Austin stood on the cold metallic surface of the primary transportation deck, his posture straight and his chest slightly forwarded as he surveyed the hundred selected Crusaders gathered for the Spire allocation.

The atmosphere within the staging terminal was thick with the high-frequency hum of heavy engine dampeners and the sharp scent of raw mana.

Most of the Crusaders around him were tense, their hands resting nervously on the hilts of their weapons or their eyes fixed on the massive countdown screens above. Austin, however, was beaming.

He had intentionally maneuvered himself through the throng of armored bodies until he was standing as close to Ayla as the dense crowd would allow.

The morning was progressing exactly according to his calculated expectations. He turned his head slightly, adjusting his stance so his shoulder guard caught the bright glare of the overhead artificial lights, mirroring the way the luminescent strips illuminated her striking silver hair.

Her golden eyes were fixed straight ahead, completely unblinking, a feature he recorded as intensely fascinating rather than unsettling.

"The Spire is notoriously unpredictable during an active Event," Austin said, his voice smooth and measured as he directed another question toward her. "Sometimes the environment will amplify your trait, while other times it completely blocks it. Have you perhaps trained for that situation?"

Ayla did not answer. She did not even turn her head. To Austin, her silent neutrality was not a rejection.

It was the refined, stoic reserve expected of a high-house prodigy who had just integrated a Celestial Vessel. Internally, he considered her complete lack of movement as an absolute sign of progress.

At least she was not moving away from him, which meant she was interested a bit. She had not stepped away from him. She had not called for her guards. She was allowing him to occupy her immediate personal space, which meant his presence was being tolerated, if not subtly welcomed.

He was the heir of the Marsh family, after all, so it was only logical that she would recognize the strategic value of his alignment.

Just after he thought so, Ayla took a sideway step away from him.

Ayla had not moved away before simply because she was actively reading his thoughts and finding the entire contents of his brain to be remarkably interesting, yet at times boring.

His mind was a shallow puddle of societal ambition, surface-level vanity, and repetitive calculations about political marriage lines. There was no unique data to harvest from his intelligence.

However, her hungry senses were currently tracking a faint, erratic hum beneath his skin. His trait, whatever it was, must be powerful for him to reach Silver rank in his early twenties.

Poor Austin had no idea the girl he was trying to impress was planning to eat him when the time came.

She allowed him to remain within a two-foot radius for that reason alone. She required his physical proximity to map the parameters of his trait.

Before Austin could open his mouth to offer another piece of upper-sector trivia, the broad, dark-armored shoulder of Kenji stepped directly into his line of sight.

Kenji inserted himself between Austin and Ayla with the smooth, entirely natural momentum of a man who was simply walking toward the boarding ramp.

His hazel eyes briefly grazed Austin’s face with a flat, icy indifference before he shifted his weight, completely cutting off Austin’s physical access to her side.

A few paces behind them, Roric Vale watched the interaction from the edge of the observation platform, his thick brows drawing into a hard, dangerous line.

’That old bastard Hadrian,’ Roric’s internal voice growled, his jaw locking as he recognized the political play immediately.

Sending the Marsh family’s prime heir to flutter around his granddaughter was a transparent attempt by that old bastard to plant an anchor inside the Vale bloodline before they entered the Spire. Roric did not intervene directly.

He knew that stepping down from the platform to separate them would confirm to Austin that the proximity bothered the family leadership.

In the harsh logic of the high houses, confirming irritation was the equivalent of giving the enemy free leverage.

The heavy chime of the departure sequence echoed through the staging terminal, signaling the final boarding call. Roric stepped forward, his heavy combat boots clicking firmly against the metal deck as he approached his grandchildren.

Since he accepted the Marshal’s order, he could not go with them. So this departure scene belonged entirely to his unspoken worry.

He stopped directly in front of Ayla, his large hands reaching down to check the seal on her uniform collar twice, ensuring the mana-insulated fabric was perfectly aligned against her skin.

He then turned his focus to Kenji, his voice dropping into a stern, repetitive lecture.

"The environment inside the simulation changes without systemic warnings," Roric said, adjusting the strap on Kenji’s shoulder plate even though the leather was already perfectly secure. "Keep your blade always in hand. And protect your sister."

Kenji remained perfectly still, listening to the specific Spire guidelines that he already knew by heart from his lessons.

He did not interrupt the old man. He understood that listing baseline survival statistics simply gave his grandfather something to do with his large, trembling hands.

Roric turned back to Ayla, his harsh features softening into a look of deep anxiety. "Eat properly while you are inside," he commanded softly. "Do not neglect your caloric intake just because the environment is hostile."

There was a slight twitch on Kenji’s face. Grandpa did not have to worry about her skipping her food, but rather he should worry about her overeating without any confinements.

