2025-08-06 08:19:10The sun was nearly gone, its final red strokes disappearing into the horizon. Zarek Vonn gazed at the spires of the academy for the last time, then turned away. "Another day, and nothing yet," he said under his breath, squeezing his satchel tightly in his hand as the chill wind seeped through his meager robes. "How much longer can I keep pretending it'll change?"
His steps rumbled down the deserted street, lopsided and slow. "Everyone else is calling down fire, twisting water, splitting the accursed sky with lightning…" He kicked at a stray rock, and it went flying. "And I can't even light a candle."
Banners snapped overhead—fire, water, air, earth. Magic flowed like a crown on the city's head, proud and aglow. Even the runes beneath his feet throbbed softly, living with power. "It's everywhere. Around me. In the stones, the air… everyone but me." He shifted the satchel on his shoulder, feeling the strain. Books bulged from its seams—tomes on elemental theory, handwritten notes, diagrams he had studied until his eyes blurred.
“I’ve read every damn thing. Twice.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “If knowledge was power, I’d be a god by now.” Silence answered him, save for the whisper of the wind and the dull thud of his boots on stone.
“No spark. No gift. Just me.” He exhaled, long and quiet. “Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe I’m just too stubborn to stop trying.” His thoughts swirled, tangled with memories of today’s merciless taunts. Then the mocking voices broke through the dusk like knives.
"Well, if it isn't Arcvale's beloved ghost," Kellan Dross said, lounging against the darkened alleyway wall. Fire danced around his hands like serpents, the warm glow licking at the stone. "Straying in the darkness once more, Vonn? Afraid you'd succeed in finding some magic?"
The loud crack of laughter chased after him like a shadow. Kellan's friends, Therin and Gorran, stood beside him with self-satisfied grins—Therin's pale eyes sparkling maliciously, and Gorran's massive presence hovering like a thundercloud waiting to smash. Zarek's chest constricted. He braked but did not halt, trying to drift by unseen.
"Not so quick, dirt boy," Kellan taunted with a grin. "We have some loose ends."
Therin threw up his hand, launching a lash of water flying toward Zarek's legs. The cold hit like a whip, and Zarek lurched, catching himself against the alleyway wall by inches.
"Nice stunt," Zarek grumbled, low but even.
Gorran cracked his knuckles, advancing like a battering ram. "Let's see if you can fight as well as you read."
Zarek's heart pounded. He was outnumbered, outarmed—his one tool was desperation. He dodged beneath a savage swing from Gorran, the harsh scratch of rock rubbing his arm. He spun, thrusting a fist at Kellan's side, but the fire user sidestepped with ease, flames dancing higher in amusement.
"Cute," Kellan muttered, closing his fingers around Zarek's wrist in a swift jerk. "You’re trying, I’ll give you that."
"Trying’s not enough," Therin spat. "Not when you have nothing."
Zarek wrenched free, flailing wildly as adrenaline hit. He caught a fist on Kellan's jaw—hard and pointy—and time slowed. The flames danced uncertainly.
"Whoa!" Kellan grinned, wiping away blood from his lip. "Ow. You're less pathetic than I thought."
But then Kellan's flames blazed, a burning whip flashing toward Zarek's side. He hardly managed to twist out of the way, the fire burning his skin and scorching the hem of his robes.
Gorran struck a massive fist into Zarek's back, sending him slamming into the cold stone wall. Pain flashed through his ribs, breath frozen in a choking gasp. "Had enough?" he snarled.
“No,” Zarek rasped, pushing off the wall, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. “I’m done running.”
Kellan’s grin turned feral. “Good. Because you’re about to learn the price of failure.”
The fight exploded into a frenzy of fists, flame, water, and raw survival. Kellan’s fire twisted and snapped with brutal precision, Therin’s water surged like icy blades, and Gorran’s earth-shattering strength crushed and battered with relentless force.
Zarek dodged and rolled, fought back with what little he had — swift blows driven by determination and sheer will. He hurt, ribs crying out in agony with each breath, and blood congealed in his eyes, but he would not give in. And then, in a moment of savage intent, Gorran stamped down upon Zarek's flung-out hand.
