The Darkness System: Rise of the Broken Sovereign

The Commentator’s voice echoed through the colosseum as the crowd settled after the award ceremony.

”A brief announcement regarding the Inheritance Ground. The ground will open in exactly nine months and will remain accessible for only two weeks. Only the top four academies are granted entry. Tokens are limited. Sixty in total, twelve per qualifying academy. The remaining twelve tokens will be allocated to IGF training camp cadets.”

Kael filed the information away. The inheritance grounds were legendary patches of preserved reality containing techniques, treasures, and opportunities that couldn’t be found anywhere else. They were created by powerful cultivators. These places could accelerate a cultivator’s growth by years in a matter of days.

”Additionally, all qualifying students will be taken to the IGF Library in two days time. Until then, rest and recover.”

The stadium began to empty. Medical staff escorted the more severely wounded students to private treatment facilities. The crowd filtered out in waves, voices buzzing with analysis and speculation.

Kael stretched, feeling the ache in his muscles slowly fade as his Void Body Refinement worked on the accumulated damage. Two days of rest. He could work with that.

Evening painted the IGF Central’s entertainment district in shades of gold and neon.

A massive party had been organized in a pavilion that sprawled across three interconnected ballrooms, each one large enough to hold hundreds of people. Crystal chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings, mana-infused light refracting through them in prismatic patterns that shifted with the music. Long tables lined the walls, loaded with food and drink that cost more than most families earned in a year.

Everyone dressed to impress.

Students from every academy, even those eliminated in the earliest rounds, moved through the crowds in tailored suits and flowing dresses. Fabric that cost thousands of credits. Jewelry that hummed with minor enchantments. Hair styled with mana techniques that held perfect shapes without a single pin.

Heaven’s Gate occupied the largest section of the central ballroom. Their first-place finish had given them prime positioning, and they were using every inch of it.

Neon Abyss was conspicuously absent. Their section sat empty, the students having left the IGF Central facility hours ago without ceremony. Nobody seemed to miss them.

Kael stood near a marble pillar with a glass of something amber and expensive, watching the crowd with the detached amusement of a man who found most social gatherings profoundly boring.

Karacus appeared beside him. The dragon-kin had actually put effort into his appearance for once. White shirt, open at the collar, black trousers, silver cufflinks shaped like dragon scales. His white hair was pulled back, revealing the sharp angles of his face more clearly than his usual messy style allowed.

Kael looked him up and down.

”Well, well. Look at you. Almost human.”

Karacus’s expression didn’t change. ”Shut up.”

”Did someone help you dress? Someone must have. There’s no way you picked those cufflinks yourself.”

”I said shut up.”

Kael smirked and took a sip of his drink. The smirk faded into something more serious.

”Do you think we would have won? If the time hadn’t run out.”

Karacus was quiet for a moment. He scratched the back of his head, a surprisingly casual gesture for someone who had been trying to kill an angel-blooded cultivator an hour ago.

”It would have been annoying,” he said slowly, each word sounding like it cost him effort to produce. ”But if I went all out and used my full dragon form, we would have won. It’s just that it would take quite a while to transform back to my humanoid form. And I’m pretty sure you have more cards up your sleeve.”

Kael raised an eyebrow. ”I’m surprised you can talk this much. After all, you never say more than three lines.”

Karacus’s expression turned indifferent. He looked at Kael with those ice-blue slitted pupils that still carried traces of the dragon, and said nothing for a long moment.

”Lines are for people who don’t know when silence is stronger.”

Kael blinked. Then he laughed, a genuine sound that drew glances from nearby students.

”That’s pure nonsense. Was that four lines? You’re growing.”

Karacus turned and walked away toward the drink table without responding.

Cassian, who had been standing with a group of bachelors near the edge of the ballroom, straightened as someone approached from across the room.

Yenna Frostveil walked toward them through the crowd in a white dress that hugged her figure without being revealing, her pale hair pulled up into an elegant arrangement that showed off her neck and collarbones. She looked recovered and rested. Beautiful in a way that made conversations stall as she passed.

Cassian left his group without a word, abandoning them mid-sentence, and met her halfway. He said something Kael couldn’t hear. Yenna smiled. They walked away together toward the balcony.

Kael watched them go and turned to mock Karacus, but the dragon-kin was already at the drink table, deliberately not looking in his direction.

”Better get a girl yourself,” Kael called out, grinning. ”Before you die alone.”

Karacus raised a glass in acknowledgment without turning around.

Kael shook his head and moved toward the entrance of the ballroom. Three figures had just arrived, and the crowd around them was parting with noticeable reluctance.

