The iron bell jolted him awake at dawn. He put on the plain white robe of an acolyte—too large, its smooth fabric cool and alien against his skin, a world away from his rough shepherd's clothes.
He followed the silent stream of others into a wide, circular chamber—the Indoctrination Hall. A massive golden ring was set into the floor at its center, emitting a steady, subdued light. Dozens of youths his age were already seated on grey cushions arranged around it, split clearly into two groups.
One group, like Erika, had sun-toughened skin and eyes that held traces of caution, curiosity, or a lingering wildness. They were the "seeds" from the villages.
The other group was pale, their posture relaxed, almost languid. Their robes seemed finer, edged with subtle family markings. They spoke in low murmurs among themselves, their gazes sweeping over the village-born acolytes with natural condescension. These were the scions of the city's elite.
Erika took a seat at the edge of the village group, keeping his eyes down, trying to mirror the expected confusion and submission.
The bell chimed again. A man entered.
He was middle-aged, wearing a white robe trimmed with dark gold. He stood straight as a spear, his movements precise and military. His hawk-like eyes swept the room, silencing all whispers. He carried no books, only a simple, dark baton.
"I am Instructor Wolfgang," he said, his voice low but clear, striking the ears like metal. "In the days ahead, I will be responsible for forging your bodies, tempering your wills, and making you understand the mission you must undertake as our Lord's executors in this world."
He wasted no time.
"Power. Without it, all piety is meaningless." Wolfgang gestured with the baton toward the golden ring. "Our Lord's Eternal Circuit Law grants us absolute power over chaos."
"Before the Law descended, the world was shrouded in ignorance and filth." His baton cut through the air, drawing a line. "The Deathbirds pilfered the embers of death, building their twisted nests. The Boilers enslaved elemental spirits for their crude, inefficient forges. And their failures festered into the Blighted—a weeping sore upon the world, a poison that lingers even now!"
His words were laced with undisguised contempt, branding everything Erika had ever known as ignorance, filth, and failure.
"Only the Law of our Lord," Wolfgang's voice rose, fervent, "has established the perfect cycle! It roots power in our life, our faith, our order! And you, as Clerics, are the guardians and enforcers of this cycle!"
His burning gaze swept over them. "Your mission is not passive prayer. It is to use the power you will receive to identify, to purge, to cleanse! With blade and light, you will ensure the Law illuminates every inch of this land. You will ensure any 'impurity' that dares challenge the cycle—be it remnant Deathbirds, rogue Boiler-constructs, spreading Blight, or... those who harbor heresy in their hearts—is utterly scoured!"
The militant declaration paled the faces of some village acolytes. The city-born mostly looked on with approval, even eagerness.
Erika kept his head down, fingers curling unconsciously beneath his robe. Were the "impurities" Wolfgang described the same as the old scholar? The villagers who refused to surrender their land and faith?
"The application of power begins with perception, ends with control." Wolfgang moved from ideology to practical instruction. "Now. Close your eyes. Slow your breath. Attempt to feel the pulse of the Law beneath you, around you… everywhere. Seek the faint, pure flow of energy from the Circuit. This is the foundation of all higher application."
Silence fell. Erika complied. At first, only darkness and the sound of his own breath. But gradually, as he strained to "listen," a faint, rhythmic tremor—seeming to rise from the earth and the air itself—reached him. It was cold, steady, bearing an inhuman sense of order, kin to the pulse of Balthasar's emblem, yet vaster… more absolute.
It was then his sharpened senses caught it—a flicker, a ghost of something else within that steady flow. A subtle dissonance, ancient in feel. It vanished before he could grasp it.
Lunch.
They were led to a refectory. The meal was simple: a bowl of thin bean soup, a piece of hard rye bread, a cup of water.
Erika ate in silence. The food was rougher than what he remembered from the village. Not far off, a city youth stirred his bowl with a personal silver spoon, his face a mask of disdain.
"Tch. Is this the hospitality of the Clerical Division?" he muttered to his companion, loud enough to carry. "Even the City Watch eats better. They say the recent 'border disturbances' are diverting all energy to the Angel's descent and the city defenses. Even our rations are cut."
A girl beside him shrugged. "Of course. My father says the lower 'collection units' are unstable. They've lost many assets recently. The energy stream back is thinning. If this continues, we'll be lucky to get this much."