Crack!!
The gagging snap shut down everything. Zarek clenched hard to prevent screaming, vision blurring with tears of pain and anger.
Kellan knelt next to him, fire crackling perilously close to his bruised face. "Still breathing, huh? Let's take that away from you."
Zarek Vonn was strewn out on the courtyard floor, his blood mingling with dust and broken pages from the ripped books. Agony coursed through his frame like fire, each breath a blade stabbing in his ribs. Cold stone beneath his cheek as the world whirled around him, cold and uncaring.
Kellan loomed over him, flames dancing in his hand like a killing halo, eyes blazing with brutal satisfaction. “Still playing the noble failure, huh?” he spat. “You don’t belong at Arcvale, trash.”
Zarek coughed violently, blood bubbling at the edges of his lips, and barely managed to lift his head. “I didn’t… ask to be here,” he whispered.
Therin stepped closer, water shimmering faintly as he crossed his arms. “Exactly,” he said coldly. “You weren’t chosen by any element. You’re an accident.”
Gorran’s boot crushed down hard on Zarek’s broken hand again. The agony was excruciating, but Zarek didn't cry out. His body shook, but within, a chill of greater pain held him in its grip — the knowledge he could not escape.
"Why me? Why am I so pathetic? Why was I even born in the first place?"
Kellan's voice pierced the hush with wicked amusement. "You realize Dreadfall Cliff is just beyond the city."
He knelt beside Zarek, fingers stroking away a streak of blood from his cheek. "Why don't you do the world a favor and take the jump?"
Zarek's eyes fell to the bruised floor. He didn't reply.
Kellan rose, flames flicking higher. "Let's go. He's done."
Their laughter rang through the cold stone halls, dying as they walked away, leaving Zarek shattered, bleeding, and alone.
Zarek pulled himself through the dimly lit corridors of Arcvale, each footfall ringing with the ache of rejection. The guttering torchlight sent long shadows dancing on the rune-covered walls, but no hand came out to guide him, no voice provided solace. His jaw was bruised and swollen, his pride crushed like shattered glass. Outside the heavy academy gates, the night was quiet. The stars of Lystara twinkled dimly against the immense, uncaring sky. The chill night air gnawed at his skin as he walked past the old, weathered stone signs warning passersby from the edge:
DREADFALL CLIFF – FORBIDDEN
"Those who fall do not return."
"Magic dies here."
The wind screamed, bringing the smell of ancient stone and forgotten truths. Zarek stopped at the precipice, staring into the abyss. The black void yawned beneath him, endless and merciless.
The whispers began — harsh and relentless:
"No one’s coming to save you."
"You’ll never awaken."
"They were right about you."
Tears traced silent paths down his cheeks. The wind tugged at his robes, the stars watched silently.
“No one… ever believed in me,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Not even me.”
One step.
The ground vanished beneath him.
He fell.
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Chapter 022 – The Crucible of Stillness
The bite.The memory of the Lava Ant’ searing venom was a beacon of reality. That pain had been real. This… this was a phantom. Aeltharion’s voice echoed, not as a command, but as a revelation. "You must learn to separate your mind from your body’s agony."This was agony. This was terror. But it was not real.With a Herculean effort of will, Zarek stopped fighting. He stopped clawing at the dead arm. He stopped trying to buck the weight off his chest. He forced his body to go limp, accepting the cold earth beneath him and the crushing weight on top of him.He let the phantom choke him.He stared up at the corpse’s hollow shroud, at the maggot now crawling towards his eye, and he did not flinch. He embraced the horror. He let the icy fingers feel as if they were crushing his vertebrae, let the lack of air burn in his lungs.And as he accepted it, as he stopped resisting the nightmare, something shifted.The pressure on his neck lessened. The cold began to recede, replaced by the famili
Chapter 021 – The Hanging Grove
The first Lava Ant had bitten him.A scream, raw and primal, built in his throat, a pressure valve demanding release. He clenched his jaw so hard he felt a tooth might crack. Tears of pure, undiluted agony welled in his eyes, blurring the faintly glowing dome above.Silence. Aeltharion’s command echoed in his mind, now a lifeline. You will not scream. You will not move.The burning spread, a wildfire contained within the single limb. It was a pain designed to break minds, to make the strongest warrior beg for mercy.Zarek, his body trembling violently, his knuckles white where he gripped his knees, threw his head back and stared blindly at the stone eye above. He did not scream. He did not move.He let the fire consume him, and in its heart, he began the terrible, agonizing work of finding his silence. The pain from the ant bite was a forge, and Zarek’s will was the metal being hammered upon its anvil. For an hour, maybe an eternity, the world was nothing but that single, burning leg.
