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.
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Chapter 015 – Serpent's Path
The serpent’s tunnel narrowed into a throat of stone, the walls pressing close like clenched jaws. The air grew blistering hot, thick with the stench of sulfur and scorched minerals, each breath clawing at Zarek’s lungs. Smoke clung to the rock like damp cobwebs, curling in slow, choking tendrils. He pressed forward, each step a battle against the heat that wrapped around him like a living thing. The walls pulsed with a dull, ominous glow—veins of magma threading through the stone like arteries, casting flickering shadows that danced like phantoms.It was as if he were walking deeper into the belly of a beast. The mountain breathed—a slow, rumbling exhale that vibrated beneath his boots. It growled in its depths, a constant, guttural sound that echoed through the tunnel, broken only by the sharp hiss of escaping steam. Zarek wiped the sweat from his brow, though it did little good; his skin was already slick, his armor burning hot against his back.Then he heard it.Not the groan of s
Chapter 014 – Ulmfang Mountains
The Ulmfang Mountains rose out of the void like the jagged ribs of some ancient titan, their peaks black and sharp, lost in storm clouds that never parted. No sun ever touched this place. The world here was stone, storm, and silence. Lightning arced across the cliffs in eerie silence, and the growl of thunder rumbled low in the mist, like the beastly breath of the mountain itself. The air was heavy with heat, as though the bones of the world burned beneath the rock. Each gust of wind carried with it the scent of scorched earth and ozone, mingling with the faint, metallic tang of distant ash. The sky above was a churning, bruised canvas of slate and smoke, crackling with energy that never released its fury fully—only hints like whispers. The mountains did not merely loom—they loathed. There was something in the silence that smothered sound, a weight that pressed into the chest and curled cold fingers around the heart. Every stone seemed placed with purpose, like pieces of a vast monume
Chapter 013 – The Serpent Sigil
The wheels of the carriage groaned beneath Zarek as it pulled away from the spires of Arcvale Academy, grinding over weatherworn stones slick with dew and old magic. The sound was rhythmic, almost hypnotic, like a chant murmured by the bones of the road itself. Morning mist clung to the ground in gauzy layers, curling around the base of the trees like fingers reluctant to let go. Behind him, the sunrise painted the sky in hues of gold and crimson, as though the world itself bled light across the horizon. But Zarek did not look back. He couldn't afford to. If he looked, he might see his mother still whispering his name under her breath, might see Ren’s half-hearted grin faltering, or Aven’s eyes burning with all the words she hadn't yet spoken.And if he saw them, he might not keep walking.He clenched his jaw and pressed his palm harder against the worn seat, willing the ache behind his ribs to stay silent. This was not the time for doubt, or for mourning, or for anything soft.The Ac
Chapter 012 – I’ll Be Your Damnation
The iron doors slammed shut behind him like a judge’s final decree, sealing Zarek inside a chamber of nightmares. The sudden darkness pressed against his skin like a second, colder flesh, an invasive presence that seeped into his bones. His boots dragged across the tiles, slick with old blood, blackened chemicals, and something far fouler, a viscous slime that spoke of unspeakable experiments. Each step left red trails that vanished into the oppressive gloom of the maze of horrors around him. The silence was not empty. It breathed with the low hum of dormant machinery. It watched with the palpable weight of a thousand unseen eyes. It judged him for the sin of being alive within its profane grasp.Malrik’s private lab was no place for mortals. It was a cathedral of twisted science and desecrated magic, a perverse sanctuary where the boundaries of life were not just crossed but obliterated. Towering vats filled with churning blue ichor lined the walls, each one a prison for atrocities i
Chapter 011 – Cryo Wing Three
The double doors hissed open with a burst of steam and a hollow clang, like the exhale of a dying machine. Two armored guards shoved Zarek forward, their grip iron and merciless. He stumbled into the chamber beyond, his boots hitting the frostbitten floor with a loud crunch that echoed through the silent, frozen air. The doors sealed shut behind him with a metallic slam that sounded far too final. He was alone.The cold struck him like a weapon. Not the kind of cold that numbed the skin — this cold reached inside him, stabbing into his bones, sinking its claws into his spine. The walls were wrapped in creeping frost, spidering across the steel in patterns that pulsed with dim blue light. It felt less like a room and more like a tomb—ancient, sterile, and merciless. In the middle stood a towering cryo-tank, massive and cylindrical, humming with a low, almost mournful energy. Tubes slithered out from its base, burrowing into the floor like roots from a mechanical tree.Inside the tank,
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
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