Chapter 22: A CONTRASTING SIMILARITY
The rest of the initiation stretched like an endless ribbon of anticipation, punctuated by cheers that rang like cracked bells and boos that weaved through the vaulted chamber like unruly ghosts.
Candidate after candidate took their turn, but no one pierced beyond the Rank Aspect Three; even the sons and daughters of the vaunted Five Bio-Lines fell short, their ancestral bloodlines flickering like dim lanterns under a gale.
By the time the final name echoed through the hall, beginning with a solitary, serpentine Z, the outcome had already tipped. The Transcended had secured the first triumph of the season. Their banners glowed like captured starlight.
The Veilbounds, meanwhile, sat aloof, their faces carved from quiet stone; they had never been enamoured with the games. They were custodians of souls, guardians who sifted through the invisible tides of the Parallax.
It was not as though the Transcended and the Beyonders neglected Earth. On the contrary, this ritualised contest hardened their zeal, tempered their will to defend the world, and sharpened the blade they drove through Parallax servers. But tonight the veil between duty and spectacle fluttered.
When the last echo of applause thinned, Madame Liliana glided back to her seat. Her silken robes whispered like autumn leaves brushing marble. A hush swelled. Then Lord Dracovahk rose.
He moved with the still menace of a panther crossing moon-bleached snow. His broad shoulders and severe profile sliced the silence like a blade, and the very air seemed to bow beneath the weight of his aura.
His colour-contrasting hair; midnight at the left, argent at the right, caught the chandelier’s light and glimmered as if spun from molten frost. His eyes swept the hall, not wandering but hunting, as though searching for a wayward stag among trembling brush. For a heartbeat his face remained carved granite; then, a grin cracked it, sharp and deliberate.
Raising his right hand while his left stayed clasped behind his back, he spoke. His voice was not merely deep; it was a resonant command, an avalanche rolling down a mountain, a sound that climbed the bones of every listener and gripped the marrow. Even the chandeliers tremored slightly, their crystals chiming like nervous teeth.
"A resounding commendation," he thundered, "to the newly chosen warriors of the Trinity..."
He paused. That pause stretched like a drawn bow, the string of suspense humming in the air.
"I believe Madame Liliana has spoken much already. Yet two reminders remain."
All eyes tilted to him, as though gravity itself had shifted. The words he had spoken and the ones he had yet to, hung over the assembly like heavy constellations.
"The first," he said, and the hall dimmed around his voice,
"is remembrance. Whatever you do, ensure that no uninitiated eyes gaze upon a Parallax Server. You know the consequence." The syllables carried a dark intensity, a disciplined fury that made listeners feel both reverence and dread, as though the very air might shatter if they disobeyed.
Dax knew the consequence too well. He had learned it not in lectures but from the Devil himself during their unsettling meeting: any non-Trinity mortal who beheld a Parallax Server would have their soul siphoned in an instant, leaving a breathing husk, an empty marionette dangling on invisible strings.
Dracovahk’s second point came like a sudden clap of thunder.
"And the second is... LET THE CELEBRATION BEGIN!"
The words hit the hall like a seismic wave.
Dax’s jaw sagged open, his expression a portrait of comic astonishment. Around him, the other new initiates mirrored his face, eyes ballooned, mouths ajar, like a row of startled owls. Someone even dropped a cup; it rolled under a bench with a mournful clink.
Then the metamorphosis began.
The hall, once regimented into three solemn blocks of rows and columns—stirred like a living organism.
Chairs shifted with a groan of polished wood and a hiss of runes. The left block of seats, reserved for the Beyonders, glided outward and fused into a single elongated silver table.
The middle block, where the Veilbounds had sat cloaked in their habitual austerity, rotated like segments of a clock until it too aligned into a long argent banquet board.
Finally the right-hand rows of the Transcended folded inward, chairs pirouetting and clicking into new grooves, merging into a third shimmering table.
It was as if three rivers of furniture had poured into gleaming channels. Tablecloths of silvery damask unfurled across the lengths, chased by animated threads of light that stitched sigils into their hems. Chairs grew taller backs and sprouted delicate carvings of beasts and constellations.
Dax half expected the furniture to start speaking in tongues.
The veterans barely blinked. Hunger glimmered in their eyes like patient wolves. The newly initiated, on the other hand, looked as though they had been teleported into a fever dream. One boy’s jaw dropped so wide Dax swore he could see the boy’s breakfast still hiding in there; another girl clutched her chair as if expecting it to gallop away.
Then the feast arrived.
It did not simply appear; it manifested. Platters shimmered into being, steaming and aromatic, as if dreamt by some culinary deity. Gold-rimmed plates rotated gently before settling.
Goblets swelled up from the table like molten glass being blown by an invisible artisan, their stems twisting into elegant spirals. Crystal cups chimed as they formed, catching the candlelight in prismatic bursts.
