2025-08-06 08:46:36Darkness!!
Cold!!
Silence!!
Zarek fell through a bottomless, lightless expanse, weightless but pulled by something intangible. There was no breeze, no whoosh of air against his ears. No sense of falling — only the creeping, dreamlike awareness that he was no longer part of the world above. He was detached. Untethered. Alone. His body no longer hurt. He felt nothing. It was like numb. His arms, his legs — even his heartbeat — felt distant, like they were memories of someone else's life. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was alive or already dead.
"Am I dead already?"
The idea floated lazily in his head, not in terror, but as a hopeless echo. Maybe this was death — not pain, not flames, not judgment, but relief. A void where even time had forgotten him.
Then — a spark.
A silent shudder coursed through the emptiness, as if the echo of some ancient stirring. And then, out of the very bone of the world, a voice arose — not in sound, but in feeling. It resonated deep within his soul, skirting the ears and driving itself into his very self.
"You are not done."
A burst of blinding light flashed in the distance — keen, white-gold, and beating like the heartbeat of the universe. From it, a shape emerged. Huge. Unthinkable. Its outline was fluid, shifting, made of stone and flame, cloud and tempest, water and heaven — an animate expression of the elements themselves. It loomed over him without weight, existing in both this world and somewhere far beyond it.
It had no face, no mouth or eyes, but Zarek could feel its eyes cutting through all the walls he'd ever constructed. It could see the shattered child behind the snark, the desperate kid buried in a book, the empty youth pining for even the merest spark of authority.
And it was speaking — this time with an antiquity to its clarity that was older than the stars.
"You are the hollow vessel. The forgotten seed. The silence before the storm. And yet… you choose to live."
Zarek attempted to respond, but nothing came out. His voice, along with his form, was still trapped in the void.
"One element is yours,” the entity intoned. “The earth beneath the stars. Claim it… or die empty."
Then—
CRACK!!!
The noise ripped through the blackness like thunder, and then Zarek crashed into something solid — hard, but not killing. A broken, impenetrable chunk of rock closed around him in a heartbeat. But this time, there was no pain. There was only warmth. Not flame, not heat — but a rich, earthy warmth, like the sun on the ground after rain. It filtered into his bones, his shattered ribs, his shredded muscles. He gasped.
His eyes flew open.
The cliffside rose beside him, no longer a sheer drop, but a towering wall of rock that was… moving. Shifting. Obeying. The stone that pinned his limbs wasn't killing him — it was restraining him. A cradle of earth, carved with unnatural precision, had broken his fall. His own breath came in shallow gulps as he gazed in amazement at the rocks encircling his arms, his legs, his chest. They throbbed with a faint energy, and through that link, he knew something was alive. The ground itself was breathing. Not figuratively — but literally.
Zarek's veins radiated a dull brown color, as if roots absorbing life from the ground. His fingers spasmed, and the stone obeyed, curling and remolding as if it were nothing more than clay in his hand.
He breathed, his voice rasp-throat, but aglow with wonder. "What… is this?"
The voice repeated again, not from above — but within.
"Earth… is yours."
His heart pounded. A heavy ache tolled in rhythm with the thundering under his skin. Something had been opened within him — some ancient well he didn't know he possessed. His link to the world was no longer abstract. No longer read about from old books. It was real. He felt the press of stone. The strain of fault lines. The vibration of bedrock beneath. And yet deeper something more ancient.
The rock cradle shuddered, then started to drop him with unnatural accuracy into a secret pocket of the cliff face — a cave long concealed from sight. Bioluminescent moss adhered to the walls in patches all around, throwing an otherworldly green light over the cavern. Stalactites dangled from the ceiling like stone fangs, and water dripped in rhythmic echoes along the walls.
Zarek fell to his knees on the cold, damp ground, coughing harshly. Blood spattered across the rock, his wounds were healing already — slowly, agonizingly — but irrefutably. The pain was no longer an obstacle. It was a reminder that he was still alive. And something else stirred within him. The voice came back, now stronger, more imperative.
"One door creaks open. Four others lie ahead."
"You will awaken… one at a time." "But power comes with purpose." "Find your fire… or the world will freeze."Zarek's eyes flashed up, his heart racing, his skin bruised, his body battered — but his soul afire. "I don't know who you are," he muttered out loud, shaking with it. "Or what you just did to me…"
He balled his hand into a fist. The ground beneath him shifted, responding to his will. A wave of stone rippled across the floor like water stirred by wind. “But I’m not dying down here.”
Zarek rose from the ground slowly, his limbs trembling with exhaustion and revelation. Dirt clung to his robes. Blood stained his collar. But beneath it all, something had changed. Something permanent. Power hummed beneath his skin. It feels real, tangible and alive. The stone that surrounded him vibrated with every step he took, feeling him, reacting, waiting for his bidding. He didn't comprehend it all. But it was his. He approached the cave entrance, where moonlight now filtered faintly through the crevice far above. Wind screamed along the edge of the cliff, but no longer whispered malice. Now, it was like challenge.
"I don't care what they think anymore," Zarek growled, voice low but with steel.
He clamped his fist again. The ground writhed beneath his feet.
For the first time ever, Zarek Vonn didn't just exist. He commanded.
And as he stepped into the light seeping through the stone, back toward a world that had broken and mocked him, one thing burned brighter than all the wounds on his body:
He would never be powerless again.
