2025-07-09 18:16:32The tunnel collapsed behind them in a roar of stone and fire.
Kai and Seria were flung into the forest clearing, landing hard as a shockwave rippled through the trees. Leaves scattered into the air like birds taking flight, and dirt rained from the sky.
Kai choked, coughing violently as the air turned to ash in his lungs. “Seria… you okay?”
Seria nodded, shaky and pale. “That… that wasn’t just magic. That thing… it wore your face, Kai.”
He didn’t answer.
His eyes stayed fixed on his trembling hands,fingers curled, knuckles white, veins faintly pulsing.
Not from fear.
From something deeper. Rage. Shame. Power.
He’d felt the pull again. Deep in the ruins,when the shadow whispered, when the air turned black. It had called to him. Tempted him.
And he’d run.
Just like his mother had all those years ago.
“I could’ve stopped it,” he muttered.
“No,” Seria said gently. “You chose not to lose yourself.”
He turned away.
But the worst part wasn’t the shadow.
It was what it meant: Jin knew. Faen knew. The cult. The Heralds. They were inside the Academy.
How deep did this go?
How much of this place was a lie?
The next morning, the bells of Blacksteel tolled like judgment.
The Ranking Trials had arrived.
Supposed to be voluntary. Supposed to be tradition. But Kai knew better.
When he stepped into the mess hall, every head turned.
Some stared with fear.
Others with disgust.
A few with something else,curiosity, maybe. Or awe.
And then he saw the name board.
Match 1: Jin Oroku vs. Kai Arclight
His stomach dropped.
Seria appeared beside him, holding a tray of untouched food. “He forced it,” she said, voice low. “He’s calling you out.”
Kai nodded slowly. “He wants a show.”
“No,” she said. “He wants to break you.”
Kai looked around.
Instructors whispering. Students pointing. Smirks. Bets. Predictions. Fear.
All of them would be watching.
Let them.
The Arena was packed.
Stone bleachers surrounded the combat pit like a coliseum. Runes pulsed along the walls, designed to absorb magic and redirect force. The air was electric,anticipation, bloodlust, spectacle.
Jin Oroku stood at the far end.
Firesteel armor. Gold-threaded insignia. Cloak trailing smoke. He looked like a prince born of flame,untouchable, adored.
Kai stepped in opposite him. No armor. No cloak. Just plain combat blacks and storm-gray eyes.
No sigils.
No weapon.
Just rage.
The Headmaster raised a single hand. “Begin.”
Jin didn’t hesitate.
He came forward in a blaze of heat, fire trailing from his blade like a comet.
“Null boy,” he snarled mid-swing. “Let’s see what happens when nothing meets something.”
Kai ducked under the arc, the edge grazing his shoulder. Cloth singed. Skin burned.
He winced. Rolled. Came up ready.
Jin was already summoning.
With a flick of his hand, flame-wolves burst into existence. Six of them. Snarling, drooling lava. His signature technique.
The crowd roared in approval.
“Come on, Kai!” Jin taunted. “Show them what you’re hiding. Or are you afraid of what you’ll become?”
If I fight like him, I lose. If I fight like me…
He didn’t finish the thought.
One wolf lunged.
Then another.
He moved fast,barely dodging,slammed his elbow into one, watched it dissolve. The heat scorched his forearm.
Another leapt.
This time, he didn’t dodge.
He grabbed it by the throat.
And ripped it apart.
The fire froze midair.
Then shattered into glass-like shards.
Silence.
A beat passed.
Even Jin faltered.
Kai exhaled, slow and heavy. His hands trembled.
His veins pulsed once,black.
Not enough to burn.
Just enough to feel it.
He wasn’t afraid.
He was becoming.
Jin’s smile faded. “So that’s what’s inside you…”
His voice changed. Colder. Sharper. “Good. I brought something special.”
He raised his hand.
Flame spiraled around his wrist, tighter than usual. Denser. Hungrier.
“Forbidden Ember Spiral,” he whispered.
