(IC) Chapter 329 - Wyvern’s Mark

The pub in Barcelona grew silent as the scene on the big screen unfolded.

Some forgot to blink, jaws half-open, beers frozen halfway to lips as the commentator’s voice carried over the replay.

Minutes stretched as the feed rolled on—every frame replayed in slow motion, every movement etched in detail. The titanic shot that carved into the wyvern. Alonso, battered but relentless, darting mid-air, shards screaming past him harmlessly, his speed and precision defying belief. And then—Eclipse.

Silence rippled through the bar. Gasps, curses, and prayers tangled together as the black dome swallowed the sun itself. Some crossed themselves, others muttered “bruja… milagro… imposible.”

But the feed pressed on. More wyverns descending, the thunder of explosions, sniper fire cracking from hidden ridges. The screen lit with chaos—Wang blazing across the skies clad in strange, futuristic looking armor, a comet of steel and sparks. Imani’s javelins tore through the air, detonating with supersonic force, mountains shuddering under his throws. And then—Ayu.

The mountain shattered beneath her roar. For a breath, the pub was silent again, as if struck dumb by the sheer superhuman strength of the feat. The replay slowed—the faint silhouette of a beast flashing at her back, primal and otherworldly.

Then came the push—the impossible coordination with Alonso, his battered form launching her downward like a warhead. And finally—the second cyclotron shot. The killing blow.

A storm of light and sound. The alpha torn apart. The giant wyvern falling.

The screen cut to black, shifting to the post-match highlights and commentary.

Only then did the pub seem to remember how to breathe.

The silence broke.

Chairs scraped. Glasses slammed. Voices rose all at once—some cheering, some swearing, others laughing in disbelief.

“Madre de Dios…” a man whispered, eyes glued to the looping clips.

“Did that Thai girl just—did she push a mountain to dust?”

“This isn’t… AI, right?”

“A black hole? What the hell was that? I thought Climbers just had those wave things—metal, strength, reflexes. But this? Superpowers? Magic? Isn’t this getting a little… out of hand?”

On screen, Ayu’s silhouette streaked across the sky again; the mountaintop hung for a beat—then burst like a drum. A table of college kids flinched in unison. One laughed in shock, another pulled out his phone to replay it up close.

The feed cut to Alonso fencing mid-air against a storm of diamond shards, coat freezing, blood glistening in the cold. Someone at the bar muttered, “He’s dodging the wind, tío… how do you dodge wind?”

Wang flashed by in plated armor, a silver comet tearing a wyvern’s spine. “That suit—esa movida—what even is that?” A bartender forgot to pour, letting foam crest the pint as the next replay hit: Imani’s javelin punching through a chest, sound arriving a heartbeat late.

The black dome returned—Eclipse swallowing sunlight. A woman near the door crossed herself. “Eso no es normal.” Another shook her head. “If it protects them… I don’t care what it is.”

At a corner table, an older man leaned in, eyes narrowing as the camera found Alonso at the end: chest flayed in reds and purples, skin cracked and frozen, steam hissing off him—smiling. Just a kid, really. How old? Not far off his grandson. He swallowed, jaw working. What carries a person that far past pain? What promise? What fear?

Phones lit the room. Messages pinged. “He’s ours, right? Alonso, from here—Barcelona.”

Chats spilled across glowing screens. Memes were already flying. A forum thread hit three hundred comments in seconds. Someone shouted that a YouTuber had just gone live—title screaming BLACK DOME?! GEN-1 OUT OF CONTROL.

A couple hugged. A stranger slapped another stranger’s shoulder. The bartender finally remembered the tap and slid pints down the damp bar.

The replay froze on the last frame—Alonso hovering, broken yet grinning. For a breath, the pub fell quiet again, as if the smile itself demanded it.

Then the noise surged back—cheers, curses, relieved laughter. Phones lifted high, recording nothing but people yelling over each other, desperate to capture the moment twice.

Jack stared at his phone once the fight was over, after making sure Alonso’s mom had been briefed. Honestly, it was good she hadn’t seen it this time. Alonso had looked half-dead on that screen—skin torn, purple from frostbite, like some… zombie?

Damn. Smiling. Like pain didn’t reach him anymore. How far had they been pushed in there? What else happened beyond the glimpses they got to see?

He thumbed through the threads and posts. The black sphere dominated every feed—“Was that a singularity?” Another post had Ayu frozen mid-silhouette, the mountain delayed in collapse: “Ayu = literal WMD. No cap.”

Still, Alonso’s name was everywhere too—memes of his broken grin, clips slowed frame by frame showing him dodging, and the strange current that shifted the shards away from his body.

Even after these last months, it still felt surreal. His friend—the one he used to joke with, hang around with, laugh at stupid things with—was now everywhere. A celebrity, and arguably one of the strongest existences Earth had ever seen. Someone the world’s governments had to treat with respect, even compromise with, simply because of his individual power. Power that, sooner or later, would rival entire countries—if it didn’t already.

Jack kept staring at the figure while analysts and commentators, as always, broke it all down, insisting how calculated and precise every move had been. Yet he knew, as MAI and ASCENT had both warned, that was only the surface. At this point, modern technology—humanity itself—could no longer measure them or what they did.

He leaned back on the couch, eyes fixed on his phone, thoughts drifting. While he sat here doing nothing, watching from the outside… what were they doing now? And what would come next?

Arjun stood in the prayer room of the large, secluded mansion the government had given him and his family.

The breeze drifted in softly, tugging at his kurta. He didn’t need the transmission feed like the others. His mind caught the signal directly from The Tower, the visuals carrying themselves into his thoughts.

