The Grand Archive of Asteria Academy kept its darkest secrets in the deepest vault, three hundred meters below the marble halls where students laughed and dreamed of glory. Down here, the air tasted of dust and forgotten things, and the silence pressed against reality like a held breath.
Headmaster Aldric Vane stood before a crystalline casket, his weathered hands trembling despite decades of iron discipline. Inside, preserved in stasis, lay the body of a young man—twenty at most, with silver hair and a face that might have been handsome before death twisted it into a mask of agony.
"Another year, Kieran," Aldric whispered. "Another year, and still I haven't found a way to break the cycle."
The corpse didn't answer. It never did. But the crimson veins that spiderwebbed across its skin pulsed with faint light, as if something inside still refused to die completely.
Behind Aldric, footsteps echoed on ancient stone. He didn't turn. Only three people in the world knew this place existed, and two of them were standing behind him now.
"The readings are spiking again," Vice Headmaster Elena Frost said, her voice tight. "The seal is deteriorating faster than predicted. We have maybe five years. Ten if we're lucky."
"Luck abandoned us the day we learned what the Crimson System truly was," Professor Marcus Thorne added bitterly. He was younger than the others, barely forty, but his eyes held the exhaustion of someone who'd aged a lifetime in months. "Have you made a decision?"
Aldric finally turned to face them. "You know what the decision must be. The academy has stood for eight centuries. Millions have trained within these walls. We cannot let it fall."
"So we sacrifice another one," Elena said flatly. "We find a desperate student, someone with nothing to lose, and we feed them to the beast."
"We give them a chance at power," Aldric corrected, though even he heard the hollowness in his words. "The Crimson System is real. The bonds are real. For a time, they'll be stronger than they ever dreamed possible—"
"Before it consumes them and everyone they care about," Marcus interrupted. "Just like Kieran. Just like the twelve before him. Aldric, this is madness. There has to be another way."
"Then find it!" The headmaster's voice cracked like thunder in the confined space. "Do you think I want this? Every night I see their faces—all thirteen of them. Young men and women who trusted us, who believed the system was a gift, who died screaming as their bonds turned to chains and dragged their loved ones into the abyss!"
Silence fell, broken only by the faint hum of preservation magic.
Elena spoke first, quieter now. "The entrance exams are in three months. We'll be bringing in over two thousand new students. The system will choose its host during the practical evaluation—it always does. It seeks out the desperate ones, the failures, the students with everything to prove and nothing to lose."
"And what happens when the new bearer starts forming bonds?" Marcus demanded. "When they fall in love, make friends, create connections? Do we warn them? Tell them they're building their own execution platform?"
"We guide them," Aldric said, each word like swallowing glass. "We ensure the bonds form with those strong enough to survive the consumption. We buy time to find a permanent solution. And if we can't..." He looked back at Kieran's crystalline tomb. "We make sure their sacrifice means something."
Marcus shook his head in disgust. "You're talking about using students as shields. As fuel."
"I'm talking about saving millions at the cost of dozens," Aldric shot back. "You've seen what happens when the seal breaks completely. The entity beneath this academy doesn't just want to escape—it wants to devour. Cities. Nations. The entire world if it can. Every hundred years, it grows stronger. Every century, the seal weakens. And the only thing that can reinforce it is the life force of a Crimson Bearer and their bonds."
He gestured to the walls around them, where names were carved in stone. Hundreds of names. Some dating back centuries.
"This has always been Asteria's true purpose. Not to train heroes, but to create sacrifices powerful enough to feed the seal. The Crimson System was designed for this—to forge bonds of love and loyalty so strong that when they break, the resulting energy can chain a god."
Elena wrapped her arms around herself. "Sometimes I wonder if we're the villains in this story."
"Villains don't lose sleep over their choices," Aldric said softly. "Now come. We have preparations to make. The system is already stirring. It senses fresh candidates."
As they left the vault, the seals engaging behind them with finality, none of them noticed the hairline fracture forming in Kieran's casket. Or the way his fingers twitched, just once, as crimson light pulsed brighter in his veins.
Deep below, deeper than even the vault reached, something ancient stirred. It tasted the world above—so full of life, of passion, of delicious bonds waiting to be severed and consumed.
Soon.
The word echoed through stone and darkness, a promise and a threat.
Soon, it would feed again.
And this time, perhaps, it would eat its fill.
***
**Three months later...**
**Asteria Academy - Entrance Examination Grounds**
Ryu Kaelen stood in line with two thousand other hopeful students, his hands clammy with sweat and his heart hammering against his ribs. Around him, teenagers buzzed with excitement, showing off minor magical displays and boasting about their family bloodlines.
He kept his mouth shut and his head down. He knew what he was: a charity case with a broken mana core, accepted into the academy only because his parents died in service and the kingdom owed their orphaned son one chance.
One chance to prove he wasn't worthless.
One chance to become something more than the scared kid who hid while his parents burned.
One chance that would change everything.
The testing grounds lay ahead, ancient stone archways leading into a simulated dungeon. Ryu took a deep breath, adjusted his worn practice sword, and stepped forward.
He didn't know that something in the darkness below was already watching him.
Already choosing him.
Already hungry.