At Celestia Academy's Awakening Ritual, students witness new powers after a century of Temporal Rifts and Voidborn attacks. Mandy Latham's Feralkin surfaces as a D-rank Stonehorn and is ridiculed. Reed Lane wakes, relieved to be reborn and determined to seize a second chance. Cullen Gibson is announced S-rank, drawing envy. Jane Wight's Feralkin appears as an A-rank Black Widow; classmates note she's Reed's girlfriend. Cullen publicly asks Jane to form a contract; she brushes it off, saying she's "not that close" to Reed. Reed, remembering his past life, resolves he'll awaken as an SSS-Rank — and await their stunned faces.
Cullen publicly tells Jane to break up with Reed, offering a contract if she complies. Reed agrees to sever ties to avoid the humiliation of awakening low rank, while Cullen declares he will awaken minutes from now as an SSS-Rank Feralmancer, which he says will change things. He recalls losing his arm to the Wights and being used. The crowd then notices Yara Shaw: the supposed D-Rank Azure Fox is revealed as the Novem Empress, an SSS(+) force who became the Feralborn Empress and slaughtered the Sanctum, leaving everyone stunned and the assembly braced for fallout.
At a public grading ceremony Reed Lane is called up and, to everyone's shock, his assessment triggers a celestial sign: he is declared SSS-Rank. Officials and classmates react in awe, calling his future immeasurable. Immediately, Feralkin owners swarm him with contract offers—one touts a Sting Maiden—while onlookers speculate about Jane, who had boasted earlier. Jane tries to assert a claim, calling Reed her boyfriend, but Reed and others flatly say, "We are already broken up." Now Reed is thrust into competing offers and must decide whether to contract a Feralkin, a choice left unresolved.
At a public contracting ceremony, SSS-Rank Feralmancer Reed shocks the crowd by choosing Yara, a hesitant D-Rank Azure Fox. Onlookers, led by Jane—who recently broke up with Reed—and Yara's guardians, Mr. and Mrs. Keller, object that Reed is wasting his rare first pick. Yara doubts her worth, but Reed insists the choice is his and completes his awakening. As Reed and Yara prepare to leave, rivals call the move spiteful. The scene cuts when someone spots "A Contract Array?" and calls to Reed, leaving the array's purpose unresolved.
Reed agrees to form a contract with a self-doubting D-Rank Azure Fox who insists she's unworthy. She shifts into a towering true form and instructs Reed to "mount my body" to complete the Contract Link. The link succeeds and Reed receives an enormous surge of strength, but the Fox's Gift overwhelms him, and he collapses with a nosebleed, admitting he can't fully handle the power. They hastily retreat after the noisy transformation, realizing their breakthrough came at a cost. The episode ends with the Feralmancer Sanctum alerted, leaving the new pair exposed and their bond unstable.
After Reed's SSS-Rank display draws outside attention, he returns home and prepares a deeper bond with his Feralkin, Yara, the Novem Empress. They sign an irreversible Twinsoul Pact that links their souls and life-and-death fates, greatly boosting affinity. The pact awakens the Alpha Feral System: Yara is tier 1 and needs a Skyray's Core to evolve. Reed vows to raise her before Celestia falls in one month. With other factions already showing up, their newly bound pair faces a race to obtain Voidborn cores while their lives remain inseparably tied.
With the city empty after the Awakening Ritual, Reed and others head outside to hunt Skyrays for voidborn cores. Reed, who recently contracted with a D-rank Azure Fox, is spotted and confronted by rivals and an ex who returns to him. A verbal clash turns physical until Yara, a Tier 1 Novem Empress, intervenes and swiftly defeats Cullen and his A-rank Black Widow without Reed's Gift boost. The crowd then realizes Reed amplified Yara’s power and erupts in fury. The episode ends with the mob vowing to kill Reed, leaving him exposed and in immediate danger.
Reed leads a hesitant Yara outside the city to practice fighting Voidborn on the outskirts. They find a Tier 1 Earthhorn; Yara, newly awakened as a Feralkin, surprises everyone by killing it in one swipe. They recover the Earthhorn’s core to sell and push toward a nearby valley that marks Skyrays' territory. Elsewhere, mercenary trackers discover the fresh carcass, deduce the killers are a newly awakened Feralmancer with his Feralkin and a D-rank Azure Fox, and accept a job to hunt them down. As Reed and Yara enter the valley, the hired hunters close in to intercept.
Reed Lane and Yara Shaw are ambushed by hired killers who reveal they were paid to kill them. The assailant brings a Tier 2 Vipra Feralkin to fight, but a far larger threat arrives: a Tier 3 Prime Skyray. Its low-frequency cries weaken Feralmancer–Feralkin affinity and cripple partnered combat. Yara activates her Tier 1 Barrier, which blocks the pulse and protects them briefly. Despite that advantage, the attackers panic—"Run!"—and admit they can’t handle a Prime Skyray. Forced into retreat, Reed and Yara must flee as the powerful creature closes in.
After an ambush, the protagonist, the person Reed, an SSS-Rank Feralmancer, chose, captures the hired killers. The men beg for mercy and confess they were paid by a young man carrying a Black Widow Feralkin: Cullen and Jane ordered the hit. The protagonist threatens execution and tells Yara to act, ending the captives' bargaining. Alone with the prize, they examine the suppressed Tier 3 Prime Skyray core and realize a Tier 1 subdued it only because the protagonist's SSS-Rank Gift boosted their power. An ally hands them the core: 'Take it, and evolve to Tier 2.'