The sky was not weeping; the sky was enraged.

  Thunder detonated directly atop his skull, the vibrations traveling down the spear shaft, crawling up his arm, then slamming into a heart already racing toward madness. To a common man, the sound would be deafening. To Noel, it was silence. An absolute quiet filled only by the pounding of his own life, now wagered on the altar of fate.

  He could not speak, but his body screamed.

  His thigh muscles felt as though they were being pulled by hot wires, trembling violently to support a body weight multiplied by the crushing pressure of the array. The trigrams and ancient runes glowing violet on the muddy ground were not mere decorative lights. They were anchors. Artificial gravity. It was as if the ancient mansion of House Sanjaya were trying to swallow him whole into the bowels of the earth.

  Not yet... I am not finished.

  Noel’s eyes, stung by a mixture of rain and sweat, stared bleakly ahead.

  There, behind the dense curtain of rain, they stood. The elders. His own flesh and blood. Uncle with his cigar glowing red—the only point of fire brave enough to defy the deluge. Aunt with her silk fan, looking at Noel as one looks at a cockroach struggling to climb out of a latrine. Grandfather and Grandmother in the center, their faces flat, emotionless, as if Noel’s death today would be nothing more than a footnote in the family’s long history.

  They were dry. They were warm. They were safe.

  While Noel stood here, in the eye of this artificial storm, alone.

  Lightning struck again, illuminating those arrogant faces in a split second of painful white light. In that flash, Noel saw a thin smirk on his cousin’s face.

  You think this is punishment? Noel thought, teeth grinding against the bone-piercing chill. You think by tearing out my voice and breaking my body, I will kneel and beg for mercy?

  His breath hunted, white steam jetting from his nose with every exhalation—the only sign the machine inside his body still functioned.

  He straightened his back. A soft crack sounded from his spine. The pain was excruciating, like being stabbed by thousands of ice needles. But he did not care.

  The spear in his hand—rough, heavy black iron—was not a weapon to him. It was a quill. And the empty air before him was his parchment.

  Noel closed his eyes.

  The visual world vanished, replaced by the perception of energy.

  The runic lines on the ground felt like giant spiderwebs wrapping around his legs. The energy was sharp, hostile, and arrogant. Just like its masters.

  You want to see art? I will show you art.

  He did not retreat. He did not evade.

  With the dregs of strength scavenged from the pit of his stomach, Noel stomped his right foot forward. Splash! Muddy water erupted.

  His right hand moved. Not the panicked flailing of a drowning man, but the precise stroke of a maestro.

  The tip of the spear glowed faintly—not from magic, but from the friction of speed and pure Will channeled through it.

  Shhhink!

  He scored the air.

  One horizontal line. Simple. Decisive.

  Yet, the effect was terrifying.

  The raindrops before him were bisected. The roaring wind seemed forcibly severed. The pressure of the array crushing his chest suddenly hiccuped, as if something foreign and sharp had just torn out the throat of the magical formation.

  Noel opened his eyes. His gaze was no longer that of a victim. It was the gaze of a cornered predator.

  He could not speak, so he let his spear deliver the message to his arrogant family on the terrace. The imaginary line he had carved still lingered on their retinas, a silent declaration of war.

  Come at me again, all of you... his mind roared, louder than the thunder. Send lightning, send storms, send all your hatred. I will sever it all.

  He lifted his chin, challenging the sky, challenging them. His spear pointed straight at the heart of the formation.

  Inside his head, Noel had built a fortress. He muted the howl of the wind, extinguished the rumble of thunder, and plugged his ears against the mockery of nature. He created a void—an absolute silence where only his own heartbeat existed.

  But that defense cracked. Not by the storm, but by an alien rhythm infiltrating his sanctuary.

  Tap... tap... tap...

  The sound of expensive leather soles on wet stone. The rhythm was calm, too calm for a situation this tense. The sound leaked from the distance, seeping into Noel’s consciousness like cold drops from a leaking roof.

  The voice of the Old Ancestor of House Sanjaya spoke. It was not the voice of a living man. It sounded like two ancient tombstones grinding against each other—dry, raspy, vibrating the soul of anyone who heard it. There was the scent of graveyard soil and ancestral dust in every syllable.

