CHAPTER 55: HOME [1]

Thirteen years.

That’s how long they had stayed, grown, and carved themselves into living legends within the iron-walled sanctum of Dawn Academy. The institution had seen them at their lowest—brash, green and unsecure.

Now it bore witness to their departure—refined, fierce, and feared across the continent. The Juggernauts were no longer a team of misfit prodigies. They were monsters forged in trials and fire.

No fanfare remained. No lingering goodbyes.

Only the stillness before the storm that was the world beyond.

The morning sun was pale, casting a silvery sheen on the shimmering portal that stood like a wound torn open in reality.

There were five exits, five gates to five corners of the known world—each calibrated by the academy to lead its graduates wherever they intended to go.

Kaelen Maglor stood still in his traveling coat, his black hair brushing over his brow, eyes reflecting the portal’s glow.

The air around him shimmered faintly, infused with the barely-contained pressure of a divine-class aura. He wore no armor.

He needed none.

The mana-imbued robes he wore were of his own making—stitched with threads of condensed holy energy and carved with mana manipulation so refined it bent light slightly around his form.

Behind him stood Alira Mor, her white hair tied neatly behind her. She was clad in sleek assassin leathers that somehow blended the color of moonlight and blood.

At her back near the waistline hung twin phantom daggers, hidden in invisibility until summoned. Her class— Silent Oath, an epic evolution of her assassin lineage—was built for one and only one thing, that is death by silence.

Jered Dallas arrived first.

"Don’t tell me you two are the sentimental type," he said, tossing his satchel into the portal-bound staging pedestal.

His coat flared, marked with the emblem of House Dallas. With green-gold flames faintly licking his gauntlets, he looked more like a warlord than a graduate.

Kaelen arched a brow. "Took you long enough."

"You’re lucky I didn’t decide to sleep in. Or run back to kiss Elfa goodbye," Jered grinned.

Kaelen shot a glare at him saying "Don’t make me beat up your ass as a final goodbye,"

Neal Throdan walked in next.

He wore his new armor—glimmering with layered ancient inscriptions—yet his face carried a somber shadow. His rank was high,and his strength unmatched among the students.

A level 90 Gold rank warrior. Solari Imperials.

But that wasn’t why Kaelen greeted him with a hand on the shoulder and no words.

He remembered the system notification from eleven years ago.

[The Starfall King Has Fallen]

Neal had no home to return to.

His family, the Throdans, once one of the mightiest bastions of resistance against the monster race in the Starfall Kingdom, had been overrun during the monster onslaught.

The message had arrived years too late. The world had moved on.

Neal never did.

Alira shared the same silent bond.

Her parents—Holse and Thalia Mor—had died in the same war.

Derek, Holse’s closest comrade, had arrived too late with reinforcements. All he could save was Alira—just a girl then, clinging to life because of the sacrificial artifacts her father had buried into her body before death.

The portal shimmered.

Sasha Taras was the last to arrive. Her long green cloak swept the ground, a wolf-like creature by her side, one of her contracted beasts.

Her eyes sparkled even now, the Verdant Shepherd class always tethering her to some form of joy.

"Guess this is it," she said. "Took us thirteen years and a thousand dungeons. I thought we’d grow old in those things."

Jered smirked. "You? Never. You’d make the dungeon pretty before you died in it."

They shared a laugh—but only briefly.

The portal hummed louder now, signaling final alignment.

Kaelen turned to his team. "From here, we go where we must. You’ve all earned your paths."

Sasha nodded. "My kingdom needs me. I’ll make sure they never fall like Starfall did."

Jered cracked his knuckles. "Time I stopped running from politics and made House Dallas remember what a true heir looks like."

Kaelen looked to Neal and Alira. No words were exchanged. It was clear. They would walk with him.

Derek awaited them.

With a brief salute, Sasha stepped into her portal.

Jered followed a second later.

That left the three of them.

Kaelen turned to Alira. "Ready?"

She nodded.

Neal inhaled deeply, one last breath of the academy air. "Let’s go."

The three stepped forward together into a single portal. A single path.

In a last flash of silver and gold, the Juggernauts were truly separated.

They had no promises of reunion. No certainty of survival. Only memories which each of them will carry till their final breadth and the hope that they would meet again one day.

And the world beyond Dawn Academy awaited them.

The portal light dimmed.

Kaelen stepped forward, boots crunching against polished stone as he emerged onto the platform stationed at the Frahein Empire’s western border—a far cry from the war-torn outlands and shattered cities that had become commonplace elsewhere.

The moment his feet landed, a wave of structured mana scanned him. Defensive arrays embedded in the city’s gate system verified his identity.

He’d entered civilization.

Behind him, Neal and Alira emerged in silence. The air here was cleaner, untouched by blood and fire. Soldiers in silver-trimmed armor guarded the entry points, but even they took cautious steps back once the aura of three gold-rank veterans touched the air.

This was their first walk into a new world.

The first time in thirteen years that they were walking home.

If such a thing still existed.

"Now that we are here, would you be kind enough to lead the way?"

Kaelen gestured with his hands towards Alira to lead the way.

Alira did not reply or nod her head. She just started walking, winding and turning into the alleys and crowded places.

But none of them complained.

Kaelen was feeling nervous, full of insecurity and at the same time excited to meet his father for the first time in 13 years.

But he was not an idiot and did not show any of his emotions.