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Chapter 010 – The Steel Door
The heavy steel door slammed shut behind Zarek. The loud, metal sound broke the silence like a scream trapped in iron, echoing down the dark, narrow halls underground. This wasn’t just a door closing—it felt like his fate was being sealed. The air smelled of rust and old wet stone, the kind of smell that clings to your skin and reminds you of death. Zarek didn’t move. He leaned against the freezing concrete wall, the cold sinking into his bones like something alive, slowly eating at him. He breathed through clenched teeth, each breath tasting of mold, metal, and something sharp and strange—a scent he feared without knowing why. Even in the darkness, small flames danced around his knuckles. They gave off no warmth and brought no comfort. They flickered silently, like they were feeding on old memories, refusing to disappear—just like the past he couldn’t forget.The visions came back, as they always did—unwanted and cruel. He saw the villagers again. Their faces were frozen, lifeless an
Chapter 009 – Frozen Souls
Zarek's boots clattered against the icy steel floor, each step echoing crisply in the cold deadness of the interminable corridor. The air was artificially cooled, nipping at his flesh under the frayed leather of his jacket. In front of him, the silent escort glided with mechanical movement—no words, no hesitation—only a shadow moving through the narrow, seemingly endless tunnel. The walls were covered with strips of cold metal paneling, so highly polished that they cast shadows of faint glimmers from the sickly blue light throbbing in the narrow crevices between floor tiles. Not light, but a rhythmic, soft pulse, such as the slow, deliberate breathing of some sleeping creature deep within the earth.Runic symbols glowed with a faint sheen along the walls—age-old markings etched into metal, pulsating with an inner hum. They curled and sinuated, thinly glowing with a magical energy that seemed both foreign and treacherous. Zarek couldn't decipher them, but the thrumming beneath his fee
Chapter 008 – The White Room
The walls were too white. A surgical, oppressive white that hurt the eyes if you stared too long. They gave no comfort, no warmth, no imperfection to rest the gaze. And the silence — not peaceful, but clinical — was loud in its absence of life. Not a whisper, not a creak. Just the low thrum of unseen machines humming beneath the obsidian floors.Zarek Vonn stood at the heart of a subterranean vault buried miles beneath the volcanic ridges of Vhal Tarren — far from the rotting timber of his childhood home, far from the tangled roots of the Sylmara forest where magic still breathed wild and unbound. Down here, the magic felt different. Thin. Cold. Stripped of soul and bound to machines.He shifted his weight slightly, boots scuffing across a floor like black glass, where pale runes pulsed dimly beneath the surface. They blinked in arrhythmic patterns, like the heartbeat of something not quite alive.Then came the voice. “Sixty million daren.”It didn’t echo — it sliced. Every syllable i
Chapter 007 – They Came for Blood
Zarek hadn’t slept, not even for a moment.The straw mattress beneath him felt like packed stone, the rough blanket more a shroud than a comfort. He stared at the splintered ceiling of his small room, eyes dry and burning. Every breath rattled in his ribs, every movement sent aches pulsing through his muscles like echoes of yesterday’s war. It hadn’t been a war, not officially. Just a street fight, a confrontation, a defense. But for Zarek, it had been a battlefield—of fists, of stone, of something deeper. Earth had risen to his command, bones had cracked beneath the force of his will, and when the dust settled, the world no longer felt the same.The sky outside his window was heavy with slate-gray clouds, as if the morning itself was reluctant to rise. Lowhollow murmured in the distance—doors creaking open, hooves clopping on wet cobblestone, vendors barking half-hearted greetings in the marketplace.But beneath the normalcy, there was tension. He could feel it.“Zarek Vonn used ear
Chapter 006 – You Have Magic?
It began just after noon — a knock, but not the kind one answered.BANG. BANG. BANG.Each strike landed like a war drum on the thin wooden door, echoing through the cottage and rattling the bones of the place. Dust spilled from the rafters in lazy streams, stirred by the tremble of the brittle beams overhead. The crooked table — barely held together by rusted nails and desperation — gave a groan, its legs shifting with the tension coiling in the room.Zarek sat in the far corner, half-shadowed, his bowl of stew untouched and congealed, a silver film crusted over the broth. His spoon slipped from his fingers and clinked against the bowl’s rim with a brittle, accusing sound.Outside, gravel crunched under boots. Low voices muttered — casual, amused, ugly men who came often, and never alone.Joren Vonn flinched.The old man was halfway to rising, his hands gripping the table so hard the knuckles turned pale, almost translucent. His face — creased by sun and sorrow — was ashen. He looked
Chapter 005 – Aven’s Warning
At dawn, Arcvale Academy slept. The towers, carved from pale stone and etched with ancient runes, stood shrouded in mist like monuments to forgotten gods. Soft light filtered through crystalline windows, catching on dust motes drifting silently through the grand halls. Elemental wards hummed faintly in the background — unseen but omnipresent — pulsing with layered enchantments to protect the academy from intrusions both magical and mundane.But beyond the wards… in the untamed wildwood where Arcvale’s control began to fade… the earth stirred — slowly, unevenly, like a creature still learning to breathe.A tremor rolled through the roots and moss, more uncertain than violent. And at the center of that fragile disturbance stood Zarek Vonn — barefoot, breathless, and shaking — locked in a clumsy struggle not against an enemy, but against his own weakness. His heel dug into the soil with effort, knees wobbling as he braced himself. He let out a grunt, not of power — but frustration.A sm
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