  "Lord Singh," a voice spoke, "foul weather for a visit this late at night..."

  Noel did not turn, but his ears caught the reply—cold and dripping with authority.

  "I offer no pleasantries, Patriarch. How goes the Young Master’s ritual... The King awaits the result."

  Silence for a moment. Then, a small chuckle was heard. A terrifying chuckle.

  "Hmph, look there..."

  "He appears to be struggling..." Gavin continued.

  "You underestimate House Sanjaya," the Old Ancestor replied curtly.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  And that was when the world detonated.

  BOOOOOOM!!!

  The sky split in two. The thunder this time was not merely sound; it was a sledgehammer striking the earth.

  The sound breached the wall of silence Noel had painstakingly built. His mental fortress crumbled instantly. The painful reality—the cold of the rain, the agony of his muscles, the crushing weight of the array—flooded back into his senses in a lethal shockwave.

  "Ugh!" Noel jerked, fresh blood seeping from the corner of his lips.

  Damn it... this is the critical moment!

  The rhythm of his breathing shattered. His energy was in chaos. If he lost focus now, this array would not train him; it would grind his bones into powder.

  Focus! Don't fight the current... ride the current!

  Instead of resisting the pressure of the torturous trigrams and giant runes, Noel let the energy in. He used the pressure as fuel, as a ladder to climb out of his physical pain. He forced his consciousness upward, piercing the roof of the storm, piercing the boundaries of sanity.

  He looked up.

  And instantly, the rain stopped.

  Not stopped falling, but stopped existing for Noel.

  The pitch-black, rage-filled night sky, in Noel’s eyes, began to peel away. The rolling storm clouds of jet black slowly changed color. Their edges burned, not with fire, but with the light of glory.

  Gold.

  Blinding liquid gold began to spill from the cracks in the clouds.

  The view up there was no longer the gloomy night sky of Carta. It was the sky of paradise forced down to earth. The clouds now clumped softly, shining with ivory white luminescence and pure gold, as if the floor of heaven was being opened directly above Noel’s head.

  The light was so bright, so holy, that the pain in Noel’s body felt insignificant.

  Then, from behind the opening in the celestial clouds, the object descended.

  Noel’s breath hitched. His eyes widened, recording the impossibility before him.

  A Colossal Totem.

  The object towered high, piercing the clouds, connecting sky and earth. It was not a pillar of stone. It was a Totem of a Thousand Angels.

  The structure was epic and terrifying. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of angelic figures carved from solid light were stacked upon one another, shoulder to shoulder supporting the sky. Their giant wings—some feathered, some made of eyes of fire, some of golden metal—spread wide, crisscrossing to create a majestic architecture.

  The faces of the angels did not smile kindly like in church paintings. Their faces were regal, flat, and emotionless, staring down with absolute authority. Some blew soundless trumpets, some held flaming swords still dripping with light, some covered their faces with six wings.

  The totem spun slowly, a new axis of the world.

  Golden light radiated from every gap in the stack of angels, bathing Noel, who stood tiny beneath it.

  The runes and array lines on the ground that had felt like a prison now resonated with the totem in the sky. They vibrated, not out of fear, but in welcome of their master.

  In the midst of a storm raging for everyone else, Noel Sanjaya stood in silence, staring directly into the heart of a divine majesty that silenced the universe.

  He felt dwarfed.

  The golden light and the angelic totem vanished in the blink of an eye.

  Reality slammed back into him with brutal cold. The storm rain roared once more, replacing the celestial choir that had briefly echoed in his mind. Noel took a deep breath, his lungs feeling cold, yet a remnant of warm energy swirled slowly in his solar plexus—residue from his brief connection with the other dimension.

  He looked up slowly, staring toward the second-floor balcony.

  There, behind the wet railing, the Old Ancestor sat in his wheelchair. His body looked frail, as if the wrinkled skin hung loosely on his bones, yet his eyes burned sharp like two embers in a dark cave.

  Beside him stood the figure who had disrupted his frequency earlier. Lord Gavin Singh.

  The old man loomed large in heavy, luxurious royal robes, a stark contrast to the foul weather. His thick beard was white, moving slowly in the wind. The aura around Gavin was not that of a physical fighter, but a dense mystical aura—a spiritual advisor accustomed to whispering in the ears of kings. It was he who had "leaked" the sound of his footsteps earlier, a warning or perhaps merely a test of arrogance.

