Preparation Hall One stood against the southwest wall of the training grounds—

  the largest war-chamber of the Church.

  Its exterior bristled with warding sigils, etched stone pulsing faintly with light.

  Inside, space enough for a hundred.

  Yet scarcely twenty filled it now.

  Some stood. Some sat.

  Silent.

  No chatter.

  No greeting.

  Only the rasp of whetstone on steel.

  The low growl of contract beasts, rumbling like storms in chains.

  The silence before lightning splits the sky.

  When Gerold pushed the doors wide and YiChen and ChengYu stepped through—

  every gaze turned.

  Not hostile.

  But sharp.

  The instinctive wariness of hunters toward unmeasured power.

  ChengYu muttered, “Uncle Ruda… why does this feel like a tribunal?”

  Gerold chuckled, gave no reply.

  He stepped forward, voice steady:

  “Introducing—the Caelestis brothers. YiChen and ChengYu. Temporary additions to this mission.”

  “Caelestis…”

  A murmur rippled. Low. Recognizing.

  In Stonebridge, the name was not unknown.

  Their prey, their forged gear, their hunts—never disappointing.

  A few elders gave the barest nod.

  The brothers bowed in turn.

  Silence settled again.

  ?

  ChengYu—immune to tension—drifted toward the long table of weapons.

  Blades. Recurved bows. Spirit daggers—each faintly breathing with power.

  Then he stopped.

  A crossbow. Black as night.

  Purple veins ran its frame, alive with dim light.

  Its arms bristled with barbed scales; between them seeped a thin red mist.

  But what bound his gaze—

  was the scope set into its neck.

  Gold. Like a beast’s iris, half-lidded in sleep.

  At its center turned a fractured star-crystal, slow, deliberate—like the stir of an awakening dream.

  It lay untouched.

  Yet when ChengYu’s eyes locked on it—

  the bow seemed to look back.

  His hand rose. Without thought.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The moment his fingers brushed the grip—

  power surged.

  Familiar. Yet alien.

  A tide bursting through his veins.

  Silverwing shrieked—

  its form dissolving into a river of silver light, plunging into the crossbow.

  The veins ignited.

  Purple blazed into molten violet-gold.

  An arrow bloomed in air.

  Not crafted.

  Born.

  Its shaft shimmered with running stardust, silver coursing like blood.

  Metallic—yet fluid, like condensed crystal.

  The air bent from its edge, recoiling from its pressure.

  The hall froze.

  ChengYu felt the wrongness. Turned.

  Every gaze was fixed on him.

  Gerold strode forward, joy breaking like dawn across his face.

  “Come! To the range—now! Test it!”

  He shouted over his shoulder:

  “Call Master Vicos! At once—he has waited three years for this!”

  Hunters rose, silent, following.

  But their eyes burned hot.

  The Sleeping Bow had awakened.

  And no hunter there would miss its first breath.

  ?

  The Shooting Range

  The range stretched one hundred and twenty meters long, eighty wide—

  a metallic plain cleaved open as if by a giant’s blade.

  At the far end loomed targets of solid granite, braced by a three-meter wall of reinforced concrete.

  Gerold led them to the hundred-meter line.

  “Xiao Yu,” he said, “try it.”

  ChengYu raised the crossbow.

  Silverwing’s energy surged through its frame—like water rushing home.

  Through the golden scope, the world sharpened:

  every eddy of wind, every hairline crack in stone, etched in radiant clarity.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  Whhhrr—!

  The arrow screamed, a streak of starlight.

  It struck dead-center—drilling clean through granite, burying so deep only the fletching showed.

  The stone groaned, still straining under the force already gone.

  A voice thundered behind them:

  “Again! Full infusion—let your beast’s spirit surge through it!”

  They turned.

  A broad-shouldered man strode in, eyes bloodshot, lips trembling with urgency.

  Vicos.

  The bow’s maker.

  “Show me,” he commanded, voice shaking with awe.

  “Let me see its true awakening.”

  ChengYu glanced at YiChen.

  His brother gave a single, firm nod.

  He drew breath.

  Silverwing flared—wings of spirit unfurling, pouring light into the weapon.

  The crossbow shuddered, silver feathers bursting along its arms like ridges of lightning.

  The second form—unsealed.

  An arrow bloomed.

  No—

  not an arrow.

  A will.

  Compressed from the starry sea, condensed into blade-shape.

  Its head three fingers wide, sigils burning crimson.

  Its shaft pulsed with veins of lightning.

  The air bent away, shrieking as currents tore apart.

  BOOM—!!

  A shockwave cracked.

  A white ring burst outward as the projectile ripped past sound.

  CRACK—!!!

  Granite disintegrated to powder.

  The bolt tore through reinforced wall, carving a crater a meter deep.

  Silence fell.

  Vicos did not move. His hand hovered midair—

  as though a single wrong breath might shatter what had just been born.

  He knew.

  Abyssbane had awakened.

  Not a weapon’s awakening.

  A soul’s return.

  A beast long buried—answering only to the one it had awaited.

  Not bound. Not claimed.

  Home.

  ChengYu lowered the crossbow, stepped forward.

  “Uncle… this bow—you forged it? It’s… beyond words.”

  Vicos brushed the frame, reverent.

  “No, child. You awakened it. It answered you. Tell me your name.”

  “ChengYu Caelestis.”

  “A fine name.” His voice roughened, pride weighting every word.

  “This bow is Abyssbane. For three years, no hand could stir it. Today, it chose you. That is its fate—and yours.”

  He placed the weapon gently back into ChengYu’s arms, then turned away.

  “You still have a mission. I won’t delay you. When you return—we will speak again.”

  Only then did the others notice—

  At the far end of the range, a figure had been standing. Silent.

  Commander Crane.

  He had watched everything, gaze locked on Abyssbane in ChengYu’s grip.

  In his eyes flickered a light—

  deep.

  Unreadable.