Chapter 020 – The Eye in the Stone
He lifted his eyes, half in search of distraction, half in rebellion against the encroaching dread, and stared upward into the dome above him.And what he saw made his breath catch.The patterns etched into the ceiling were far more elaborate than he had realized. Now, with his vision accustomed to the strange phosphorescent glow, he could see how they danced and twisted—not randomly, but with terrifying precision. Spirals of sigils, concentric rings of symbols older than language, drew the eye inward. They converged, all of them, toward a single point at the dome’s highest curve—directly above where he now sat.The feeling was unmistakable. It was like sitting at the bottom of a great, stone eye.Zarek swallowed hard, the dryness in his throat almost painful. He didn’t know whether to feel watched or judged or both. Something about the design pulled at the mind, bent thought into unnatural spirals. Were these the glyphs of an ancient priesthood? A forgotten sect? Aeltharion’s own cre
Chapter 019 – The Pit
The trapdoor slammed shut above him with a final, resonant thud that echoed like the tolling of a crypt-seal, reverberating down the narrow shaft and into the hollow space below. In an instant, Zarek was plunged into a darkness so complete it became a weight on his chest, pressing down with a suffocating force.It wasn't merely the absence of light—it was a living, suffocating blackness, thick and absolute, like being swallowed whole by the mountain itself. His breath caught in his throat as his eyes flailed for orientation. Nothing. Not even the hint of motion or form. The silence was cavernous, oppressive, alive with the suggestion of unseen things watching, waiting.He did not move at first.m, His body had gone taut, held in place by primal instinct, every nerve ending aflame with the memory of what he had just escaped above—the seething mass of ants, their obsidian shells clicking, biting, swarming. But here, down below, there was no sound. No skittering.Only his own breath, raw
Chapter 018 – A Candle in the Storm
Consciousness returned to Zarek not as a gentle dawn, but as a rude shove into a world of dull, persistent ache. The memory of fire was a brand on his soul, but the reality was the coarse, scratchy wool of a blanket against his raw skin. He lay on a low, hard pallet, the thin mattress stuffed with what felt like straw and dried herbs that released a faint, bitter scent with his every movement.He was in a single room, a hut so small and sparse it felt more like a prison cell carved from wood and stubbornness. The walls were woven from dark, aged wattle and daub, cracked in places, allowing thin blades of searing morning light to cut through the dimness. The air was thick with the smell of dust, dried sage, and the faint, ever-present tang of ozone and ash that seemed to follow Aeltharion. The floor was packed earth, worn smooth and hard by generations of feet. A single, small, shuttered window was the only other feature, aside from a rough-hewn wooden door. There was no decoration, no
Chapter 017 – The Firelord’s Warning
The beast snarled and lunged forward, driven by either fear or defiance. Its claws carved gashes into the ground as it hurled itself toward Zarek — but the moment it crossed the threshold of that infernal maelstrom, the explosion came.A wave of searing light and heat roared outward in all directions — a sunborn blast that swallowed man and beast alike. The ground split. The heavens trembled. The mountain itself groaned, as if unsure whether to collapse or burn with them.Then — silence.Ash rained down gently, like snow falling in a dead world.When the light finally faded, Zarek stood alone in the center of a scorched wasteland. All around him, the land had melted into glowing stone, still pulsing with afterheat. Cracks spidered across the ground, glowing like veins of fire beneath glass. His body trembled, his chest rising and falling in jagged, shallow gasps. His clothes hung in tatters, half-burned and still smoldering. His skin bore the markings of flame — his arms streaked with
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