“—The earliest complete record, The Epic, speaks of a [Tower] that fell near ancient Sumer, named Babel, that threatened break the world if allowed to colpse. The Epic tells the story of Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu in their effort to conquer it.”

  The professor clicked the remote and the slide changed to ancient carvings that depicted a massive pilr bridging the earth and sky. The next slides showed preserved paintings of monsters and two men facing them in battle.

  “It’s debatable if this [Tower] is real or simply a myth, but this isn’t the only record of its supposed descent.” The slide changed to Egyptian carvings. “Some believe the pyramids were humanity’s records of other towers, and that the Egyptian gods were the Awakened that climbed them.” The slides began to change one after another, each pausing on a different mythological tower or mountain, including a brief summary of the heroes who faced these monumental dungeons.

  “In fact, some hypothesize a monomyth theory; that all mythology is derived from Consteltions, [Towers], and the Awakened that faced them.” The professor paused and then showed the final slide. “The st obvious [Tower] in our mythological record is believed to be Troy. Greek records are more complete but also obfuscated with myth, making it hard to tell story from history. There are some ter heroic legends that are believed to also reference supposed towers: Arthurian legend, Cú Chuinn, etc.. But these ter legends don’t have clear enough references to tower-like structures to make that distinction—”

  —Excerpt from “A lecture on the myth of the [Tower]”, by Professor Pharell.

  The sky ripped open on her 11th birthday. Harper remembered shaking and hiding with her mother as monsters poured from the violet sky. Space shattered like gss—she would never forget the booming sound for as long as she lived, a deep thunder that tickled her down to the marrow. It made her stomach clench.

  The mansion staff stepped forward with weapons in hand to combat the encroaching beast horde that spawned from the sky. Most were lower ranked awakeners, and they couldn’t hold out for long. The pool boy died impaling a centaur with his net. The head maid lit herself on fire and took down three monsters through self detonation. The kindly butler, a man named Sun whom Harper had treated as a grandfather, was ripped in half in front of her eyes. Her ears were still ringing from the sound of the breaking Gate so she never heard Sun’s st words. She wished she heard them. She wished she could forget them.

  Three creatures, shaped vaguely like wolves (except with their skeletons on the outside of their flesh) approached Harper and her mother. A bloody fog filled the training yard. Drool fell from beastly jowls in thick globs. Someone screamed for help. Death raised his scythe, intent on the harvest, but his bde was repelled by a valiant shield.

  Heavy Tomtom arrived to save his wife and daughter at the st possible moment. He had been near the Association Headquarters when the disaster began. Unable to travel the streets due to abandoned cars, he had no choice but to sprint on foot to his home, desperately hoping against all odds to find his family still alive.

  The beasts were strong but not compared to an S-rank tank. Harper colpsed upon seeing her father’s broad back appear in front of her. Tears ran down her face. Her memory was cut off there.

  She woke up in an evacuation bunker deep underground on a cold bed. Her parents’ voices were arguing in the next room.

  “You can’t leave!” Her mother pleaded.

  “People are dying out there, Betts.”

  “Heavy, I almost lost my daughter today. I can’t bear to lose you. My heart won’t take it. Please, stay with us here until this ends.”

  Harper watched him through the gap in the door that separated the sleeping quarters from the main area of the shelter. She briefly met her father’s eyes. He looked distraught, but his eyes glowed like quiet embers.

  “I’m sorry,” said Heavy as he turned towards the bunker door and left. For some reason it felt like he was apologizing to someone else, not his family. The thick steel pting cnged as it closed behind him. Harper thought his disappearing back looked like a shield. She would never forget her mother’s sobs nor her father’s apology for as long as she lived.

  The generator failed on the third day. They ran out of food on the seventh. The pipes burst on the 17th. Together, trapped in a dark bunker, Harper and her mother survived for three weeks before the Fourth Great Gate Disaster came to an end. All the greatest poets combined couldn’t put words to the beauty of light filling the bunker when the steel doors finally opened. Stick thin, Betty and Harper were evacuated only to end up in hospital beds next to Heavy, whose injuries after the weeks of nonstop combat were too severe to heal without a lengthy stay.

  “I told you not to go.” Betty cried at his bedside. Tears dripped down her gaunt cheeks.

  “If I didn’t then a lot more people would have died.” Heavy reached up with a trembling hand and wiped his wife’s tears.

