Cole looked over the side of his bed. Lia was still out cold, her multi-colored hair spread everywhere across the pillow, face more peaceful than he'd ever seen it. The grey storm light filtering through the window made her look different. Vulnerable, maybe. Weird word to connect with someone who could melt steel with her hands.

  He grabbed his jeans off the floor and walked to the mirror, checking out the faint scorch marks decorating his shoulders and arms. The hotel sheets had a whole blackened section.

  Meanwhile his new Null-Guard chest plate looked oddly perfect. It was cleaner than before, like Lia's forge-heat had somehow purified it.

  Do they even make fireproof bedding?

  He smirked. Whatever. Problem for later. He'd leave housekeeping a massive tip. They'd probably seen worse, though maybe not this exact combination of burn patterns.

  He threw on a shirt and headed downstairs. He was starving and needed at least two pitchers of water. He sent Lia a quick neural message telling her where he'd gone. The message included a small image file: a photo of the destroyed sheets with the caption, "Your forge-ports owe the hotel new linens."

  His account balance caught his eye as he descended, the additional 100,000 credits from his prior job flashing.

  He thought of Alice. Her apartment with the broken elevator. The door held together with wire. The single room where she lived surrounded by musical equipment worth more than everything else she owned.

  He pulled up her contact mid-step.

  Transfer: 15,000 credits

  Memo: "Upgrade your security. Better apartment. Better gear. Please. -C"

  Her response came before he'd reached the lobby:

  "Cole… I can't take this."

  He paused on the landing:

  "You can and you will. Money isn’t tight like it used to be. The least I can do is make sure you're somewhere with a door that locks."

  A longer pause. He could picture her staring at the number, jaw tight, pride warring with practicality.

  "This isn't guilt money, is it?"

  "It's 'my sister deserves better than that shithole studio' money. Take it."

  "...Fine. But I'm paying you back."

  "Sure you are."

  "I mean it, asshole."

  "I know. Love you, sis."

  "Love you too. Try not to get killed before I can make good on it."

  He ended his neural-link and found Lucius already sitting at a table. Somehow, he was in a worse state than Cole, his jacket draped over his chair and his hair looking like he'd been struck by his own lightning. Which, knowing Lucius, was entirely possible. He waved him over to join.

  "Fun night?" Lucius asked in a teasing manner.

  "Yeah, you could say that."

  "You come down here with fresh burn marks on your arms, looking like you wrestled a baby dragon, and that is all you have to say? You're no fun. At least tell me... who won, you or Lia?"

  "We both did."

  Lucius pointed his fork at Cole's visible burn marks. "So that's what happens when you hook up with someone who can literally melt steel. Good to know. Mental note: avoid Forge Domains during—"

  "Don't finish that sentence," Cole cut him off.

  "I was going to say 'intimate moments,' very classy. You need a chrome doc to patch those up?"

  "They'll heal. My new plating handled most of it." Cole glanced down at his arms. "Worth it."

  "Brave man. Once dated a Void Domain, I woke up floating three feet off the bed. Gravity manipulation is not as fun as it sounds at 4 AM." He paused. "Actually, no, it was exactly as fun as it sounds. Just disorienting."

  “So how did the night end? You look rough yourself."

  "Yeah, after you two lovebirds left, somebody brought out some home-brewed vodka. It was distilled from storm-touched potatoes, which should have been our first warning. It tasted like batteries and bad decisions. Things just went further downhill from there. I may have challenged a local to a drinking contest. I won, but at what cost?"

  The two glanced at the menu, a holographic display showing an array of perfectly synthesized breakfast food available. They looked at the images of nutrient paste shaped like eggs and protein blocks colored to look like sausage, each item listing its exact nutritional content down to the microgram, then locked eyes as if their minds had become in tune.

  "Spicy food?" Cole pressed.

  “Please. Synthesized eggs and toast isn’t going to cut it. My soul needs to be cleansed with fire.”

  They found a local curry shop a few blocks away, a hole-in-the-wall place where the scent of real, searing spices was so thick it felt like walking through a delicious, painful cloud. The sign above the door just said "PAIN", with a skull and crossbones made of chili peppers. A flickering neon liability waiver was taped to the door.

  "Give me something that will burn away all my prior night's decisions," Cole said.

  The restaurant owner, a wiry old man with a full-body chrome chassis, grinned. His heat-resistant plating was scorched black in places. "Forgiveness Through Fire?"

  "That the actual name?"

  “Would I lie about something this serious?"