Collection units. Energy stream. Border disturbances.
The cold terms needled at Erika's ears. He remembered last night's phantom conversation, Balthasar's hungry tone—"It has been too long since I last tasted a proper, direct harvest."
Was it possible… beneath its gleam, the city was starving for energy?
He looked down into his murky bowl.
If the shortage was real, then they, the "seeds," were not just here to become Clerics.
Were they also, in some way, a reserve of energy themselves?
The thought left a cold knot in his stomach.
The afternoon bell clanged. Instructor Wolfgang announced, his face impassive, that all acolytes would join the clerical students next door for a "Mercy Practice" in the Seventh District's temporary settlement.
"See with your own eyes the corners the Law has not yet fully cleansed," he said, his voice flat. "Show the mercy of our Lord through action. This will help you understand why absolute power is necessary to maintain order."
Erika followed the procession out. They moved through grand avenues where the buildings grew gradually shorter, older. The white and gold palette remained, but the luster faded. The air began to carry less savory scents—sweat, dust, and a faint, clinging odor of despair.
The Seventh District hugged the base of the massive inner wall. A sea of neat, stark white tents stood against a tide of grey, shuffling humanity. The people wore rags, their eyes dull with shock or bright with fear. From their remnants of dress and accents, Erika recognized many as refugees from border villages. Their fragmented whispers repeated words like "bone birds," "frenzy," "smoke-shadows," and "home gone." Victims of the Deathbirds' strange activity.
Others were worse off. They huddled in corners, wrapped in filthy bandages, patches of unnatural, corroded black staining their visible skin. Their muffled moans spoke of agony. These were the rare survivors of encounters with the Blighted, though they looked little better than the dead.
The acolytes' task was to distribute hard black bread and water, offering short prayers.
Erika moved mechanically, placing food into trembling or calloused hands. He kept his head down, avoiding the gazes full of a pain that mirrored his own memories of home and the golden light.
"May the Light… ease your suffering," he repeated, the prescribed words feeling like ash in his mouth.
Then a small, familiar figure appeared beside him, silently beginning her own distribution. The little sister. She worked with a focused diligence, offering each recipient a small, strained but earnest smile, her prayers softer.
During a lull, she drifted slightly closer to Erika, her voice so low it seemed meant for no one, or perhaps only for him. "If only… if only we had more to give. They look… so hungry."
Erika paused, but did not respond. He knew she had voiced the thought he dared not.
"More?"
A voice laced with mockery cut in. Erika turned to see a city-born girl from his group watching them. Her perfectly coiled red hair and the subtle superiority in her posture defied the plainness of the acolyte robe.
"Giving more to these rustics is a waste of sacred resources," she said, her lip curling as she scanned the gaunt faces around them. "They should have stayed on their land to fight those things, or simply nourished the Circuit. What good are they here, cluttering the city with their stench and disorder? They should be sent back where they belong!"
The little sister's face flushed crimson. Her fists clenched, but words failed her, trapped by fear and anger.
The girl's words struck Erika like a physical blow, shattering his fragile composure. They echoed Balthasar's spectral greed, the lunchtime whispers of energy shortage. Nourish the Circuit. Was that all his home, his people, were to them? Fuel?
A cold, sharp fury mixed with despair twisted inside him.
Then—
"Agh… G-g-g—!"
An inhuman shriek of agony tore from the crowd.
All eyes snapped toward the sound. A refugee who had been huddled in a corner, his body marred by blackened lesions, was now convulsing violently. His hands clawed at his own throat, eyes bulging. From his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth—a thick, ink-black smoke erupted.
The smoke coiled with a bone-deep chill and a stench of decay, wrapping around his body. Before their horrified stares, his skin cracked and peeled away like burning parchment, revealing a seething, proliferating blackness beneath. His frame contorted, swelling, bones cracking with a sickening crunch.
In the space of a breath, a living man, on the edge of this city of light, transformed before the acolytes' eyes into a creature reeking of death and corruption—one of the Blighted.
It roared, a sound that shook the soul. Its empty sockets—if they could be called that—fixed instantly on the three closest, most "pure" sources of energy: Erika, the little sister, and the sharp-tongued noble girl.
There were no armed guards here. Only unarmed students.
The cold breath of death washed over them, sudden and absolute.