  A month ter Harper watched her still injured father receive the Violet Cross, the highest honor an Awakener can receive, for saving so many lives during the battle. One after another people came onto the stage and thanked Heavy personally for saving their lives. Emotions ran high and half the room was in tears. Harper looked over at her still slightly emaciated mother who couldn’t hide the redness in her proud eyes.

  It was at that moment, for the first time in her life, that the young Harper realized what she wanted to be when she grew up.

  “I want to be like my dad.”

  Caroline held her mother’s hand and watched the opening sky with horror. She had been attending a fancy birthday party at a mansion for a cssmate she didn’t really know all that well when the world seemed to end. She was only 12 years old at the start of the Fourth Great Gate Disaster.

  Everyone around her began to panic as booming sounds shook the pnet. From a distance she watched as the mansion staff guided the birthday girl and her mother away, leaving the crowd of attendees to their fates. The metal gate to the garden split as a horned beast thundered into the venue, trampling dozens of people in seconds. Caroline looked over in horror to find she was now holding only her mother’s severed hand. She screamed as the crowd shoved her in their escape. She ended up on the ground, trampled and broken. She covered her head with her arms and curled up, struggling to breathe through broken ribs. More monsters poured into the estate. An explosion sent up a shockwave of mud that pushed her. She ended up rolling all the way to the hedge. She hugged her mother’s hand and cried in silence, crawling deeper into the bush. She didn’t dare make a sound.

  Almost everyone was dead. Three beasts approached the distant birthday girl and her mother, while a single beast sniffed around near Caroline’s hiding spot. Her heartbeat drummed in her chest as demonic paws stepped around her, shaking the earth with each step.

  A man soon appeared in the yard. Caroline knew him. She recognized the S-rank hero. Trembling, she hugged her mother’s hand and put on a brave face.

  “Help! Please! I’m over here!” Caroline called for help. The hero gnced towards her but then turned away. He ran to save the birthday girl instead.

  A massive wolf’s head appeared in front of the hedge. The hero ignored her plea for help but the monster wouldn’t. Its vertical slit eye opened wide and centered on Caroline. She tried to back away but the monster dug into the ground to squeeze its jaws into her hiding spot. Teeth as big as knives bit down on her right arm. The sudden surge of pain made her mind go bnk. She screamed but no sound came from her mouth. Her body was dragged from the hedge. She pleaded and begged for help but no help came. The monster, perhaps seeking to savor its meal, dragged her away. The st thing she saw before she lost consciousness was the hero Heavy Tomtom saving someone else.

  Caroline woke up in horrible pain. Her right arm was missing at the elbow but the wound wasn’t bleeding. She couldn’t even scream because her body felt like it was being crushed. The wolf-like creature had dragged her into some kind of makeshift den that it built out of a colpsed home. It was currently gnawing on her severed arm while keeping a massive paw on her chest to prevent her from escaping. She was alone, steeped in her own blood, and felt herself starting to slip away. She knew she was going to die. She could see her end.

  She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die.

  Caroline writhed beneath the monster’s paw in a fit of madness. Her struggle, like a dying ember, remained futile, but it didn’t stop her from shining like the north star. She screamed and bit the beast’s flesh. She kicked it. She punched it with her stub of an arm. She did not go quietly, and that desperate struggle impressed someone spectating.

  [The Consteltion, ‘The One Who Fights Fate’, proposes a contract.]

  The wolf, perhaps irritated by her sudden struggle, moved its mouth towards Caroline to bite down on her head and end the game.

  With all the fire and fury of her soul, Caroline accepted the contract. Mana bloomed inside her heart. Branching paths stretched ahead of her in an instant; variable futures intertwined as probabilities colpsed like dying stars. Her powers offered her a glimpse of her own future, and she borrowed from that future to unleash magic in the present. She unlocked horrific visions of a dying world to come.

  A bck light bloomed inside the monster’s mouth. Its head burst apart like a grape. Caroline crawled out from beneath the monster’s corpse and howled at the sky. One monster died but a new monster was born.

  Scale walked into the subspace and approached the three girls. They were kneeling motionlessly on the white surface. Magic seals were pced on their bodies keeping them in suspended animation. Scale ripped the seal off of Caroline's head only.

  "Ah, I'm going to be asking you a few questions. Please answer truthfully."

  Caroline smiled as she looked up. "What do you want to know?"