  “I’ll take it. And give me whatever you're giving him, but twice as hot," Lucius added. "And two, no, make it five pitchers of water. Actually, do you have milk?”

  “Milk is extra,” the owner said. “And won’t help with this level of heat. The capsaicin is molecularly bonded. You'd need industrial solvent.”

  Lucius looked at the man in the eyes. “Perfect.”

  As they waited, Cole's diagnostic system was already warning him about what he was about to do to his digestive tract, the comfortable silence was broken by Lucius. "So, Cole." Lucius pushed his water glass around the table in circles, "I have a favor to ask. Well, Senna and I have a favor we need."

  "I am not officiating anything. Again, I have only known you for a week," Cole replied deadpan. "Also, I'm pretty sure Domain marriages require a Sequence Three to oversee them, something about divine witnesses."

  Lucius let out a loud laugh, drawing looks from the other patrons. "Who do you take me for? My wings aren't ready to be clipped yet. Besides, before saying 'I do,' Senna would have already hacked my entire life, found every secret I have, and presented me with a slideshow of my flaws. A little too honest for a wedding night. No, this is business. We are both at 100% core cleansing for our current Sequence. We're ready to make the jump to Sequence Four. Around this area, there is a Rare-tier monster for each of our Domains, and we were planning on taking the opportunity to take the first step. It will take some time to find the second required rift-beast, but that’s a problem for another day.”

  "And what does this have to do with me? Do Lucent Domains make for good bait? Because I've been bait before. It usually ends with me in the hospital."

  "You really are still green, huh? When you start the ascension hunts for Sequence Four and above, you can have one other Domain user of a lower Sequence help you during the fight. It's an old rule. Something about the gods appreciating a master taking on an apprentice. Also, pragmatically, someone needs to carry the extra ammunition and med-kits."

  "Meaning me?"

  "Bingo, Einstein. You will be handsomely compensated with your first pick of any non-core rift-beast monster parts. Scales, bones, organs... whatever strikes your fancy. Some of that stuff sells for serious credits on the black market."

  "Which you will be hauling and carving up for me to be loaded up, right?" Cole asked, taking a sip of water. "Because I'm not playing pack mule for monster giblets."

  Lucius gritted his teeth. "Sure, princess. I'll even gift-wrap them if you want."

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  "Alright, I'm in. What's another near-death experience between teammates at this point?"

  “Glad to hear. Also this is no offense to you, but we both think you could benefit from some unique training. Senna's arranged for you to work with a friend of hers named Iris. Sequence Five Theorem Warrior of the Pattern Domain. She's agreed to put you through the grinder for a few days."

  "What's she going to do, teach me combat spreadsheets?" Cole asked with a smirk. "Death by pivot tables?"

  The humor vanished from Lucius’s face, replaced by a look of genuine concern. "Uhh, yeah, about that. Iris is... intense. We've all trained with her at some point. It's an experience. At the very least you can say it definitely makes you think about battle techniques in a different way."

  "You're just screwing with me, aren't you? If Pattern Domains are so strong, why don't you ever see them taking combat merc jobs?"

  "Because most of them choose that Domain specifically to avoid direct combat. They like clean data, predictable outcomes. But Iris?" Lucius shook his head. "She's the exception. She chose Pattern because she wanted to turn mathematics into a weapon. Trust me, a Pattern Domain on a warpath... it's nasty. Reality starts agreeing with their equations. Two plus two stops equaling four and starts equaling 'you're fucked.'"

  "That bad huh?"

  Lucius gave Cole a coy smile. "Let's just say I've learned that arguing with Iris about probability is a losing game in more ways than one. She once proved mathematically that I was wrong about something before I'd even said it. Then she demonstrated it physically. With her sword. Still have the scar.”

  His expression turned more serious. “I'm not bullshitting about Iris. She broke a Sequence Five Void user once. Not killed, but broke. Guy could phase through walls but couldn't phase through her equations. Last I heard he's teaching math at some academy, completely pacifist. Won't even step on bugs."

  "That's supposed to discourage me?"

  "It's supposed to make sure you know what you're signing up for. Senna runs probabilities. I run chaos. But Iris? She runs certainty. And certainty doesn't give a shit about your feelings."

  Cole thought about the Shard Stalker, about Silas, about every fight where he'd barely scraped by on luck and desperation. "Maybe that's what I need. I'm tired of not knowing if I'll survive the next job."

  "Can't argue with that." Lucius's expression softened. "Just... don't let her turn you into a robot. We like you weird and unpredictable."

  "I'll try to maintain my sparkling personality."

  "Please don't. It's barely sparkling as is."

