Chapter 3: Dream and Interrogation Nie Shi had a dream.
He was standing on a dark street, the kind where even silence felt heavy. The sky was gray, the ground wet, and fine dust floated in the air. He looked down—and there it was.
The black spear.
He recognized it instantly.
The cold metal. The weight. The faint words carved near its tail: "Only by returning the memory can you survive." But this time, he wasn't just holding it.
He was fighting with it.
Screams echoed from somewhere far away. A figure in a black robe lay face-down in a pool of blood. And he —or someone who looked just like him—stood in the center, spear dripping red.
Pain shot through his chest, sharp and sudden, like he'd been yanked into someone else's nightmare.
"Do you remember me?" a voice asked. Hollow. Cold.
He tried to speak, but no sound came out.
"You took what wasn't yours."
The voice echoed again.
Nie Shi jolted awake.
He was in the infirmary, wrapped in a blanket. The sun was shining outside, but he was drenched in sweat.
That wasn't just a dream.
He could feel it—some part of it had been real.
The system must've felt it too.
A beep came from the wall scanner. A message popped up: [Non-user memory fluctuation detected]
[Upload to Memory Review System?]
[Note: Source linked to Break-Class Armament.]
Less than half an hour later, he was summoned to the Memory Review Department.
It was one of the most secure places in the academy. They handled memory pollution, illegal Armaments, and mental collapses.
The place felt like a bunker. Cold white lights. Gray walls. A sharp smell of disinfectant in the air. Everyone walking by wore a blank face.
He was led into a circular room with a single metal chair in the center.
"Sit," a woman's voice said.
She wore black from head to toe. Hair pinned up tight. Silver earpiece. Her eyes were sharp and unreadable.
"I'm Lin Yi, memory inspector," she said. "I'll be running a basic memory reconstruction scan."
Nie Shi sat down and nodded.
"You're aware the Armament you used is an unregistered Break-Class anomaly?"
"Yes."
"You're aware it tried to interfere with the system and synced with you while you were asleep?"
He hesitated. Then nodded again.
"You're aware you may already be memory-contaminated?"
This time, he said nothing.
Lin Yi stared at him for a moment, then let out a soft sigh. "You're not the first person to come into contact with something like this. But you're the first one to bind it successfully."
She raised a hand. A holographic screen lit up.
On it played a blurry video. A blood-stained street. A fallen body.
And—another him.
Head down, face unclear, but in his hand—
The same black spear.
"This memory isn't yours," Lin Yi said. "But it was accessed through you."
"Which means…"
She paused, looking at him seriously.
"You're not the owner. You're the receiver."
Nie Shi's mind went blank.
He had thought the spear responded to him by chance.
But now it seemed… it had been looking for him.
Or worse—looking for someone to carry it.
"What are you going to do with me?" he asked, voice low.
"We haven't decided yet," Lin Yi replied calmly. "You're a high-risk case now."
"The Armament won't leave you. We can't take it away. But it might lose control at any time."
"That dream you had—it matters. We'll need to run regular memory scans and give you isolation training."
She stood and handed him a small metal chip.
"This is a sync recorder. From now on, it'll track every strange fluctuation between you and that spear."
"If you want to survive, you'll have to learn to make it listen."
Nie Shi took the chip. It was cold in his palm.
As he left the department, someone was waiting at the far end of the hallway.
A boy about his age. Training uniform. Hands in his pockets. Eyes sharp and unfriendly.
"So you're the one picked by a Break-Class?"
Nie Shi didn't answer.
"Heh. Interesting." The boy smirked. "Name's Lu Jingxing. Top ranker in Trace-Class. You better remember that."
Then he turned and walked away, light as a breeze.
Nie Shi stood still, fingers brushing the sync chip at his chest.
He knew—he was no longer just an empty shell.
But deep down, he also knew:
That spear was never empty.
It held stories.
It held pain.
And maybe, it held disaster.
But now…
It had chosen him.