right access to. There, buried beneath encrypted segments, he continued uncovering more fragments of the first-generation S-Class Veiler—Garuda Hinikaya.
Most of the data was fragmented, corroded by time or intentionally buried. But what Seyfe managed to access painted the faint outline of a man unlike any other.
Garuda's combat lessons were layered, precise, and strangely personal. As if he had recorded them with the belief that someone—maybe even Seyfe—would one day find them.
The man's origins, based on tone, mannerisms, and features in the few surviving videos, suggested he was of Asian descent—a lineage that now made up a minute fraction of the global population within the unified Pangea. His voice carried both sharp control and a lingering melancholy, like someone who had seen the world fall and still kept walking.
In one archive, Seyfe came across fragmented clips of Garuda's equipment—archaic by modern standards. Weapons and tools that functioned with strange, hybrid mechanics—part runic, part analog. Relics from a time where technology had not yet merged so cleanly with Weaver integration. They looked primitive, but they moved with purpose in Garuda's hands.
Most intriguing of all, Garuda had a habit of stashing his gear across scattered locations, always subtly pinning their coordinates on maps visible in the background of his recordings. Seyfe began marking them, unsure if they still existed or had long since been lost to time—but something told him they weren't just sentimental tokens. They were meant to be found.
And Seyfe intended to find them.
Seyfe's first goal wasn't some legendary weapon or a forgotten battle suit. No, he was hunting something far more practical:
Garuda Hinikaya's Cellik card.
It was mentioned only once, half-muttered in the background of a combat analysis clip as Garuda moved through an old hideout. The phrase was casual—"Wallet's still in the left hatch. Not like I'll be needing it anymore." Most would have overlooked it.
Seyfe didn't.
He paused the clip, rewound it three times, and enhanced the image in the background. A map. Coordinates. Barely legible, but still there—etched in faded runes behind Garuda's shoulder. It led to an old Pangean sector, long since shut off from public access, labeled in older maps as Zone T-97, now marked unstable terrain, reformation pending.
To most, that meant danger.
To Seyfe, it meant opportunity.
The academy debts were piling. Between the Cellik data use, gear rentals, and a few "unauthorized" enhancements to his cloak module, he was bleeding credits. A dead man's wallet—especially one belonging to an S-Class Veiler—might be exactly the break he needed.
"Who knows," Seyfe muttered, smirking as he loaded the coordinates into his personal route cache, "maybe Garuda left more than just money in there."
The ceremony hall had an air of anticipation, the hum of energy almost palpable. Cadets were lined up in neat rows, their eyes focused on the front as they awaited their turn to undergo the final step of their training—Weaver Core Initialization.
Seyfe stood in line with his fellow Overseer Squadron cadets—Jerome, Saline, and Emi. His mind was a mix of nerves and determination, but more than anything, there was a quiet frustration. He had hoped for this moment to be a bit more... personal, a singular achievement that felt like a milestone. Instead, it was more like a mechanical process, with each cadet receiving their core in rapid succession.
Jerome, tall and unwavering, stood next to him with a look of quiet focus. Saline, the sharp-minded and quick-witted member of the squad, was fiddling with her fingers in anticipation, while Emi stood stoically, her usually expressive face masked by a hard-set jaw.
"Relax, Seyfe," Jerome said, glancing at him. "It's not as bad as it seems. Besides, we've got this far."
Seyfe forced a smile. He didn't want to admit it, but the rush of the past weeks had made it hard to ignore the mounting pressure. Now, with the Weaver Core Initialization coming up, it felt as though everything was moving faster than he could handle. And with the other cadets' attitudes brimming with confidence, he couldn't help but feel like an imposter among them.
"Right," Seyfe replied, his voice flat. "We've come this far."
The Overseer handlers, standing at the front, signaled the start of the initialization process. One by one, cadets were called up to the platform, their weaver cores glimmering with light as they were slowly fed with the necessary runic engravings. There was a hum in the air as each step was completed, and the cadets' expressions changed—some to awe, others to confusion, but all to a greater understanding of the power now coursing through them.
Then it was their turn.