Evolving Classes In The Apocalypse-Chapter 5: What Have I Awakened?

The arena bowl went dead silent as the Axiom spoke once again.

In the underground hall, I shot to my feet. Most of the students had gone still, frozen in the same disbelief. Rin’s face drained of color, his eyes fixed on the holographic screen as if willing the words to change. Several of the girls had their hands pressed over their mouths. Even Esmer, who always seemed above it all, watched with a subtle light of surprise in his eyes.

The light in the hall seemed to dim. Or maybe it was just my vision dimming.

Truly, fate was a bitch.

"Bah! Serves her right. Who said she could go spouting nonsense like that?"

My head snapped toward the voice. The dark-haired boy from earlier had a smug expression plastered across his face. The words barely finished leaving his mouth before I was already moving, scattering rows of chairs in my wake. I caught him by the collar, my free hand cocked back.

One advantage my fat body provided was an absurd amount of weight, and weight equaled strength. Even if it wasn’t easy to swing around.

But Esmer and Thomas, a blue-haired boy, came fast. Both caught me around the body, holding me tight before I could drive my fist through that sneering face.

’Let go.’

The thought was more instinct than language. This was the one time I actually wished I had more muscle than fat, to summon that mountainous strength and drag them with me. But it was useless. Against Awakened Masters, what could a fat Mundane boy do?

"Let me go." My voice crawled out low and ragged.

"And what good will that do?" Esmer’s tone was cool, but there was a nagging edge beneath it. "Look at what’s in front of you. Should this be your focus right now?"

The boy who’d almost caught my fist had gone pale. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. Good. He should be scared. He should understand exactly what almost happened to him.

The atmosphere shattered completely when Rin’s leg connected with a chair. The impact sent it rolling across the hall, at least a hundred meters, until it smashed against the far wall and crumpled with its legs bent at odd angles.

"Tch!"

Rin stormed out through the backdoor without looking at anyone.

I exhaled. The tension bled out of my body, leaving something heavier in its place. Esmer and Thomas released me and stepped back.

Esmer’s hand settled on my shoulder, firm but not unkind.

"She will need you."

I walked away from the hall through the same backdoor, saying nothing. There was nothing to say. Nothing that would change what the Axiom had declared.

The passage beyond was hollow and cold, lit with pale blue light that flickered at intervals like something dying. One light in particular stuttered badly, a bad omen if I believed in such things.

I emerged through the outer wall of the coliseum into open air.

The announcer had already called the next name. Ysor was being escorted toward the outer wall, flanked by two Adepts. Their faces were hidden behind helmets, but soft blue light glowed where their eyes should be.

Their composure, the precise way they moved, radiated caution and readiness for something to go wrong.

I could read that much. Ten years dedicated to learning combat art had taught me to see the tension people tried to hide. The way weight shifted to the balls of the feet, the angle of the shoulders told me these two expected trouble. They were preparing for the possibility that Ysor might lose control right here, right now.

’As if she would.’

"You all can step back now. I’ll take it from here."

I tensed the moment I heard the voice. Cold. Deep. Familiar.

No one had felt anything or seen anything until after the voice sounded.

A tall, composed man with platinum-white hair now stood between the approaching Adepts and the Wintertide transport. His hair fell loosely around his face, soft but untamed, and his eyes were pale and steady. Too steady, given what had just happened.

His sister had failed Definition.

And he looked indifferent.

I stared at him with barely suppressed fury coiling in my chest.

Silas Wintertide’s long black coat rustled with the wind as he stepped forward and extended his arm to Ysor.

She looked at the hand and hesitated. Something flickered across her face, there and gone too quickly to name. Eventually, she took it.

Silas stepped forward with her, his voice carrying no warmth whatsoever. "You will have your last meal tomorrow. It will be a hearty one. This is the least we can do to preserve the honor of our family." He glanced at Ysor, brief and clinical. "Will that be a problem?"

That glance. That single, perfunctory look was probably the first time he had truly seen her in years.

’He hasn’t even been around for the past five years. He comes back and this is what he says to his dying sister?’

The fire in my chest burned hotter. It was getting harder and harder to keep my face blank, to not let the contempt show. My jaw ached from clenching and I forced myself to breathe through it, to hold still when every instinct screamed at me to do something.

