The sound of blades echoed through the lower arena.
Not the usual clangs of student sparring or instructor lectures.
These were fluid, rhythmic, almost ceremonial.
Karl moved like water.
Each step of the Veilblade sequence flowed into the next — not learned, not mimicked…
Remembered.
The emissary circled him slowly, arms behind his back.
"You're starting to recall your original stances. That's why the glyphs feel more natural."
Karl finished the final motion, blade stopping just above the floor.
"It feels like… I've done it a thousand times."
The emissary nodded.
"You have. Across lifetimes. But now it's not memory anymore. It's instinct."
Karl's fifth glyph flared once as if in agreement.
A faint pulse rippled through the air.
Karl winced and stumbled mid-step.
The emissary's gaze sharpened.
"It's beginning, isn't it?"
Karl steadied himself, breathing deeply.
"Something's… crawling under my skin."
He pulled back his collar.
Thin, glowing threads stretched down from the fifth glyph—like veins of light, creeping.
"The sixth?"
"Or something worse."
Elsewhere in Valdros Academy, a young girl awoke in the infirmary.
The one who'd been possessed.
Her breathing was stable, her eyes normal.
Except for the mark.
A faint, flame-like glyph had formed on her palm—twisted, incomplete.
She didn't recognize it.
And she didn't remember anything.
Meanwhile, Aeris stood before the gates of a hidden chapel deep within the academy's forbidden wing.
Only a handful of old families had keys to enter.
Hers was one of them.
Inside, elders in silver-robed attire sat in a ring of rune-etched stone.
Her aunt stood among them.
"You've crossed the threshold," the woman said coldly.
"Your Soulbind has touched the Veil."
Aeris's hands balled into fists.
"I didn't choose to."
"And yet it has chosen you."
The eldest among them leaned forward.
"You are no longer safe, Aeris. Nor are those around you."
A pause.
"We must seal your Soulbind."
Back in the training arena, Karl stood shirtless now, breathing heavy.
The glyph lines had spread further—reaching across his collar, down his ribs, into his lower spine.
Raiven watched warily from the shadows.
"This is not a normal awakening. It's not waiting between glyphs anymore."
"It's reaching for something."
Karl pressed a hand against his chest.
The first glyph — the dragon's winged mark — glowed beneath his skin.
And something pulsed deeper.
Later that evening, Aeris found Karl sitting on the rooftop.
He didn't look up.
"They want to seal my Soulbind," she said quietly.
He blinked.
"Why?"
"Because of you."
The words stung more than she meant them to.
Karl stood and turned to her, pain flashing behind his calm.
"I never asked for this."
"Neither did I!" she snapped.
"But I'm the one who keeps waking up in someone else's memories! Who feels their heartbeat sync with yours! Who remembers dying beside you!"
Karl stepped closer.
"Then why are you running from it?"
"Because I'm scared, Karl!" she cried.
"I'm scared of what you're becoming… and what I might have to do if you lose yourself again."
Silence.
Then:
"You won't need to stop me," Karl said.
"You'll be the reason I come back."
That night, he collapsed in his room.
No battle. No wound.
Just pressure.
Crushing pressure.
The sixth glyph had not appeared in one place.
It had begun to spread in tendrils — like ink spilling through veins of light.
His vision blurred. His body burned.
Raiven growled at his side, pacing.
"This isn't awakening… this is an unraveling."
Karl reached for the basin of water near his bed—his reflection warping, flickering.
And then—he saw it.
A face.
His own.
But older.
Angrier.
Broken.
And the reflection spoke:
"This time, don't let them bind you."