It was supposed to be a good night.

  Lokey Rimes kept his eyes on the road, hands steady on the steering wheel as the city lights slid past the windshield in blurred streaks of white and neon. In the back seat, his siblings were arguing—loudly, happily—over which McDonald’s fries were better: fresh or slightly soggy.

  “You’re insane,” Artemis said around a mouthful. “Fresh fries are objectively superior.”

  “Wrong,” Hela replied without looking up from her phone. “Soggy fries absorb salt better. Texture matters.”

  “They absorb regret.”

  Lokey smiled despite himself. He let their voices wash over him, anchoring him in the moment. He needed this—needed them to have this—before everything fell apart.

  The glovebox sat heavy at his knee.

  Inside it were legal papers. A handwritten note. And the quiet confirmation that their parents were gone—not dead, just… gone. Bank accounts drained. College funds erased. A clean severing of responsibility disguised as freedom.

  He would tell them tomorrow.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight was burgers, a movie, and pretending the world wasn’t already cracking.

  The theater went dark, and the crowd hushed as if on instinct. Then the screen exploded into color—magic and steel colliding beneath a burning sky. Towers shattered. Heroes screamed. Power answered power.

  Artemis leaned forward in his seat, eyes bright. “This is gonna be sick.”

  “Loud,” Hela muttered, though she never once looked away. The hood of her sweatshirt was pulled low, her fingers worrying at a loose thread in the sleeve.

  Lokey crossed his arms, adopting the practiced posture of mild disinterest. He failed. Just a little.

  By the time the credits rolled, the air buzzed with excitement. People poured out into the warm night, voices overlapping, laughter spilling into the parking lot.

  “That final spell combo?” Artemis punched the air. “Tell me that wasn’t the coolest thing you’ve ever seen.”

  “It wasn’t,” Hela said flatly. “They violated their own magic rules halfway through. Arcane constructs don’t regenerate after banishment.”

  “Yeah, but who cares? It looked awesome.”

  Lokey unlocked the car with a soft beep. “Seatbelts. Both of you.”

  “Mom’ll kill you if we crash,” Artemis said, sliding into the back seat. “Dad too.”

  Lokey didn’t respond.

  The engine started. The city rolled past them again—alive, familiar, safe. For a few precious minutes, everything was normal.

  Then the sky screamed.

  Not thunder. Not wind.

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  Something deeper.

  The pressure dropped so suddenly Lokey’s ears popped. The stars twisted overhead, spiraling into a jagged tear of blinding light. Symbols—ancient, geometric, wrong—flickered within the rupture like embers caught in a storm.

  “What the hell is that—” Lokey began.

  Reality flipped.

  The car spun. Tires screamed. Metal shrieked.

  White light swallowed everything.

  Birds chirped.

  That was the first thing Artemis noticed when consciousness crept back in. Birds, and the smell of green things—fresh leaves, damp soil, wildflowers.

  He groaned and sat up.

  This wasn’t asphalt.

  Grass brushed his palms. Sunlight filtered through unfamiliar trees overhead. His clothes were wrong—rugged pants, reinforced boots, a fitted vest that felt like it belonged on someone braver.

  A sword lay beside him.

  “What…?” His heart hammered.

  “Artemis.”

  Lokey’s voice—rough, strained, but alive.

  Artemis turned. Lokey stood a few yards away, blood at the corner of his mouth, shoulders squared as if he were holding himself together through sheer will.

  “Thank God,” Artemis breathed. “Where’s Hela?”

  They found her curled on the ground nearby, unconscious but breathing. Her clothes had changed too—dark, flowing robes that shimmered faintly in the sunlight. A pale wand rested near her hand.

  “She’s alive,” Lokey said. “Barely.”

  Before he could kneel beside her, the air in front of him shifted.

  Not light.

  Reality.

  Words formed, translucent and weighty, as if etched directly into the world.

  [Summoning Confirmed]

  Designation: Mortal

  Status: Unbound

  Provisional Class Assigned:

  — Forge Knight (Unawakened)

  Soul Alignment: Incomplete

  Stat Access: Restricted

  Primary Directive: Survival

  Warning: External Threat Approaching

  Lokey stared.

  No explanation followed.

  Artemis stumbled back as his own screen flickered to life.

  Class Assigned: Arcane Blade

  Skill Manifested:

  [Arcane Pulse] (Lv. 1)

  Mana: 50 / 50

  “This is—” Artemis swallowed. “This is like a game.”

  “A game that nearly killed us,” Lokey said.

  Hela gasped.

  She bolted upright, eyes wild. “Something’s coming.”

  The growl answered her.

  Low. Guttural. Close.

  Three massive shapes burst from the trees—wolves twisted into something worse. Their cracked obsidian hides glowed with molten fissures, eyes burning with feral hatred.

  Lokey moved without thinking.

  He stepped in front of his siblings.

  His hand reached back—and closed around the grip of a massive war hammer that hadn’t been there a moment before.

  The first hound lunged.

  Lokey roared and swung.

  The impact echoed like thunder. The beast slammed into a tree and didn’t rise again.

  “Artemis!” Lokey shouted.

  Blue energy erupted from Artemis’s blade, slamming into the second hound and hurling it aside.

  The third charged straight for Hela.

  She screamed.

  The earth answered.

  Bone-white fingers erupted from the ground, seizing the hound mid-leap and crushing it into the dirt. The skeletal arm crumbled to dust as the creature went still.

  Silence fell.

  Then—a chime, deep and resonant, rang through the clearing.

  Text appeared.

  Lokey’s vision swam as the first message resolved.

  Skill Manifested:

  [Endure] — Temporarily increases physical resistance

  Passive Resonance Detected:

  [Smith’s Soul]

  Effect: Enables basic construction and repair from raw materials

  Artemis’s followed, brighter and faster.

  Skill Refined:

  Arcane Pulse → Arcane Slash (Lv. 2)

  New Skill:

  [Spellbind Edge]

  Hela’s lingered longer than the others.

  Trauma-Triggered Awakening Confirmed

  Class Assigned:

  Soulbinder — Path of the Dead

  Skill Manifested:

  [Grave Grasp]

  Passive Unlocked:

  [Death Sense]

  “I heard it,” Hela whispered. “When it died. I heard it scream.”

  The forest watched them.

  Then came more growls.

  Goblins burst from the underbrush in a shrieking wave—rusted blades, chipped spears, too many.

  “Back to back!” Lokey shouted.

  They fought. They bled. They broke.

  A spear pierced Lokey’s side.

  He fell.

  “NO!” Artemis screamed.

  Silver flashed.

  A woman dropped from the trees like a falling star—twin rapiers singing through goblin flesh. She moved with impossible precision, cutting a path through the horde in seconds.

  When it was over, she knelt beside Lokey.

  “Don’t die,” she said calmly, pressing a glowing vial to his lips.

  The wounds closed. Lokey slumped unconscious.

  “I’m Asra Stone,” she said, rising. “And if you stay here, you’ll die.”

  The forest growled again.

  They followed her.