The Academy Eir

The Pillar of Vora

​The sun hung high over the jagged peaks of the post-war world, casting a long, needle-thin shadow from the Pillar of Vora. To the approaching D’elvanilmest students, the tower looked like a fragile spine of ancient stone, barely wide enough to hold a single spiral staircase.

​A student, nervously shifting with dust on his boots, stared at the narrow Great Arch. "How are we all supposed to fit in there?" he whispered.

​"Welcome, students, to the Pillar of Vora," a professor announced, their voice echoing against the silence of the peaks.

​The Great Hall of Vora

​The interior was a geographical impossibility. The walls were miles apart, draped in tapestries of living starlight that rippled with the wind of an indoor sea. The ceiling was gone, replaced by a swirling celestial map where planets drifted like slow-moving lanterns. The floor was a vast expanse of polished white gold, etched with shifting geometric lines that rearranged themselves as hundreds of students filed in. This was the Welcome of the Vora the moment the tower’s interior transformed into a massive auditorium of judgment.

​Suddenly, the air hummed with a three-fold resonance.

​To the center stood a man in a white-gold robe. His presence caused the messy lines of students to snap into perfect, rigid rows. His gaze was a cold calculation, measuring the structural integrity of their potential. To the right, a woman drifted, her thousand-winged butterfly affinity filling the hall with a soft, iridescent glow. She didn't look at their faces; she searched for the "light" humming within their chests.

​In the left stood a third man. He said nothing, but the Scythe of Retribution rested across his back. His presence was the "Weight"—a heavy, physical pressure that forced every student to confront their own truth.

​"The Vora knows your name," the man in the white robe declared, his voice vibrating at a frequency that made the very marrow of the students bones ache. "But it does not yet know your place."

​As the first student stepped forward, the hall reacted. Doors hundreds of them, made of everything from solid shadow to shimmering glass manifested along the distant walls.

​"Step into the Mirror of the Void," the woman commanded softly.

​One by one, the hall sorted them. When a student stepped into the Mirror, they saw a reflection of starlight not themselves, but a version of their soul at peace.

​"Aeilmestys Class," the man in white declared. "Go to your left, young one."

​

​The tower breathed with them, the doors shifting and walls expanding like a living lung. When it was finally Alex’s turn, the "Ghostly Pull" of the tower grew so strong his feet left the ground. He looked up, and for the first time, the massive hall felt small because the Vora were finally looking directly at him.

​As Alex drifted toward the Mirror, the "Weight" of the man with the Scythe intensified, a gravitational anchor peeling away Alex’s layers like dry parchment. When his boots touched the Mirror, the white-gold floor vanished. Alex stood upon liquid obsidian, reflecting a sky that hadn't existed for a thousand years.

​In the reflection, Alex saw a silhouette draped in the World-Eater’s shadow, eyes glowing with the pressurized light of a collapsing star. Behind him, a spectral chain manifested, connecting his heart to the core of the tower.

​The man in the white-gold robe leaned forward, his calculated gaze fracturing with a rare flicker of recognition. "The Vora does not just know your name," the man in the center spoke, his voice like grinding tectonic plates.

​"It remembers your original sin, or is it?" the man in white added. "How fascinating..."

​Suddenly, the hall reconstructed itself. The walls of starlight rushed inward; the celestial map spun into a violent vortex. The three Vora smiled as if they were watching a prophecy unfold.

​"No door showed up..." a student murmured.

"Yeah... how? I mean, he’s a Vael’Tharion, but is that family really that powerful?"

​The man in the left tapped his Scythe on the floor. The echo silenced the hall instantly.

​"Proceed to D'elnaki," the man in white said, his eyes locking onto Alex’s. "You are much better fitted there."

He paused, offering a subtle, knowing wink.

​Following Students, Hael, Rune, and Nyx stepped forward. The Mirror didn't hesitate. One after another, the Divine Blades were claimed by the flames and chaos of the D'elnaki, leaving the rest of the Academy confusion bout what is in D'elnaki.

​As the heavy doors finally settled, the Great Hall returned to a humming silence.

​"One hundred first-year students sorted in two hours... amazing," Caelvaron, the man in the white-gold robe, remarked as he reclined onto a manifested couch of silk and light.

​"That child..." the woman, Elyssmaria, whispered, her butterfly wings fluttering with a nervous, silver agitation.

​"I know." Caelvaron’s expression shifted, the cold calculation of his face replaced by something darker caution.

​"If my judgment is correct," the man with the Scythe added, his voice low and heavy, "he could be that sword."