What others saw as flashes, he lived in detail—every expression, every shift of breath, every strike. These were the people he had once fought beside.

He smiled faintly when he caught the line of a shot from nowhere, the figure behind it unseen. Ishaam. He recognised the mark of his Awakening. A decent shot. Had he taken up the sniper’s role now?

He also saw how much each had improved. Alonso had apparently learned a new skill, likely of his own making, while Chiara and Ayu had mastered theirs.

When the battle closed, and Alonso’s ruined face cracked into that mad, defiant smile, Arjun’s chest tightened. The feeling was layered—pride, sorrow, a thread of envy. But above all, it drew a grin out of him.

They were growing stronger. Pushing forward for all of them. Even if he was not at their side, he believed it: they would make it.

It was only… a shame he couldn’t be there.

He thought of Siddharth, who, despite their differences, was perhaps the only one who could truly understand him. Their last words still lingered. The stillness of this new life felt heavier than any battlefield. If given the choice, he would have taken the pain of war over the idleness and comfort without hesitation. Now his family’s fate—his own fate—rested in the hands of those still climbing.

Arjun tilted his head back to the blue sky. While the world shouted about superpowers and impossible feats, he only saw his comrades. His friends. Fighting, still, for them all.

Alonso scanned with his waves but felt nothing. The ground lay split and broken, dust still raining down—yet the alpha wyvern’s massive body was simply gone, as if it had never been. Just like…

Could it be?

He flew toward the site slowly, senses sharp, and as the haze cleared, his eyes caught the first… then the second… all the way to the seventh red orb.

He landed in the crater with a soft thud and sent a signal towards the others.

Ayu was the first to arrive, leaping from the mountain and gliding with the wind until her feet hit the stone beside him.

Her eyes widened, then lit up with a grin. Before Alonso could react, she stomped the ground, sent one of the orbs flying upward, and snatched it from the air as it sank seamlessly into her skin.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then Ayu turned, raised her hand, and there was…

A ring?

It looked as if it were made of ice, fitting neatly on her index finger. Tiny carvings traced along it, forming the likeness of the alpha wyvern in simple, minimal strokes.

“Look, The Tower gave me one before you,” Ayu joked, showing it off proudly. “It gives some sort of boost, but I don’t really like it much, like—”

The ring suddenly shimmered, then sank back into her skin, reshaping into a bluish pattern that etched itself along her right arm.

It looked as if frost had bitten into her flesh, leaving behind veins of ice that curled in sharp, deliberate strokes. From her elbow to her forearm the lines wove together, like frozen rivers that ended at her fist. There, the markings spread into the stylised form of the wyvern’s head, its fangs bared as if ready to strike.

“Wow,” Ayu smiled as she looked at it, eyes wide. “It changed! Now this one’s cool and practical.”

Alonso, not fully catching up and extremely curious at the moment, decided to take another. He crouched, touched one, and felt it sink into his skin.

Stage 1 – 24.445%

Two percent gain!? That was massive. And—

His eyes fixed on the ice-like ring that appeared on his own index finger, just like Ayu’s. But more than the ring itself, it was what surfaced when he looked at it that made him stop cold.

Wyvern’s Mark

• Physical aptitude +2%

• Pillar aptitude +2%

This…

An effect? Equipment with… a boost?

The words and numbers carried the same style as The Tower’s skill prompts or Stage Progress. But… why did it call it Pillar and not something else? Was it because that was the term most familiar to him? Did The Tower translate everything into words each person would understand best?

He thought about it, and the ring melted into his arm. A similar mark appeared, curling across his skin identical to Ayu’s.

He touched it. It felt no different—no smoother, no colder, not even strange. Just skin. Natural.

He focused again, and the pattern shifted seamlessly back into the ring.

Still caught in awe, he looked up as Lukas and Chiara arrived. Both froze, perplexed by the sight—and he couldn’t blame them.

“Just take it,” Alonso said. “It’ll be quicker that way.”

Chiara and Lukas nodded, absorbed their own, and astonishment flickered across their faces.

Only after a full second did they gaze up, looking at each other, at him, and then at the mark.

They experimented, shifting between ring and mark, and—

Huh?

Alonso blinked as Chiara’s ring reshaped into an earring, the same crystalline form, the same etched pattern.

Could it change into anything?

He imagined a sword and—

Nothing.

Maybe it only worked for non-combat forms? Perhaps The Tower never meant to hand out a tool to take advantage of, only… boosts, given shape as accessories.

He tried a glove. Nothing. A bracelet. Nothing.

But as he tested further, he found—like the others—that it cycled between the tattoo-like pattern, the ring, earrings, and a necklace. It could also shift to different placements: a leg pattern, or a ring on any finger.

Lukas called over Imani and Wang, and they claimed orbs as well. That left one still glowing on the ground.

Alonso stared at it, thoughts of Arjun stirring unbidden.

For a moment, silence pressed heavily on all of them—until Lukas exhaled sharply, breaking it, and chose Mei to take it.

In the end, Alonso decided on an arm pattern on his left, while Ayu took it on her right, same as Wang. Chiara kept the earrings, with Mei perhaps copying her. Lukas went with the ring, and Imani opted for a larger pattern across his back.

After settling the aftermath, they moved toward the cave where the alpha wyvern had once rested, its entrance shattered from the cyclotron’s first shot. As they stepped inside, Chiara called on her Dark Stars to clear the way, revealing a straight path that led deeper into the mountain’s core.

At the end of it… a metallic gate waited.