Dax’s nose filled with scents both familiar and fantastical:– Phoenix-roast pheasant glazed with moon-nectar – Star-braided salmon crowned with emerald cress– Obsidian bread flecked with sun-dried berries– Bowls of celestial citrus—fruits that glowed faintly from within, like captured dawn– -cut venison drizzled in night-orchid sauce– Towers of myrrh-honey cakes and frost-petal pastries– Carafes of Aetherwine, Moon-pressed cider, and Silverdew water beading cold pearls down their sides
Each plate bore an intricate sigil at its centre, and each goblet’s rim was etched with runes of perpetual chill, keeping the wine at the perfect temperature. Even the cutlery gleamed, forks with tines shaped like tiny spears, knives etched with dancing constellations.
The yells that followed were primal. Dax barely heard them because the food itself seemed to speak, each dish whispering like a mischievous sprite:
’Buddy, over here!’
’No, me first... give me a bite!’ Another platter purred like a cat on a windowsill. A cake hissed,
’I’m the sweet you’ve been dreaming of.’
Dax’s stomach rumbled so loudly it sounded like thunder rolling over a hollow plain, threatening him the way storms threaten a seaside village.
Hungry was too small a word. He was famished... No, cataclysmically famished. His belly practically toasted the food, asking it on a romantic date.
This was no time to be the shy, introverted Dax. ’Hell no’. It was time to...
EAT.
He lunged, politely, but with the swiftness of a striking hawk at a platter of phoenix-roast pheasant, dragging it toward himself like a victorious hunter. Within himself he swore he would taste every single dish on that table, even if he became "pregnant with food" and birthed a buffet in the morning.
The thought made him snicker at his own absurdity.
Naya, passing behind him, shook his head in disbelief, muttering something about bottomless pits and reincarnated locusts. Dax ignored her.
He tore off a slab of star-braided salmon, its skin crackling, and shoved it into his mouth with arrogant relish. He chewed as though he were a king conducting a symphony of flavour, one eyebrow cocked, lips curled in shameless satisfaction.
Someone drew out the empty chair beside him, the one Naya had vacated and sat down.
Dax, cheeks bulging with food like a startled chipmunk, turned.
Purple hair cascaded in luminous waves. A symmetrical, aristocratic face framed eyes of brilliant green. Her black gown shimmered even more under the chandelier thanks to beadwork threaded like captured starlight. Dax recognised her instantly.
A strange, unwelcome shyness washed over him. He slowed his chewing like a man who had fasted for seven days and suddenly remembered etiquette. His brown eyes flicked to her and away, then back again, stealing glances as if they might burn him.
"Pass me the myrrh-honey cake," she asked nicely.
Her voice wasn’t merely beautiful. It was an auditory halo, honey poured over silver bells, a sound that made the air itself lean closer.
Dax hesitated, entranced, before sliding the cake toward her. To his astonishment she stuffed it into her mouth with ferocity, crumbs scattering like startled birds. For a second he half-expected her to eat him too.
She caught his stare and glared back, then shrugged.
"Would you blame me?" she said around the mouthful.
"I’m starving."
Despite himself, Dax relaxed. He resumed his devouring, side by side with her, the two of them drawing glances as though they were a forbidden twin act at a sacred play. Whispers skittered like mice through the hall. They did not care.
The girl reached for a goblet of red Aetherwine and took two heavy gulps. Relief bloomed on her face, subtle but radiant, as though some internal drought had at last broken with rain. She dabbed her lips, picked her tooth with her tongue, and spoke without much interest in the frenzy around them.
"Daxon, right?"
Dax found himself smirking. Joy stirred inside him like a sun thawing frost. Maybe it was because a girl had never addressed him so directly; maybe because this girl, seated beside him, did not treat him like a weirdo.
Alongside the joy swirled nervous energy, so all he managed was a nod before returning to his food.
But his thoughts rebelled. He had spoken well enough with Naya, hadn’t he? Why be silent now? He mustered his courage, feeling a new impulse rising, a pressure like molten iron beneath a crust of old shyness.
It was the Devil’s will flickering within him, the inheritance of a darker strength. He was changing, shifting from bullied oddity into something formidable.
"And you are Darling, right?" he asked.
She smiled, calmer now, eating a little bit more like a civilised human.
"Yes," she said, tossing a morsel of cake into her mouth.
"You remembered."
Dax nodded too quickly, cursing his nerves.
"Yeah, who wouldn’t?" he blurted, then realised how strange it sounded.
"No...y-yeah... mm... I mean, you remembered mine so..."
Darling raised a brow, then shrugged, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
"Right," she chirped.
Dax felt his face trying to melt. He vowed not to utter another word, but the urge in him, that restless push of inherited will, refused to be caged. Was this the metamorphosis?
The Devil’s highest will gradually sculpting him from timid clay into something sharper, bolder, inevitable?
Well, He broke his vow.
"So, a weak-willed, right?" His voice carried an odd new steadiness.
Darling straightened and exhaled. "Yeah. Same as you though... right?"
Dax chuckled, lowering his fork and knife. If the urge wanted conversation, so be it. He wiped his mouth with the cloth resting before him.
"Let me guess," he said, surprised at the courage seeping into his tone.
"You never expected any of this, right?"
She sliced another piece of bacon, then paused, wiping her mouth clean. Turning her gaze to him, she replied,
"Yeah..." She hesitated, then chuckled at the weight of her own confession.
"It was just a normal day... normal summer breeze and normal me staring into my phone..."