  Their food arrived, the curry so hot it was steaming in the climate-controlled restaurant. The manager set it down with tongs, keeping his chrome hands well away from the bowls.

  "If you die," he said cheerfully, "please do it outside. I just had the floors cleaned."

  Cole took his first bite. A high-pitched whining sound reverberated in his ears, his own pain receptors screaming. But it was exactly what he needed, the fire burning away the lingering headache due to last night.

  "So Cole. Can I ask you something without you getting weird about it?"

  "Depends on the question."

  "You ever think about the odds? Like, statistically, we're all gonna die doing this. Senna ran the numbers once when she was drunk. Gave us each maybe five years before something gets us. Ten if we're lucky and paranoid."

  Cole was quiet for a moment. "Yeah. I think about it."

  "And you're still here. Still signing up for shit like hunting rare-tier monsters with people you barely know. Why?"

  "Because five years of truly living beats fifty years of just existing." Cole met his eyes. "I spent most of my life on the outside looking in. Now that I'm in. I'm not wasting it."

  Lucius nodded slowly. "Senna says the same thing. Different words, but same idea." He leaned back. "Just wanted to make sure you weren't doing this because you've got a death wish or something. We've had teammates like that before. Never ends well."

  "I want to live, Lucius. I just also want it to mean something."

  "Good answer. Now let's see if that philosophy holds up when your insides are on fire." Lucius took a massive bite, tears already streaming down his face from the heat. The curry had turned his lips a concerning shade of red, and small sparks were jumping between his teeth from the capsaicin.

  They ate in silence for a moment, the only sound their labored breathing.

  "So when do we leave?" Cole inquired, wiping sweat from his forehead with a napkin that immediately started smoking.

  "In five days. Iris wants to start this afternoon. Fair warning, she's already run eleven thousand simulations of potential training scenarios with you. Only 63% end with you conscious, so she wants to improve those numbers."

  "Only conscious? What about alive?"

  "Oh, you survive in 94% of scenarios. She's very precise about not killing her students. Says corpses can't learn from their mistakes." Lucius paused. "Though she also says unconscious students retain information better through trauma-induced memory formation. Something about the amygdala and pattern recognition."

  "Comforting. What about you? Don't you need training for your hunt?"

  "My fight is very straightforward. It's a Voltaic Wyrm, which is basically a giant electric eel with anger management issues and teeth like railway spikes. Plus," Lucius added with a grimace, "I already did my mandatory Iris training last year. Once was enough. I still sometimes wake up trying to solve equations that don't exist."

  After eating, Cole headed back up to the hotel room, bringing some takeout. The elevator ride was torture; the small enclosed space concentrated the curry fumes until his eyes were streaming. Two other passengers got on, took one breath, and immediately got off at the next floor.

  "What is that? It feels like the nasal filters in my nose are burning." The strong fiery smell of the curry waking Lia. She was sitting up in bed with the sheet wrapped around her.

  "Just trust me, the burn and endorphins released dull the sharp pain from the hangover. Plus, it'll burn away any regrets from last night. Not that I have any."

  Lia looked at him with a bit of hesitation, her palms glowing slightly in defensive response to the perceived chemical threat, but decided to trust him. After one bite, her eyes went wide. "Holy fuck, my forge-ports are actually cooling down to compensate. This is hotter than my own fire, but damn good. Where did you get this?"

  "Place down the street, headed down there with Lucius this morning. The owner claims it's a family recipe from before the Collapse. Apparently, his grandmother thought mild food was a sign of moral weakness."

  “How was that?”

  "Really fun actually. Lucius was Lucius as always, but our conversation was different. We talked like friends instead of just teammates. Maybe I should check my system for malware.”

  Lia let out a laugh, “Yeah, I am familiar with that feeling.” She winced as she took her next breath and the curry fumes hit her sinuses. "Damn, that burns twice: once going down and once in the air.”

  She paused for a moment, her face turning slightly more serious, “So, hey... about last night?"

  “Yeah? It was fun.”

  "Yeah, it was. It’s just... I am not the casual type of person, I really don't like sharing. Had enough of that growing up in Flesh City. Everything there was communal, including relationships. Hated it. I am not saying we are a couple or anything, just..."

  "You want to see where this all heads without others being in the mix?" Cole finished for her. His Lucent powers were showing him possible futures, some where they were together, some where they were apart, one where they were trying to kill each other. He chose to focus on the present.

  “Exactly. So what do you think?”

  "Works for me." He sat on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch but giving her space.

  "Just like that?" Lia asked, a hint of surprise in her voice. "No negotiation? No terms and conditions? No six-month probationary period with performance reviews?"