There was no doubt Rin was already in the transport. I didn’t know exactly how Ysor’s own twin was handling this. But I suspected that whatever Rin was doing behind those dark windows, he was preparing himself to make terms with her death.

If Ysor were to lose her form and kill someone, worse still, a Defined, the Wintertide Household would pay dearly.

So of course, this cold efficiency was the proper way and the correct response.

’Bullshit.’

The Retainer who had driven them stepped forward to open the door, but Silas stopped him with a raised hand.

"I’ll drive back. Go with the escort."

The Retainer bowed immediately, not a flicker of hesitation, and stepped back. Mr. Charles, their butler, didn’t bother stepping forward at all. He simply stood to the side, watching as Silas slid into the driver’s seat.

I watched too. And I remembered every second of it.

After the Wintertide transport disappeared into the vast array of vehicles drowning the outskirts of the Sanctuary, I finally let out a breath and turned.

Two men in lean body suits approached me. Grey and black camouflage pattern on the pants, the kind of tactical wear that screamed military without saying it outright.

The first was familiar. Grey hair, grey eyes, a scar that ran from one ear across his nose to the other. More scars decorated his exposed biceps like tally marks of violence survived. Master Vorn. He’d trained me for six of my ten years in combat arts. If anyone had believed in me once, it was him.

The way he looked at me now told me that belief had its limits.

The second man I knew too, though I rarely saw him. Black hair cropped short, half-lidded eyes that seemed to look down on everything they surveyed. He had a way of standing that made the whole world feel like it was wasting his time.

As they approached, Vorn spoke.

"Due to the rising need for land mass, you’ll be moved out of the castle and transported to the outer rings. Plans have been made to properly accommodate you there."

I looked down for a moment.

’Rising need for land mass.’ That was a kind way of putting it. They needed the space for people who mattered. People who were Defined and weren’t dead weight taking up a room in a castle they had no right to occupy.

I raised my head and managed a foolish smile like I always did. Even though my cheeks ached from holding the expression and exhaustion dragged at every muscle, I still managed.

It would have been easier if they’d just said what they meant. Time to toss you in the dump site since you failed the only reason we bothered to keep you around.

"Alright," I said. "Let’s go then."

"You’ll pack your bags and move tomorrow. Pack light."

I nodded as I followed both of them to the armored transport. We got in, Vorn and the other man in the front seats, me in the back, staring out through the window at nothing.

The drive was lonely. Hollow.

Today, more than I had ever been.

’Speaking of hollow... what weird class did I even get? What was that about becoming a Transcendent?’

I thought about it as I internally willed the runes into existence. Becoming a Transcendent normally took decades, sometimes people could live their entire life and not make it to Transcendence. You had to kill Undefined, absorb their essence, climb the ladder one rung at a time.

Every Class had four stages: Awakened, then Established, then Ascended, and finally Transcendent. Each advancement brought a new Class Skill. Each stage demanded more essence than the last.

The Axiom had declared me a Transcendent Mundane.

That shouldn’t be possible. Mundane wasn’t even a real Class. It was what you called someone who had nothing.

I needed to see what this actually meant.

’Axiom Status.’

The familiar blue interface materialized in my vision.

[Axiom Status]

[Name: Axel Rubravis]

[Main Class: Hollow]

[Sub-Class: nil]

[Rank: Mundane]

[Stage: Transcendent]

[Attributes]

[Strength: 10]

[Agility: 10]

[Vitality: 10]

[Spirit: 10]

[Perception: 10]

[Essence: 0] 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

[Class Trait: Absence]

[Sub-Class Skill: nil]

[Class Description: You’re not a part of the system, you’re a hungry black hole. The Axiom created "Hollow" to categorize something it couldn’t quite Define. You’re an absence given form and must gain Definition to sustain and grow this hole or it might consume you.]

[Your ability to consume other’s Definition opens doors for your class to accommodate other classes. After killing a Defined of higher rank, you can absorb their Definition, hence gaining their Class as a Sub-class.]

[Class Trait Description: Because of your hollow nature you have failed to awaken a Class Skill and awakened a trait instead. You’re not fully Defined but also not Undefined.]

[Trait Effect: You are invisible to perception and sensors. Target lock abilities can miss. Aggro mechanics ignore you.]

I kept my face still. Controlled my breathing. Let nothing show.

But inside, something cold settled in my chest.

’What in the world did I awaken?’