Ayla offered him a brief, dimpled smile, her cheeks puffing out slightly in her standard performance of human sweetness. "I will eat everything, Grandpa," she murmured.

From brains to bones.... 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

But when Roric heard it, he almost cried. His poor milk baby. He reached out, his massive, scarred palms cupping her soft face.

This time, he did not say a single word. He simply held her face, his eyes searching her innocent, golden gaze for any sign of fear or hesitation.

Neither of them spoke. The heavy, silent weight of the moment did all the necessary work.

After a long, stretching silence, he slowly released her. Ayla turned and walked toward the yawning black maw of the transport vessel without a single backward glance.

Kenji followed a half-step behind her, his armor clinking rhythmically. Roric stood perfectly still on the platform, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched their forms disappear into the crowded cabin.

He remained there until the massive hydraulic doors groaned shut, sealing the hundred Crusaders inside the belly of the ship.

From his position near the interior viewscreen of the cabin, Kenji subtly tracked the residual trajectory of his grandfather’s thoughts using his own sensory traits. The old man was not actually watching the closed doors.

The moment the steel had clicked into place, Roric had already turned his back to the ship, walking toward the tactical command room with rigid, mechanical strides. Kenji knew why.

Turning away instantly was the only defensive psychological mechanism that kept the old General functional during a deployment.

A second later, the transport device launched.

The vessel did not move through conventional spatial dimensions. It exploded forward, its propulsion metrics reaching light-speed parameters within a microsecond of activation.

The sudden, violent compression of space produced intense physical sensations that neither of them had ever encountered within the lower walls.

The gravity inside the cabin warped, pressing against their chests with the weight of a collapsing mountain, while the ambient mana in the air vibrated so violently it felt like needles piercing their skin.

Ayla stood perfectly upright, her golden eyes wide as she cataloged each unique physical anomaly, her internal database mapping the exact atmospheric resistance and pressure changes.

Her core pulsed, adapting to the strain.

Kenji immediately reached out and grabbed her elbow, stabilizing her balance. "Breathe through your nose," he murmured over the roaring hum of the engines. "Let your body absorb the kinetic feedback. The compression will ease once we clear the first atmospheric barrier."

Austin, who was strapped into a nearby acceleration seat a few feet away, tried to lean forward through the pressure to offer assistance. "Lady Ayla, if your Celestial Vessel is rejecting the spatial compression, I have a high-tier stabilization crystal in my—"

"She doesn’t need it," Kenji answered flatly before Ayla could even process Austin’s words, his tone cutting through the air like a knife as he completely ignored the heir’s existence.

Austin did not push his luck further. He knew rushing would do no good. What he had in abundance now was time. The journey to the Spire required two full days of continuous travel through the compressed void.

Within the cramped, metallic confines of the transport ship, the long hours forced a quiet, insular development between the two siblings.

Sitting close together on the narrow steel bench, Ayla routinely leaned her head against Kenji’s dark shoulder armor, her silver braid resting across his lap as she silently processed his active thought streams, building a deep, non-verbal vocabulary that only existed in the quiet spaces between them.

Although she could not speak because there were many pairs of eyes staring at them, Kenji could converse with her through his thoughts.

They shared food packs in rhythmic silence, their movements synchronized in a way that made them appear entirely detached from the rest of the challengers.

Throughout the forty-eight-hour transit, Austin continuously attempted to find small openings to converse, stepping toward their bench whenever the spatial gravity stabilized.

Each time, his path was systematically blocked by Kenji. Whether it was a casual shift of his long legs, the deliberate cleaning of his greatsword across the aisle, or a cold, unblinking glare, Kenji proved to be exceptionally adept at isolating his sister from external interference.

Somewhere in the deep shadows of the lower transport deck, Amanda’s presence could be felt like a lingering, toxic stain.

Although she stayed out of their sight, with her high perception, Ayla could feel the malice. Inside her mind she was already planning to end that annoying woman.

On the morning of the third day, the heavy roaring of the light-speed engines began to decline into a low, rumbling groan. The transport was slowing down.

"We are approaching the threshold," Kenji whispered, his hand tightening slightly around Ayla’s fingers.

Ayla leaned toward the thick quartz viewport of the cabin. As the spatial distortion cleared, the landscape of the Spire Event materialized before her eyes.

Through the glass, a vast, dark ocean appeared first, its massive, black waves churning violently under a violet sky.

Then, a colossal stone bridge materialized, stretching across the water for miles until it connected directly to a sprawling, ancient city floating precariously in the center of the sea.

The system interface before her eyes flickered into existence, glowing with a deep, blood-red light.

[Warning: You have entered the outer perimeter of the Spire.]