The Ritual Hall was not noisy…
It was silent in a heavy way,
as if the air itself avoided moving.
The children who had passed moments ago…
the symbols that appeared…
the dragons that tore through the sky and the earth…
all of it now felt like a distant memory,
as if time had swallowed the event and refused to explain it.
The Ancestor stood.
He did not announce his presence.
The ground did not tremble.
Energy did not bow.
And yet…
everyone in the hall knew he had arrived.
His gaze fell on the child.
Ares.
It was not a gaze of inspection…
but a gaze of reading.
As if Ares's existence were an open page before him.
In that moment,
Ares felt something he had never known before…
exposure.
Not fear.
Not pain.
But the primal sensation that nothing within him was hidden.
Even the black hole power inside him…
seemed calm, contracted, like a predator that had suddenly sensed the presence of a greater predator.
The Ancestor finally spoke.
His voice was not deep…
nor loud…
yet it sounded like a truth that could not be argued with.
"This boy… resembles a star approaching collapse.
If he does not learn to contain what is inside him… it will devour him."
It did not sound like a warning.
But a diagnosis.
The Ancestor turned without hurry.
"Erase all records related to him… and the rest of the anomalies."
Some faces trembled.
Records were not just ink…
but history.
The memory of a clan.
An identity.
Then he added calmly:
"Leave only the dragon anomalies."
No one asked why.
In the presence of one who sees what cannot be seen…
questions are not a luxury.
He continued:
"Take good care of the rest.
Each anomaly will be handled by an Ancestor."
He paused briefly.
Then said:
"This child… is mine."
No one felt the movement of energy.
No door opened.
Space did not break.
But in the blink of an eye…
the Ancestor disappeared.
And Ares disappeared.
As if their presence in the hall had been a passing illusion.
Ares opened his eyes.
For a moment…
he thought the world itself was dying.
The ground was a network of glowing cracks,
magma breathing from within it like a fevered chest.
Volcanoes tore the horizon apart.
Black tornadoes connected the sky to the earth.
Mountains eroded under storms that never calmed.
As for the energy…
It was not just unstable.
It was chaos with weight.
Its pressure alone was enough to crush cities.
System alerts exploded inside his awareness:
[Warning — chaotic energy activity in all directions]
[The world is in a critical state of instability]
[Host survival rate: 0%]
[Immediate escape is recommended]
But Ares did not move.
Something in the scene…
was wrong.
Yes, the world looked collapsed…
but true collapse is chaotic without rhythm.
Here…
within the madness, there was a hidden order.
As if this world were not dying, but this was its natural state.
Then he felt it.
A thin layer…
transparent to the point of nothingness…
surrounded him.
Not a solid barrier,
but more like an idea telling the energy:
stop here.
Ares ordered the system to analyze.
System: [Processing]
[Unknown energy surrounding the host]
[Analyzing…]
[Analysis failed]
[Analysis failed]
[Analysis failed]
A moment…
Then his awareness trembled slightly.
The black hole power inside him moved instinctively.
A fine thread of that energy was drawn toward him… and vanished.
[Microscopic portion of energy absorbed]
[Reanalyzing…]
[Analyzing…]
[Failed to determine the type]
A short silence…
Then:
[The surrounding energy is absolutely stable]
[Final assessment: its purpose is to protect the host from chaotic energies]
Only then…
Ares understood.
This world was not a prison.
It was a testing environment.
The Ancestor stood beside him.
A three-month-old child…
standing.
Not swaying.
Not falling.
Looking at the end of the world without crying.
The Ancestor thought calmly:
"Good… even without full awareness, he tried to absorb my energy."
"The ability is not weak."
He watched him a moment longer.
Then a rare thought crossed his mind:
"Could he be reincarnated?"
A question that had not visited him for a very long time.
But he dismissed it quickly.
"No… if that were the case, it would not have escaped his grandmother."
Silence settled between them.
A tornado passed kilometers away…
yet only a whisper reached them.
The Ancestor finally said:
"What you see is not a dying world…
but a world whose collapse has been stopped at the moment just before death."
He looked at the cracked horizon.
"True training… does not happen in safe places."
Then he cast a sideways glance at Ares.
No warmth in it.
No cruelty.
Only clarity.
"I will not train you to become strong."
The storms paused for a moment…
or perhaps it only seemed that way.
"I will train you… so you do not die by your own strength."
In the distance…
the ground shook.
A massive fissure slowly opened…
as if the world were yawning.
The Ancestor said:
"Start by looking carefully, Ares.
The first thing you must learn…
is not to trust a power you do not yet understand."
At that moment…
Ares felt something strange.
Not fear.
But a primal realization…
that the most dangerous thing inside him
was not the black hole.
But the day he would stop fearing it.