Thirteen years passed in Ardva like the turning of a blade—slow when you watched it, sudden when you looked away. Leom trained Ivel alongside his daughters, Aniya and Elia. The twins called Ivel their little brother, and Ivel called them his sisters, while Leom—without ever forcing the word—became father in everything but blood.
Ivel survived the nexus forming and awakened as a Genesis. With it came new qualities, powers… and change. His eyes were no longer autumn-colored. They shifted into a rare, captivating purple—an unnatural beauty that made villagers avert their gaze and stare all the same.
An insignia appeared on his hand, almost like a tattoo: coils shaped into triangles—two of them—one pressed beneath the other as if the top triangle was pushing the lower one down. No ink could have made lines that clean. It felt as if it had always been there, waiting for his core to breathe.
He wasn't the only one who changed. His sisters were already Enlightened, stepping toward the next stage with the kind of speed that made elders go quiet. And Leom… Leom did not slack for those thirteen years either. He molded, expanded, and sharpened his nexus until it evolved into the Reverend stage.
At that point, calling him human felt almost insane—yet even a Reverend could be killed. Not without cost. Not without someone paying for it in blood.
Being trained by a Reverend changed Ivel more than any rumor ever could. His swordsmanship became pristine for his age. Still, living beside monsters of talent did something cruel to the mind: it made greatness feel normal, and normal feel like failure.
Ivel often thought he was below average. He didn't know that keeping up with them at all was a feat by itself. Leom could take out thousands of abominations with a single swing when the blade was willing. And Aniya and Elia—both seventeen and Enlightened—were already making a name for themselves.
People called them the Sisters of Fate. Their qualities were unpredictable, and they had a way of changing the course of battle as if the world itself hesitated around them. Ironically, no one could tell what their own fate would be.
In Ardva, the past thirteen years brought no peace—only patterns of survival. Abominations grew abundant in the nearby areas, so Enlightened and Ascended were deployed again and again to thin the tide. The twins were sent too.
That morning, Ivel came back from the training grounds with sweat cooling on his skin and salt wind in his hair. He stepped inside to the most unsettling sight—at least to outsiders: a Reverend standing at a stove, cooking like an ordinary man.
Leom looked up and said, "Breakfast should be ready soon. Could you help me with the table?"
"Yeah, sure," Ivel replied, setting plates down carefully.
Leom smiled. "I just received news. Your sisters are coming back from the frontlines."
"Already?" Ivel's brows lifted before he could stop it. "I thought it'd be another few months."
"Seems the situation died down since I was there. We got lucky, I suppose."
They ate together, as they always did when the world allowed it. Ivel especially enjoyed Leom's cooking—the taste of a life that didn't have to be earned with a sword.
Later, Leom asked, "So… how's the evolution of your core going?"
Ivel shrugged. "It's going. I'm still slowly expanding it. Like always."
To evolve a nexus, you didn't simply want it. You had to expand it while shaping it—molding it into something stable. A better shape meant a better chance at evolution. A flawed shape meant death… or worse.
"But I've been having trouble figuring out what shape to make it," Ivel admitted.
Leom's eyes softened, as if he understood the pain too well. "That certainly is troublesome. But you'll find it. You still have time."
Ivel nodded and kept eating. Leom watched him a moment longer than necessary, realizing—like a sudden sting—that the child from the bloodied boat was gone. In his place sat a boy trying to stand straight beneath a world that bent everyone.
Leom had told Ivel the truth long ago: how he was found, what happened to his parents. Ivel accepted it quickly, but not because it didn't hurt. Because he had already felt something was off—not in his home, not in Leom or the twins… but in the way the villagers looked at him.
Even as a child, Ivel understood something many adults never learned: people feared power they could not understand, and that fear drove them mad.
After breakfast, Ivel left the house and walked to the shore—the place he was found. He did it without thinking, and that scared him a little.
He stood at the cliff where the wind tasted of salt and distant storms. The sea stretched outward, fog hanging low like a curtain. For some odd reason, he felt peace there—like the ocean was a monster that at least didn't lie.
"I wonder what goes beyond there…" he whispered.
His gaze fell to the insignia on his hand. The triangles looked sharper under the pale light.
"What do I even have this for? The shape looks… interesting. I wonder if—"
His thoughts were cut off by footsteps behind him—quiet, but not quiet enough to hide from a boy trained by Leom.
Leom said, "I knew I'd find you here. You really oughta tell me when you're gonna run off."
He poked Ivel's cheek like he used to when Ivel was younger. Ivel swatted his hand away.
"I didn't run away that far, you know."
Leom sighed, amusement in his voice. "Suit yourself, kid."
Leom sat beside him on the cliff. For a while neither spoke, listening to waves crash and retreat like a breathing thing.
"Have you been wondering what's out there, Ivel?" Leom asked.
Ivel's eyes widened—then he masked it quickly. It was hard to hide anything from a Reverend.
"Yeah. I want to know where I came from… after all."
Leom exhaled, long and heavy.
"I understand. But it's dangerous. Even I have trouble traveling through the ocean."
"And with where you're at… I don't think you'd last a second."
Ivel clenched his fist, nails pressing into skin. He hated how true it sounded. He hated that truth always felt like a chain.
"But what if I reach the Enlightened stage? Do you think I'd have a chance?"
Leom contemplated, then patted the boy's head.
"You'd have to be a really strong Enlightened."
"Even then… there are monsters out there that would kill you in an instant—so long as you don't find a dredge."