  Noel glanced at them only for a moment. Flat. Empty. Without fear, without excessive respect. Just an acknowledgment that they existed.

  Then, a familiar presence approached.

  "Please return inside, Young Master..."

  The voice was soft and polite. Jeremy, the family’s loyal butler, appeared beside him. A large black umbrella unfolded, severing the torrent of rain that had been hammering Noel’s body.

  Jeremy offered a thick towel steaming with warmth.

  Noel accepted it without a sound. He rubbed his sodden hair. The warmth of the towel felt exquisite against his numb scalp, but it lasted only seconds. The vicious night air and storm wind quickly stole the heat from the fabric, turning the warm towel into a cold, damp rag in his hands.

  Noel lowered the towel to his neck. He began to walk.

  Tap... splash... tap...

  His wet leather shoes struck puddles on the paving stones. The sound was rhythmic, clashing with the noise of the rain, creating music to accompany his departure from that arena of torture.

  As he walked toward the mansion entrance, the corner of his eye caught the row of dozens of uncles, aunts, and cousins still standing on the side terrace.

  They were still there, frozen with expressions mixing disappointment and curiosity. They had hoped to see a corpse, or at least an unconscious body dragged out.

  Noel glanced at them.

  Just a glance.

  There was no anger in his eyes. There was only absolute indifference. After seeing an angelic totem as high as the sky and feeling the energy of paradise, the existence of these dozens of arrogant relatives felt so small. Like ants marching on the side of a highway. Insignificant.

  He turned his face forward, staring at Jeremy’s broad back guiding the way.

  Without looking back again, Noel Sanjaya stepped into the darkness of the mansion’s hallway, leaving the storm and those humans behind his back.

  The main meeting hall of House Sanjaya was a mausoleum for the living. The walls were clad in black ebony panels that absorbed light, adorned with paintings of predecessors whose eyes seemed to follow every movement below. Tall windows were sealed tight by heavy maroon velvet curtains, muffling the sound of the storm outside into a constant, low drone.

  In the center of the room, a long table of solid teak dominated, yet they gathered in a more private corner near the unlit fireplace. The room smelled of old beeswax, dust from Lhassar carpets, and the faint scent of rusted metal.

  Noel stepped forward, head bowed slightly, his right hand touching his left breast. He offered a silent salute to Lord Singh.

  Though the room was colossal, the presence of the two old figures before him made the walls feel as if they were shrinking drastically. Graham Sanjaya in his wheelchair and Gavin Singh in his grand robes radiated a visible spiritual pressure. The air around them felt dense, heavy, and suffocating, as if the oxygen in the room had been sucked dry by their old yet mighty lungs.

  Jeremy—Graham’s trusted old butler—stepped soundlessly from the shadows. With measured, elegant movements, his white-gloved hand poured tea from a silver pot into thin porcelain cups.

  The amber liquid released hot steam.

  "The King sends his congratulations on the awakening of an 'Aksesa' during these precious moments in your House..." Gavin Singh’s voice broke the silence, heavy and commanding.

  Gavin’s old eyes looked at Graham, then glanced briefly toward Noel.

  "Precisely at the moment the Gate of Darkness reopens after five hundred years. The timing is very... coincidental."

  Without blowing on it, Gavin lifted the cup. Noel watched closely. The tea had just boiled; the steam still danced wildly. Yet, the spiritual advisor immediately pressed his lips to the rim and took a long sip.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

  Does he have no sensory nerves? Noel wondered. Or has his tongue thickened like rhinoceros hide from eating too many fire mantras?

  Noel looked down at the teacup before him. He did not drink. He simply stared at the calm surface of the dark liquid.

  There, he saw his own reflection. A face that was tired, pale, yet possessed eyes that had just seen paradise. However, the rising steam gently obscured his view, blurring his reflection until the face looked like a ghost with no clear identity.

  Gavin placed his cup back on the saucer with a sharp clink.

  "The King conveys his congratulations specifically to you, Young Master," Gavin said, his eyes now locked straight on Noel, as if trying to strip his soul bare.

  "And the King fully supports House Sanjaya." He glanced at Graham while smiling.