Three years has passed.
Inside the Karnell Facility—hidden beyond the Great Border's icy curtain—the children of Dominion grew in silence, in pain, and in power.
Their chambers remained sealed for most of the day, monitored by dozens of sensors and rotating shifts of armed guards. Each child followed a rigid cycle: testing, injections, recovery, education, isolation. The routine never changed. The pain never dulled.
After the EL-serum came a new drug—X-Red Compound, a formula designed to force latent genetic compatibility into manifestation. It wasn't meant to be kind. It was meant to draw out results.
The drug didn't just affect mana pathways. It warped them. Bones shifted under the skin, muscles tore and reformed, organs expanded or collapsed. Hearts sometimes exploded mid-process. Spleens imploded. Internal bleeding was common. Screams were normal.
The sensation was described by one child as "fire eating your soul while your bones try to crawl out of your skin."
Out of the original seventy-two, only eighteen had survived the EL-serum. Five more died under X-Red.
Of the remaining, only four unlocked significant genetic expression early:
O-243, the grandson of General Ceaser, displayed an extraordinary regeneration rate and terrifying muscular density. He fractured a titanium bedframe with one kick during testing.
The S-Twins, S-410 and S-411, had begun to produce heat signatures strong enough to warp nearby glass.
R-932 predicted a technician's movement pattern and caused a full facility lockdown when he escaped his chamber—only to return voluntarily, stating the escape would be "unfruitful… for now."
The rest progressed slower. Some grew stronger. Some weaker.
Some lost their minds.
A few stopped growing hair altogether. Eyelashes, eyebrows, all gone. One child's body began evaporating briefly during injection cycles, their skin turning semi-transparent before stabilizing. Most, however, had their hair return in thin patches.
AB-774, however, was the anomaly.
He never responded.
His body absorbed the drugs. His vitals remained steady. He never screamed. Never cried.
But his hair returned—a pure, snow-white shade. His eyes remained the same, a flat dark blue, dead of all light.
The scientists debated. Some thought him a failure. Others believed he was simply dormant. But one fact remained: he felt pain—they were sure of it—but he never showed it.
Education began in the third year.
The children were moved to an underground lecture hall. Sterile, round, with holographic screens embedded into the walls and rows of old metal desks. Guards stood behind thick windows, watching for signs of aggression. Most of the children sat quietly, focused not out of interest but out of habitual survival.
The teacher was a woman named Marla Verin. Early thirties. Sharp, thin face. Black hair tied in a tight knot. A voice like broken glass on silk.
She wore the uniform of a military academic, and her posture radiated command. She never smiled. Never comforted. Never looked twice at any child.
She taught history, politics, and control. Sometimes in stories. Sometimes in truth.
Today, her cold voice echoed across the sterile room.
"Earth and Elemor," she began, "were once separate. Two dimensions. Two realities."
A hologram bloomed behind her: two spheres hovering in blackness—one blue and green, the other darker, with glowing ley lines running through its continents.
"Five hundred and forty years ago, they merged. No one knows how. No one knows why. Some claim it was the act of a god. Others say it was the culmination of ancient magic, the result of reckless dimensional tampering."
The orbs collided slowly in the projection—two worlds folding into one.
"What followed was chaos. Death. The Great Merge War."
She touched a panel, and the screen shifted to images of carnage: beasts with crystalline scales tearing apart tanks, helicopters firing into the clouds, and cities crumbling under elemental forces.
"They had mana. We had weapons. Their dragons, titans, and spell-wielders were unmatched in raw force—but our technology… our weapons of mass death—balanced the field."
A mushroom cloud rose on the screen.
"A single nuclear warhead destroyed an entire continent fragment in Elemor. After ten years of slaughter, diplomacy was forced into being. Neither side could truly destroy the other without risking extinction."
She paused. Let silence stretch.
"Thus, the Great Border was born."
Another hologram now. A vast, shimmering barrier dividing the planet in a serpentine line. From pole to pole. Mountains split. Oceans curved. Forests dead on one side, alive on the other.
"A creation of cooperation," she continued. "Technological precision and magical weaving. It keeps our worlds apart. It keeps peace… at the cost of truth."
A voice from the students broke the silence.
It was a boy—R-488, a lanky youth with a scar down his jaw. He rarely spoke.
"We have spacecraft, don't we?" he asked. "Why can't we just go to space… and reach the other side? Fly over the border?"
Marla's eyes flicked to him, expressionless.
"You're not the first to ask."
She gestured again.
A new hologram appeared: Earth, surrounded by low-orbit markers.
"Invisible to the eye. Non-lethal in appearance. But at the exosphere level, a second layer of the barrier exists—placed in orbit on both sides of the planet. Constructed with the help of Elemorian Archmages and Earth's orbital technology."
A simulation showed a drone flying up. The moment it reached the barrier, it disintegrated—no explosion, no flame. Just… dust.
"Everything that touches it—dies. Ships. Satellites. Flesh. It doesn't discriminate."
Her gaze returned to the students.
"There is no going over. There is no digging under. There is only the divide. That is the law of the pact."
Silence returned. The children scribbled notes on data tablets. A few exchanged glances. Most simply stared.
AB-774 didn't look at the screen. He stared at the teacher. Unmoving. Unblinking.
Marla noticed him for a moment but said nothing.
In this facility, names meant nothing. They were codes. Files. Experiments.
But behind their eyes, the children were remembering. Feeling. Becoming.
And Dominion watched them—like seeds planted in the snow, waiting to grow into something the world had never seen.