The night wind blew sharp, piercing Kato’s skin, which was wrapped only in a clan robe that now looked like a tattered rag. After the great ShadowBlade gates closed with the heavy clang of iron that ended everything, Kato was truly on his own. He didn't look back again. His back was straight, even though every step felt like dragging a thousand-pound weight on his shoulders.He walked down the rocky path, slick with leftover dew and moss. The silence of the forest at the foot of the mountain felt oppressive, punctuated only by the sound of crickets that sounded like a mockery of someone who had just lost their entire identity. His bare feet, his sandals of devotion having been confiscated by the clan guards as a final insult, began to bleed, leaving red stains among the sharp gravel.Kato didn't care. The pain in his feet actually helped him stay conscious, distracting him from the tightness in his chest. His mother. The image of her face, locked in the clan's isolation ward, continue

The sound of the killers’ bodies slamming into the concrete walls felt like a sickening echo of death. Cement dust swirled, dancing beneath the dim moonlight filtering through the holes in the tin roof. Kato still stood frozen, his breath coming in gasps. The old man, the figure who had just saved him from instant death, had vanished into the darkness without a trace, leaving Kato alone with the fear still stinging the back of his neck.Kato had no time to offer his thanks. His instincts, which for years he had dismissed as a survivalist's illusion, were now screaming at him. Something was wrong. The air around him suddenly felt heavy, smelling of metal and the copper tang of blood.Dammit, he thought as he wiped cold sweat from his forehead. They didn't come alone.From the shadows of the alley the first killers had passed through, two figures dressed entirely in black emerged, cloth masks covering half their faces. They moved soundlessly, like predators stalking wounded prey. This w

The pungent, metallic scent of blood was the first thing to greet Kato's consciousness as his brain began to throb. It wasn’t just a normal headache; it felt as though his skull was being struck repeatedly by a sledgehammer. Every time he tried to open his eyes, his lids felt as heavy as lead. The darkness that had swallowed him earlier slowly receded, replaced by the dim light of an oil lamp flickering in the wind blowing through the cracks of a rickety wooden wall.He tried to move, but his body protested. A sharp pain radiated from his left ribs to his shoulder, the remnants of the brutal battle against Askar’s assassin team. Kato winced, his memories returning in chaotic flashes: blades piercing skin, heat exploding from within his chest, and the screams of the assassins before they collapsed into mangled heaps.Am I still alive? he thought bitterly."Don't move too much if you don't want those stitches to rip open again. An injury that deep would have turned an ordinary man into

The heat radiating from Kato's eyes wasn't just a metaphor. The damp warehouse suddenly turned dry, the air around them hissing as if being baked by an invisible, giant furnace. Aigerim took a step back, her brow furrowed. She was no amateur; she had seen many energy practitioners, but the energy emanating from the boy in front of her... it made no sense. This was a pressure that should have been extinct for centuries."You... what are you doing?" Aigerim hissed. Her fingers were still locked in the seal formation, but the energy tracker on her wrist began to emit a long, deafening beep before exploding into shards of plastic and scorched wires.Kato didn't answer. He felt his world tilting. He no longer saw the warehouse; he saw the flow of energy running beneath Aigerim's skin like a glowing system of fiber optic cables. He saw the weakness in the girl's right shoulder joint, the point that would be his access to breaking her defense. However, just as his leg muscles tensed to lunge

The thunderous slam of the bronze doors closing echoed through the length of the tomb, as if the room had just swallowed them whole. Ancient dust swirled, dancing in the dim light radiating from the seal on Kato’s palm. Kato’s breathing was heavy, his chest heaving in an irregular rhythm. His heart hammered, pumping blood that felt hot, far hotter than when he had fought the clan’s assassins moments ago."Damn it," Kato cursed softly, his voice hoarse. "I didn't think this place would be so suffocating."Urum, standing beside him with an almost inhuman calmness, merely scanned the surroundings with narrowing eyes. A faint blue light from Urum’s fingers sliced through the dark, revealing tomb walls made of black obsidian. Along those walls, intricate reliefs were carved, depicting a giant dragon being torn apart by a swarm of human shadows."Don’t use your energy recklessly, Kato," Urum warned. His tone was flat, but there was an underlying urgency. "This t