The ring felt wrong in his palm.
Cold. Unfamiliar. Yet somehow… known.
Albert stared at the intricate silver inscriptions—the designs were too precise, too purposeful, like they had been carved with intent, not just for decoration. The moment his fingers curled around it, something inside him stirred.
Aetherion hummed.
Veyra watched him, her sharp eyes glinting under the moonlight. "Well?"
Albert finally spoke, his voice steady. "Where did you get this?"
"From a corpse," she said casually. "One of the missing seniors."
Albert's fingers tightened around the ring.
The same seniors who had gone on that 'routine mission' and never returned.
Veyra stepped closer. "The question is—why does it react to you?"
Albert said nothing. He was still processing. Because react was an understatement.
The moment the ring touched his skin, his Law of Binding shifted.
The threads he always felt, the invisible strings that let him connect and control—they twisted, coiling like something deeper was waking up.
He could sense another layer beneath them.
A layer he had never noticed before.
Not just Binding.
Something older. Something buried.
And then, the visions started.
It wasn't Quantum Academy.
The sky above was dark, endless, pulsing with unseen forces. Structures that defied physics loomed in the distance—towers that bent at impossible angles, walls that shimmered like living shadows.
Albert was standing in a courtyard—but it wasn't him.
He was someone else.
Or maybe… himself, but in another time.
The air thrummed with power. The ground was etched with the same inscriptions as the ring in his palm.
Before him, figures stood in formation. Dozens of them, clad in flowing dark cloaks, faces hidden by masks.
Their voices merged into one, an echoing chant:
"By the Threads of Dominion, we claim the Forgotten Bond."
Albert's pulse hammered in his chest.
This wasn't just a vision.
This was real.
Somewhere, sometime, he had been here before.
And the Shroud?
They weren't outsiders.
They were connected to him.
Back to Reality
Albert sucked in a sharp breath, the vision vanishing. His chest burned, his head light. The ring still sat in his palm, its inscriptions glowing faintly before dimming.
Veyra raised an eyebrow. "That looked like something."
Albert exhaled slowly. "It was nothing."
Her smirk returned. "You're a terrible liar."
He ignored her. His mind was racing, pieces falling into place too fast to catch.
The Shroud's power wasn't foreign to him.
It was familiar.
Which meant one thing—they weren't just targeting him.
They were calling him back.
Veyra turned to leave. "Whatever that ring stirred in you? You'd better figure it out fast." She gave him one last glance over her shoulder. "Because the next time the Shroud comes knocking… you might not have a choice."
Then, she disappeared into the night.
Albert stayed behind, staring at the ring.
Aetherion hummed again, deeper this time. Like it understood something he didn't.
Albert clenched his fist around the ring.
No choice, huh?
He slipped it onto his finger.
And the world shifted.
Elsewhere…
In the depths of the academy, far beneath the known halls, a hidden chamber pulsed with unnatural energy.
The walls were stitched with inscriptions, old and humming, stretching in spirals that defied understanding.
A figure in black robes stood alone. Their face was unseen, their presence blending into the very air.
Before them, a pool of liquid shadow rippled, shifting into a hazy image—
Albert Faustin.
Wearing the ring.
The figure's head tilted, a whisper curling through the chamber.
"He's waking up."
A second figure emerged from the darkness, their voice calm. "Good. It's time he remembers."
The first figure nodded.
Then, the shadows swallowed them whole.