The Headmaster stood up abruptly. “That’s restricted!”
Too late.
The ground cracked.
A column of fire engulfed Jin. His armor melted into light. His sword elongated, the metal glowing like magma. His eyes turned amber and bright.
“Let’s see what happens when a god meets a ghost.”
Then he moved.
Faster than a blink.
Faster than breath.
The sword came down like a hammer of divine judgment,
Kai didn’t dodge.
He caught it.
With one hand.
The blade trembled.
Then shattered like brittle ice.
Jin’s face went blank. “No,”
Kai didn’t speak.
He stepped forward. One step. No spell. No gesture.
Just punched.
A straight shot to the chest.
The sound was sickening. Metal folding inward. Bone cracking.
Jin flew across the arena,slammed into the far wall. The runes etched there rippled and shattered from the impact.
Gasps. Screams.
Then… silence.
No cheers.
No movement.
No sound but the distant crackle of lingering fire.
Kai stood still.
Energy danced faintly around his hands,black and flickering, like flame that had forgotten how to burn.
Then he turned his back.
And walked away.
That night, the whispers returned.
“Did you see his hands?”
“He didn’t cast a single spell.”
“Jin’s still unconscious,how the hell did he survive that?”
Kai lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling.
He hadn’t meant to hit that hard.
He hadn’t even tried to cast anything.
That wasn’t a spell.
That was Void movement,a reaction deeper than instinct, older than mana.
He rolled over.
Stopped cold.
There, on his pillow, lay a piece of parchment.
No seal.
Rough edges. Ink smudged.
Just one sentence.
“Next time, he won’t survive. Neither will you. ,V”
His breath hitched.
This wasn’t a warning.
It was a promise.
He jumped to his feet.
Seria.
He rushed down the hallway, past the others who were still whispering about the match.
She had to see this. She had to help him make sense of it.
Her door was open.
Too open.
“Seria?” he called.
No answer.
He stepped inside.
Her bed,empty.
The room,silent.
Then he saw it.
On the floor,a smear of silver light, still glowing faintly.
A glyph.
Pulsing.
And cooling.
Like she had just vanished.
“No,” Kai breathed. “No, no, no,”
He reached for it,but the glyph had already dimmed. Whatever spell it had been,transportation, sealing, something older,it was over now.
She was gone.
Taken.
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013
The sky hadn’t stopped bleeding since Jin vanished.Kai stood rooted in the academy courtyard, breath sharp, chest rising and falling like he’d just outrun the end of the world. Soulbrand hummed in his palm, the blade still pulsing from the energy that had clashed with Jin’s corrupted flame. His knuckles were white from gripping it too tightly.Jin’s final words still echoed in his mind.“Join me, or watch your world burn.”Was that a threat or a prophecy?Behind him, Seria leaned against a pillar, one hand pressed to her ribs where her robes were still scorched. Her face was pale, but her voice steady. “It’s not over. That… wasn’t even the worst of him.”“He’s not Jin anymore,” Kai muttered. “Not really.”“Then who is he?”Kai didn’t answer. Because deep down, he was starting to wonder the same thing about himself.By dawn, the city of Ironvale was no longer Ironvale.It was a graveyard gasping through fire and ash.Blacksteel Academy had gone into lockdown, but the walls couldn’t ke
012
Kai hadn’t spoken since Seria’s vision.He hadn’t touched the Soulbrand either.It lay wrapped in cloth beside his bed at Blacksteel, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. Sometimes at night, he heard it hum low, mournful, like it was remembering something he hadn’t done yet.The vision haunted him.His laughter.The corpses.The flames.Riven had warned him not to dwell on it. “Visions of the Veil aren’t prophecies, they’re warnings,” the old man said. “They show roads, not destinations.”But Kai couldn’t ignore what he saw in his own eyes that day.Something inside him was changing.And the world was changing with it.It started with the ground trembling beneath Ironvale.At first, people thought it was an earthquake. But then the sky cracked.A line of jagged black tore through the clouds over the slums like someone had clawed the heavens open. Screams erupted. Birds dropped midflight. Magic flared unstable.And then they came.Creatures that didn’t belong in this world twisted beasts