  Cole shrugged his shoulders, "Tomorrow I can be a heap of scrap metal. Why waste our lives not taking chances and living in the what-ifs? Besides, you literally set me on fire last night and I came back with breakfast. I think that says something."

  "And what about Jess?" Lia asked, trying to sound casual but Cole could hear the slight tension in her voice.

  “Oh, Jess? She’ll be fine. She will be annoyed I've been poached, I'm sure, but she'll get over it. She’s got another person she sees regularly.”

  “Really? No cursing or throwing blunt objects at you?”

  “Jess has always been a free spirit. Like I said, we have an understanding. We talked about it once and immediately shot down the idea of anything serious. She knew she would spend her days worrying, her circuits decaying from the stress, and I would feel held back. Brit on the other hand…”

  “Brit???”

  “She lives in Lucent City, occasionally comes by Forge City for work. I'm pretty sure she'll take it fine."

  "Well, that's good to hear," Lia said, her lips twitching into a smile. “Because I don't do drama. Had a relationship once where the guy's other girlfriend tried to melt me with acid. Turns out my Domain can neutralize most chemicals, but still, not fun. Speaking of professions, I was thinking we could head back to Forge City soon or we can take on this job I found for us in Swarm City. It's the Hive Domain capital. Imagine millions of synchronized drones. The architecture shifts based on the collective unconscious. It's fascinating and terrifying."

  “Oh yeah, about that, Lucius and Senna asked me to help them fight some rift-beasts so that they can begin the ascension process. Apparently, I am to train with a friend of Senna's for the next couple of days.”

  Lia raised an eyebrow, her expression shifting from casual to concerned. "Good luck with that. Who is it?"

  "Some Pattern Domain user named Iris. Senna says she's the best."

  “Iris?” Lia’s eyes widened slightly. “Okay, now I get it. Be careful, Cole. You may be taking her lightly, but trust me, fighting a Pattern Domain is a whole different animal. It's not about strength or speed; it's about being forced to exist in their framework. When are you meeting her for your first training session?"

  “This afternoon.”

  "Yeah… You will see. I don't want to ruin the surprise. But maybe wear your old armor. You know, the stuff you don't mind getting reality-warped."

  Just then, Cole's neural-link chimed. A message from Senna. "Iris is expecting you. Training commences at 14:00. Bring all equipment. Prepare for non-Euclidean combat scenarios. PS: The curry was a mistake. She knows you ate it."

  Cole looked at Lia, who was trying not to smile. "She knows?"

  "Senna knows everything. And Iris probably knows she knows." Lia's expression softened. "But seriously, Cole, be careful. Pattern Domains at that Sequence don't fight; they solve. And in their equations, you're usually the variable that needs to be eliminated."

  Cole stood up, already mentally preparing for whatever mathematical hell awaited him. "Any advice?"

  "Yeah," Lia said, pulling him down for a quick kiss that tasted of curry. "Absorb as much as she teaches you. And remember, in her world, two plus two equals whatever she wants it to."

  As Cole left to prepare, he heard Lia call after him: "Oh, and Cole? If she starts talking about imaginary numbers, run. They're only imaginary until she makes them real."

  Walking down the hallway, Cole's reflection showed him different versions of the upcoming training. In all of them, he was in pain. In most of them, he was confused. In at least three, he appeared to be crying.

  "Perfect," he muttered. "From surviving Lia's forge-fire to Iris’s math torture. My life is just one educational experience after another."

  His diagnostic system helpfully reminded him that his curry was beginning to metabolize, and the secondary burning would commence in approximately forty-three minutes.

  Right around when training would start.

  He was sure Iris had calculated that, too.

  [Volumes 1 & 2 Complete]

  What happens when an orphan rises up against the most powerful empire in the world?

  The powerful chase greater power, while the weak are crushed beneath their ambitions.

  In this world, personal strength is the ultimate currency.

  He only wanted to become a Hunter — one of those who protected the village from monsters and roaming vagabonds.

  About the Story:

  - Strong-to-OP protagonist

  - Unique magic system based on Astral Images and Domains

  - Expansive worldbuilding that grows from a single planet into star-faring empires, cults, clans, guilds, and primordial factions

  - No endless Dao-sitting cultivation

  - Gradual, organic romance

  - Never-ending chaos

  Volumes 1 & 2 are COMPLETE.

  Volume 3: 100% COMPLETE.

  Release Schedule: Monday / Wednesday / Friday

  Participant in the Royal Road Writathon Challenge