Rue walked in first, her white hair cascading over her shoulders, wearing a white dress that flowed like water, simple but stunning, hugging her petite frame in all the right places. Her nine tails were hidden, but the way she moved still carried that otherworldly grace that made people stop and stare.

Sage followed, her white golden hair loose and wild, a deep blue dress that clung to her curves like it had been painted on, the neckline low enough to be dangerous. Her violet eyes scanned the room.

Aria came last, and Kael’s breath caught for a fraction of a second before he controlled it. She wore a deep crimson dress, the color of fresh blood, that contrasted with her sharp features and violet eyes in a way that should have been violent but was somehow mesmerizing. Her dark hair was swept to one side, exposing the line of her neck.

Three pairs of eyes locked onto his position.

Rue’s face lit up. Sage’s lips curved into a smile. Aria’s expression softened.

They approached together, and Kael pushed off the pillar to meet them.

”You’re late,” he said.

”You’re not our keeper,” Sage replied, looping her arm through his.

Rue took his other arm and pressed against his side, looking up at him with those big colourful eyes. ”You look nice.”

”I always look nice.”

Sage snorted. Aria said nothing, but her hand found the small of his back, a subtle claim that made the nearby male students look away with expressions that ranged from envy to despair.

The jealousy was palpable. Three of the most beautiful women in the tournament, all attached to one man. A guy from Astral Zenith muttered something under his breath that sounded distinctly like ”bullshit” before his friend dragged him away.

”Drinks,” Sage announced, pulling Aria with her toward the bar. ”Rue, keep him company. And don’t let him near anyone else.”

Rue smiled sweetly. ”Of course.”

As soon as they were out of earshot, Sage leaned close to Aria, her voice dropping to a whisper that Kael’s enhanced hearing still caught perfectly.

”Don’t let him get close to another girl. I saw the way some of these bitches were looking at him.”

Aria’s response was quiet enough that even Kael’s hearing strained to catch it. ”He can look. He always comes back.”

”That’s not the point.”

Their voices faded into the crowd noise.

Rue tugged Kael’s arm and led him toward the dance floor, where students from multiple academies moved together under the spell of a live band that played mana-enhanced instruments.

They didn’t get far.

The crowd parted for a second time, but this time the energy was different. Not admiration. Anticipation.

A woman walked toward Kael with the confident stride of someone who had never doubted her place in the world. Green hair moved like living vines around her shoulders. Bronze skin, green eyes sparkled with amusement.

Ravenna Silva.

A gasp rippled through the nearby students. The vice captain of Empyreal Celestial, the woman Kael had killed in the tournament, was walking toward him in a dress that was essentially a green veil with strategic patches of fabric. Every male eye in a thirty-meter radius locked onto her.

She stopped directly in front of Kael, close enough that he could smell her perfume, something floral and dangerous.

”Kael Vorn,” she said, her voice that same warm, melodic tone from the abandoned city. ”You look much better without corpses beneath you.”

”And you look much better without my blade in your chest,” Kael replied.

Ravenna laughed. Laughter that made several nearby men clutch their chests.

”I like you,” she said. ”Most people are too scared to joke about killing me.”

”Most people haven’t killed you.”

Her green eyes sparkled. ”Fair point.”

She produced a small communication token from somewhere in her dress, the movement drawing eyes to places that the strategic patches were supposed to be covering.

”Your contact information,” she said, pressing it into his palm. ”For next time.”

”Next time?”

”You don’t think this is over, do you? The tournament was just the opening act.” She leaned closer, her lips near his ear. ”I want a rematch. And I always get what I want.”

She pulled back with a smile, turned, and walked away, her green hair swaying, every male eye in the room following her exit.

Kael looked down at the communication token in his hand.

Sage and Aria materialized beside him. Sage held two drinks. Aria held one.

Sage’s eyes tracked Ravenna’s retreating form with a glare so intense that the air temperature between her and the elf actually dropped two degrees.

”What did she want?” Sage asked, her voice deceptively sweet.

”She gave me her contact info,” Kael said, holding up the token.

Sage’s eye twitched.

”What?” Kael said, all innocence. ”I’m a man.”

Sage turned to Rue and Aria, expecting allies. Rue was examining her nails with carefully constructed indifference. Aria was sipping her drink and looking at the ceiling.

Sage slapped her forehead with a deadpan expression.

”You two are hopeless,” she said. ”Without me, they’ll steal him from us.”

Rue finally looked up and smiled as she raised her hand as if cheering her. ”We trust you, Sage.”

”That’s not the point!”

Aria took another sip. ”It kind of is.”

Sage groaned and downed her entire drink in one go.

The party continued around them, music playing, laughter echoing, the first night of what would be a very long year.