​"Ahyy,..." Elyssmaria breathed. "Honestly, it is the first time in the history of this Academy that someone has entered the Mirror of the Void and emerged unpredictable. My Mirror could not find his end."

​Caelvaron rubbed his temples, his mind clearly racing through a thousand filtered histories. "Oh, right, Elyssmaria... before I forget. Has Drae’Valion sent you any word regarding the chosen humans?"

​The hall grew cold for a moment. Elyssmaria looked at the swirling celestial map above, her eyes reflecting distant, dying stars.

​"...I have received nothing," she answered softly.

​"Strange..." Caelvaron murmured, tapping his fingers against the arm of his white-gold couch. "By now, the students from Nixon University should have arrived alongside the D’elvanilmest group. The schedule is slipping."

​Thalrion, the man with the Scythe, didn't look up from his hand. "Perhaps there was a change of fate. Or maybe they just missed the bus. It happens."

​"Should I look into it?" Elyssmaria asked, her butterfly wings shimmering with a restless silver light.

​"Let’s not interfere for now," Caelvaron said, pulling a card from the deck on the floating table. "Why not just go back to where we left off? Your turn, Elyssmaria."

​"Great! Let’s continue." She grinned, snapping a card down.

​Minutes later...

​"A Uno Reverse Card? Oh, come on!" Elyssmaria shrieked, her wings fluttering in a frustrated shade of violet. She stared at the card Caelvaron had just played with pure betrayal. "That’s the third time this round! How do you even have that many?"

​Caelvaron leaned back, a smug, rare smile breaking his cold expression. "This day really can’t get any better. First, a unpredictable shows up to shake things up, and now I’m finally crushing you at cards."

​"You’re totally cheating," she huffed, crossing her arms. "You’re using that '....' of yours to see through the back of the deck, aren't you?"

​"I don't need to cheat to beat a butterfly," he countered smoothly, winking at her.

​Thalrion sighed, finally setting his own cards down a stack of Draw Fours that would have ended the game anyway. He looked toward the heavy doors where Alex and the others had vanished. "Don't get too comfortable, Caelvaron. The First Sword is in the Academy now. This 'Uno' games are going to get a lot more complicated."

"Complicated indeed " Caelvaron said.

While the Vora remained in their impossible hall, lost in the trivial tension of their card game, the one hundred initiates were forced to confront the cold geometry of their new lives. Led by their respective fourth-year representatives, the group moved through the Grand Axis the university’s massive central artery before the final, jagged split.

​The university was a study in absolute duality, beginning with the two leaders standing at the threshold.

​To the right stood the Aeilmestys Representative, a vision of ethereal elegance. He wore a high-collared white military tunic, heavy with gold-threaded embroidery that mimicked the swirling patterns of a galaxy. A floor-length Mantle of Starlight billowed from his shoulders, held by golden lion-head clasps. Beside him, the Aeilmestys girls mirrored this grace in pleated white skirts and gold-laced stockings.

They looked less like students and more like a celestial choir, ready to enter their ivory sanctuary of meditation balconies and glass-walled dorms that hummed in sync with the stars.

​To the left, the atmosphere turned heavy and sharp. The D'elnaki Representative stood as a wall of disciplined power. His uniform was a masterclass in functional aggression: a double-breasted coat of deep midnight navy and slate black, its shoulders squared off with thick silver braiding that caught the light like cold steel. A short, structured cape flickered behind him, and a heavy leather belt with a steel dragon-shaped buckle sat firmly at his waist.

​Led by Alex, the fifty students followed this iron-clad figure into the Left Wing, a stronghold of obsidian and reinforced metal. Their representative didn't offer a gentle welcome or a tour of the scenery. Instead, he reached the end of a torch-lit corridor and kicked open the massive, dark-iron slab leading into the dorms. The boom of metal hitting stone jolted the tired students.

​"Your room is your fortress," the representative said, his voice a low rumble. He gestured to the rows of obsidian doors, each etched with a dormant, hungry rune. "There are no keys in this wing. These doors only open if you can project enough raw intent to trigger the mechanism. If you’re weak, you sleep in the hall. If you're cold, you find the fire within." He said.

"WELCOME TO D'ELNAKI CLASS FRESHMAN " The representative added before he left the hall.

​By sunset, the separation was absolute. In the Right Wing, the Aeilmestys settled into silent, starlit reflection. In the Left Wing, the sound of iron clashing and the roar of the D'elnaki braziers signaled that for Alex and the others, the true test of survival had just begun.

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