011
“Kai.”Her voice was soft,too soft.He froze at the threshold of the ruins, eyes locked on the figure kneeling beside the black-glass pool. She wasn’t a memory.She was real.Her silver-white robes shimmered like faded starlight. Her hair was shorter than he remembered. And her eyes,gray, distant, detached,looked through him like he was a story someone else had told her.He took one step forward.Then another.“…It’s me,” he said, voice barely more than breath. “Kai.”No flicker.No warmth.No recognition.Just silence.She looked at him like he was a dream she wasn’t sure she wanted to remember.He knelt beside her, trembling, heart pounding against his ribs. His hand hovered inches from her shoulder, terrified it would pass right through.“I used to wait by the door,” he said, forcing the words through his throat. “Every night after the fire. I thought maybe… maybe you’d survived. That you’d find a way back to me.”Her lips parted slightly. A breath. Nothing more.Then,“…The door,”
010
Kai opened his eyes to darkness.Not the kind that came with night or shadows. This was weight. This was a silence that pressed against the skull, dense, suffocating. The kind of dark that breathed.He sat up slowly, his muscles aching. His mouth tasted like ash and metal. No sign of the candlelit chamber. No sign of Seria. Just cold stone beneath him and a strange pulse in the air, steady like a heartbeat.He wasn’t alone.“Kai,” came the voice. Smooth. Too smooth. Familiar. Wrong.He stood. “Who’s there?”A faint light glowed behind him. He turned and the voice was suddenly behind him again.“You saved her. Now who will save you?”He lunged toward the sound but a hand shot out of the black and grabbed his wrist. It wasn’t solid. It felt like fog and ice and bone all at once.Then “Enough,” barked a voice. Rough. Grounded. Real.The darkness peeled away like smoke blown from a flame. Kai blinked as shapes formed. Bookshelves. Braziers. Carved runes.Riven.The old man stood before h
009
Kai burst into Seria’s room, chest heaving, fingers curled tight around the warning note.Empty.No sign of a struggle. No blood. No overturned furniture.Just stillness.And a glowing glyph on the floor , soft, silver, pulsing like a held breath.“Seria?” he whispered.No answer.He crouched slowly, fingers hovering over the strange rune. It thrummed, a faint buzz rising into his bones. The second his skin touched it,FLASH.The room disappeared.He blinked.Now standing inside a circular chamber lit by floating candles, he spun around. Shelves lined with old books and glass vials stretched toward the domed ceiling. Shadows curled along the edges, curling like smoke.And then,Footsteps.She stepped out from behind a bookshelf.Seria.Alive.But her face was wrong. Pale. Ashen. Her lips trembled, and her eyes,red, wet, hollow.“Kai…” Her voice cracked. “You came.”His breath caught. “You’re safe…”Relief hit him,sharp, fast,but it didn’t last.She wasn’t looking at him.Not directly.
008
The tunnel collapsed behind them in a roar of stone and fire.Kai and Seria were flung into the forest clearing, landing hard as a shockwave rippled through the trees. Leaves scattered into the air like birds taking flight, and dirt rained from the sky.Kai choked, coughing violently as the air turned to ash in his lungs. “Seria… you okay?”Seria nodded, shaky and pale. “That… that wasn’t just magic. That thing… it wore your face, Kai.”He didn’t answer.His eyes stayed fixed on his trembling hands,fingers curled, knuckles white, veins faintly pulsing.Not from fear.From something deeper. Rage. Shame. Power.He’d felt the pull again. Deep in the ruins,when the shadow whispered, when the air turned black. It had called to him. Tempted him.And he’d run.Just like his mother had all those years ago.“I could’ve stopped it,” he muttered.“No,” Seria said gently. “You chose not to lose yourself.”He turned away.But the worst part wasn’t the shadow.It was what it meant: Jin knew. Faen k
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