"Yo Nox," Devon called out, "I thought you was supposed to be our alarm, why the hell are you still sleeping."

Nox lifted his head, looked at him with sleepy golden eyes before turning the other way.

"If you don't wake up we'll be late for Ascended Dawn's class."

That successfully did the trick as he immediately got up only to fall to the side of the bed.

"The hell were you doin' last night man?" Devon asked as Nox hurried to the bathroom.

Cass was also fast asleep, leaving the task of waking him up to Devon, fortunately, the scholar division had a day off today, so he could sleep as much as he wanted.

"I was trying a couple of things out in the simulation room," Nox answered from the bathroom.

Of course that was a lie, he was out of the city the entire night hunting Eclipsed in his masked persona.

But none of his friends knew that, neither did they have to.

"Then hurry up ass up," Devon said, "we've got fifteen minutes."

"Give me five," Nox muttered as he jumped in the shower.

True to his words, he and Devon were out of their dorm in five minutes, giving them ten minutes to get to the combat training room.

Which they wouldn't make it in time....if they ran.

Which they wouldn't.

Nox grabbed Devon by his jacket's neck, since he had grown tall enough to do that, and without warning, a layer of light covered the two.

One moment, they were in the dorms hallway, the next, they were close to the Combat division building.

A flash of light faded and Devon staggered the moment his feet touched the ground.

"AY—WHAT THE HELL?!" he yelped, stumbling forward before catching himself on Nox's shoulder. "Bro! You can't just yoink a man through space like that!"

"It's either that or we get late," Nox explained and Devon immediately shivered, "now let's hurry."

With that, the two ran into the building and immediately came upon the combat room.

Most of their other colleagues were already in and probably so was Astra.

The doors to the room opened to reveal most students gathered together, discussing something.

They each had something that played a video, whether that be a holographic feature on their watches or the transparent glass like objects they called phones.

Nox paused as he heard the conversation one of them was having.

"Yo, told you he would be back," one of the students said, "there's no way he would disappear after saving people just once."

"Damn he looks cool," another said, "I think he'd be even cooler with a cape."

"I wonder who he is," one of the students said, "the Grey Warden."

A shiver immediately ran down Nox's spine when they mentioned that name, not because of fear, but because he hated it.

But it had somehow stuck.

"Probably some Radiant or Ascended ranked Knight," Another responded and they nodded in agreement.

Because only people of those ranks could do what he had been doing so far.

You see, it had been a month since Nox put on that mask first, and he had come to like going out in his masked persona a bit too much, especially given the fact that he felt free when he did.

And hunting Eclipsed wasn't the only thing he did, sometimes, he'd get carried away and venture into smaller settlements close to Solara Prime.

Most times he did, there would be an Eclipsed wave and he couldn't help but clear it before solar knights would be dispatched.

He didn't know when, but after a while that masked persona had become popular, popular enough for rumors of him to reach Solara Prime.

A fan base suddenly popped out of nowhere, created by some P. Seraph, who somehow seemed to be actively tracking him and posting videos of his deeds on the fandom.

He had been careful to avoid that person's tracking whenever he returned, but without fail, every single Eclipsed wave he helped stopped was videoed and posted on this fandom.

And that P. Seraph person was the one that also came up with the Grey Warden nickname because of the mask.

And Nox didn't like it one but.

Now, he couldn't think of anything better, but he definitely wasn't a Warden.

"Yo, you good?" Devon asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah," he nodded, "I was just wondering what they're talking about."

"You don't know?" Devon asked before tapping his watch and thw hologram feature was activated, "check this out."

The image jittered for a second before stabilizing.

It showed a scorched stretch of wasteland just outside a settlement barrier. Broken Eclipsed corpses littered the ground, their corpses dissolving into motes of golden light.

The wind blew on his white hair, adding a ridiculous effect in Nox's perspective.

The footage was clearly taken from high above, zoomed in shakily, like it was being recorded by a drone or something.

The clip ended with a bold caption floating over it:

— THE GREY WARDEN STRIKES AGAIN —

Uploaded by P.Seraph

Nox stared at the hologram, expression perfectly neutral.

Inside, he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

"Bro," Devon said, eyes wide with awe, "tell me that ain't hard as hell."

Nox forced a shrug. "Looks staged."

Devon whipped his head toward him.

"Staged?! Man you trippin'. You see how clean that teleport was? That ain't no Solar Adept nonsense. That's high-tier control."

Another clip auto-played.

This one showed the Grey Warden standing between a collapsed wall and a group of terrified settlers while a massive Tier 3 Eclipsed lunged towards them.

The masked figure confidently, or at least that's what it seemed to observers, stood between the Eclipsed and the people.

Devon let out a low whistle. "Nah… nah bro. That's crazy."

Nox felt his soul leave his body, he was embarrassed as hell right now.

"They say he don't talk much," Devon continued, scrolling. "he just shows up, saves folks, then dips."

"Sounds irresponsible," Nox muttered.

Devon snorted. "You say that like you wouldn't do the same thing if you could."

Nox opened his mouth to respond before stopping, if only he knew.

Before anymore words could be said, Astra walked in at that moment ordered, "enough loitering around, gather up."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.