2025-08-06 17:58:39The sun had not yet risen. The world hovered in that fragile moment between night and day — not darkness, not light, but something eerie and breathless in between.
A thick, ghost-colored mist coiled low across the forest floor, veiling everything beyond a few feet in front of him. The trees loomed like sentinels — ancient and patient, their gnarled limbs clawing at the air like skeletal arms frozen mid-scream. Moss blanketed the stones underfoot, damp with dew, and the air hung heavy with the scent of wet earth, rotting leaves, and something older, deeper — something that remembered blood.
Somewhere beyond the ridge, a beast howled. Low. Guttural. It echoed across the cliffs like a warning. And in the middle of a clearing no sane student ever entered at this hour, Zarek Vonn stood unsteady, breath shallow, trying to harness something his body wasn’t built for.
He moved barefoot across the mud and moss, not with grace, but with sheer effort — each step an awkward tug of will against limbs that weren’t ready, muscles that burned, lungs that fought to keep up. His robes were shredded, smeared with blood and sweat, sticking to him like damp parchment. His feet were cracked. His hands shook with every movement. His chest heaved as if each breath had to be torn out of him by force.
This wasn’t a warrior dancing with power. This was a boy wrestling a force too big for him to hold. Every motion he made felt wrong — either too much or not enough. The earth beneath his feet didn’t rise willingly. It bucked, resisted, strained against his command before jerking into motion like a reluctant animal. Pillars of stone rose, crooked and brittle, only to crumble before they were fully formed. Sparks cracked through the air like static — unfocused, weak, gone as fast as they came.
His magic wasn’t fluid. It was fragmented, raw and dangerous.
“Again,” Zarek whispered, voice hoarse, barely audible through clenched teeth.
He dropped into a shaky stance and slammed his palms into the ground.
BOOM!!!!
A ripple shot through the forest floor, but instead of a clean break, the energy sputtered — the fissure crawled out unevenly, like a wound that wouldn’t open all the way. Zarek staggered, barely staying on his feet. His vision blurred. Blood from a cut at his temple trickled into his eye. His arms trembled violently, and his legs buckled before he caught himself. Everything inside him screamed to stop — his bones ached, his skin burned, his breath came in wheezing gasps.
But he kept going. Because pain meant it was working. Pain meant the power hadn’t broken him yet.
Not completely.
He had clawed his way out of that cavern — starved, blind, abandoned. He shouldn’t have survived. And maybe the part of him that did was no longer the same. Maybe what dragged itself back to Arcvale Academy wasn’t a student, but something else entirely.
When he returned — silent, forgotten — no one asked where he’d been. No one noticed he was back. Because the Zarek who left? He didn’t come back. Now, before the sky turned gold and the halls filled with whispers and spellcraft, he returned to the only place that didn’t reject him. To the dirt. To the silence. To the thing inside him that refused to die.
“Too slow,” he hissed. “Too weak.”
He stomped again. The earth answered — barely. A crack, small and jagged, like it was mocking him. His arms shook. His legs gave out. He dropped to his knees, gasping, fingers clawing at the ground as if he could pull strength from the soil itself.
“You only have one element,” the voice inside him whispered. “What if this is all you’ll ever be?” Zarek bit down hard, eyes squeezed shut. The ache in his body pressed against him like a cage. “What if the voice in the dark lied to you?” it hissed. “What if you’re not chosen? Just... broken?”
His heart stuttered, his body quaked, and then—a flicker, a warmth, small, weak, but there. Zarek reeled back, hands shaking violently. He coughed, his throat raw, eyes wide. “What was that?” he gasped, staring at his open palm.
A single ember hovered—faint, flickering, barely visible—not fire, not fully, but pulsing gently, softly, like it knew him, like it was him, and then it was gone, though the heat didn’t leave, not completely. Zarek stared at his hand. Something inside him twisted. Earth… and something more. Something buried deeper than muscle and bone. “Was that… fire?”
“Talking to yourself now, Vonn?” The voice came from behind — smooth, amused, sharp as glass. Zarek flinched and spun, instinctively raising a stone wall between him and the source. It wobbled — not solid, but enough.
A figure stepped from the mist, silver hair catching the pale light. Leaning casually against a tree, arms crossed, grin annoyingly smug.
Ren Ashveil.
Zarek didn’t lower the wall. “What do you want?”
Ren smiled. “What, no ‘how did you find me’? I’m hurt.”
“You were watching me.”
“Obviously,” Ren replied, stepping closer. “Kinda hard not to when you’re flinging dirt like an angry toddler with a god complex. Trying to crack the cliffs in half, or just collapsing for fun?”
Zarek said nothing. His breath was still coming too fast. Ren’s eyes scanned the clearing — the broken ground, the dust still drifting, the tremble in Zarek’s arms.
“You’re not supposed to have power,” Ren said, more serious now.
“I don’t,” Zarek muttered.
Ren raised an eyebrow. “Sure. And I’m secretly the High Prince of Ashkavon.”
“I mean it,” Zarek rasped. “It’s not… It’s not normal. It hurts.”
Ren’s expression shifted. Not quite sympathy. But something close. “Yeah. It looks like it.”
He walked a slow circle around the clearing. “I’ve seen fakes. Cheaters. The desperate ones who bleed to spark a flicker. But you?” He paused. “You’re not faking. You’re barely holding it together.”
Zarek’s voice dropped, low and fragile. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Ren didn’t blink. “I won’t.”
Zarek stared, disbelieving.
“But,” Ren added with a crooked smile, "Now you owe me—one favor, one day, my choosing."
Zarek hesitated. Then, with a trembling nod, “Deal.”
Ren gave a lazy salute. “Pleasure doing business. Try not to pass out before breakfast.”
And then he vanished into the mist — like he was never there. Zarek stood alone once more, the silence pressing in again. He looked at his hand. No ember. But that flicker of warmth in his chest remained — faint but steady. The earth beneath him shifted again. Not a quake....just… acknowledgment.
Two elements, one broken body—still standing, still fighting; he wasn’t a spark anymore—he was learning to burn.
“I’m not done,” he whispered, as the first sliver of dawn cut through the mist.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
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
You may also like
Divine Cultivator: Rebirth of the God Emperor
Dragonix Loki36.9K viewsProgrammer in Another World
AmeronWerschrux_15.8K viewsWake Up With Super Villain System
Oceanna Lee12.7K viewsThe Chronicles of a Mage God
Benjamin_Jnr61.4K viewsCapturing The Angel of Death
Mastermind 1.4K viewsSupreme Ancestor
Kingfisher10.9K viewsSent to Another World to Protect an Unfriendly Princess
TheHaoboSpatula5.4K viewsAn angel’s road to hell
David Amann2.0K views