Born Without Magic, Destined to Rule All

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 earth magic,” they whispered in alleys, behind closed shutters.

“I thought he was powerless.”

“Didn’t he fall from Dreadfall Cliff two winters ago? Came back with something... wrong.”

“It’s not magic. It’s a curse.”

Gossip moved like rot—silent, spreading, and impossible to cut out once it took hold. Children stopped playing when he walked past. Elders lowered their eyes and muttered prayers. Even the vendors, the same ones he had helped by pulling his father from the claws of debt, now refused to meet his gaze. It didn’t matter that he’d acted to protect. Truth rarely mattered when fear got there first.

He sat up slowly, running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. The bruises from yesterday still bloomed across his ribs and back, but it wasn’t pain that made him shiver. It was the memory of what it felt like to command the earth. He stood, pacing the room, jaw clenched, thoughts looping on themselves like a fire refusing to go out. That was when the knock came.

BANG!!!!

No, not a knock. An explosion in miniature. The front door rattled in its frame. Plaster cracked in the walls. The sound wasn’t one of inquiry—it was a statement. A threat. From the main room, his mother gasped, a sharp intake of breath that cut the silence like a blade. Zarek stepped out into the hallway in time to see her clutching the edge of the hearth, her wide eyes locked on the door as though it might fly off its hinges. Joren Vonn, slouched in his chair with old bruises and older regrets, struggled upright, one hand pressed to his side.

"Zarek," Joren said urgently, his voice rough. "You have to go underground."

Zarek looked at him, and something inside cracked. He moved toward the door, slow and steady, footsteps like drawn blades. “No,” he said. “I’m done hiding.”

He barely made it to the center of the room before the door exploded inward.

BOOM!!!

Wood shattered. Splinters flew. A shockwave of magic surged through the air—heatless, colorless, but charged with purpose. His mother screamed as dust curled into the morning light like smoke from an invisible fire.Three shadows stepped through the threshold. Not thugs But killers.

They moved in perfect unison, clad in armor blacker than pitch, cloaks flowing behind them like wings of night. Their masks were smooth and glassy, shaped like serpentine faces—mouths frozen in eternal hisses. Silver buckles glinted beneath their cloaks, and in their gloved hands they carried staves of dark wood, engraved with glowing crimson runes. The air reeked of metal, blood, and something more primal. The tallest of the three stepped forward. His voice scraped behind the mask like a knife on stone.

“You made a mess yesterday, Vonn.”

Zarek said nothing.

“Dr. Malrik wants repayment. Sixty million daren. Now.”

He cocked his head, then gestured lazily to the corner where Zarek’s mother still stood frozen. “Or… we take the woman.”

Zarek blinked. “What did you just say?”

“She’s unmarked,” the enforcer replied, voice casually cruel. “Still young. Good bones. One of the northern buyers will pay fine coin. Maybe more, if she screams.”

Silence — not just in the house. In Zarek’s mind. A hush, sudden and terrifying. Like the moment before a storm breaks. He gasped. Heat surged into his lungs like molten air. His chest arched. Pain bloomed across his spine and down his arms—searing, twisting, transforming. His body shook as the heat rose inside him. And then—

FWOOOOOM.

A shockwave of fire erupted from him, searing the very air. It was light and heat and sound all at once. The enforcers were thrown back, smashing into walls, flipping chairs and breaking shelves. Smoke burst from the rafters. Glass shattered in the windows. Flames crawled across the wooden floor in spirals, moving like they were alive.

Zarek stood in the center of it all, untouched. A beacon of flame. His hands trembled—alive with fire. His skin shimmered, as if molten gold coursed through his veins. His mother cowered, shielding her face.

“Zarek!”

One of the enforcers groaned, rising, blood magic rod raised. Zarek’s eyes locked on him—burning, wild, inhuman. He raised his hand. Fire roared from his palm in a jet of fury, hitting the man full in the chest. He flew backward and crashed through the window in a rain of glass. Another charged, screaming behind his mask. The rod came down in an arc, but Zarek was already moving—faster than he ever had. He ducked, spun, and drove a fist into the man’s stomach, fire coiling around his arm like a serpent.

CRACK!!!!!

The rod broke. One man collapsed. The third stood frozen, breathing heavily, slowly backing away.

“He’s a dual-elemental,” he hissed. “We’re not equipped for this—fall back!”

A hiss of black smoke curled around him. Magic flared, and in a blink, both remaining bodies vanished into mist. The silence was broken only by the creak of burned beams and the soft hiss of fading flames. Zarek stood alone in the wreckage. His mother pressed herself against the far wall, face pale, eyes wide with fear. His father slumped near the hearth, staring at Zarek as though seeing something he couldn’t explain.

“Zarek…” Joren whispered. “What have you become?”

Zarek looked down at his hands. They trembled still, but not from weakness. His palms were blackened, yet unburned. The glow of something ancient still shimmered beneath the skin. “I don’t know,” he breathed. “But this wasn’t mine to choose. It chose me.”

Far north, beneath the towering spires of Vhal Tarren, deep in the arched marble corridors of the Dr. Malrik Finance Syndicate, a crimson crystal pulsed in alarm. A screen blinked alive. Magical sigils danced across its surface. In a chair carved from obsidian, Dr. Malrik Edran leaned forward, adjusting a silver monocle over one eye. His fingers, long and pale, steepled in front of a mouth twisted into a cold, knowing smile.

One of his aides burst into the chamber, eyes wide. “Sir! It’s the boy Zarek Vonn. Earth and fire confirmed. A dual-elemental.”

“Ah,” Malrik murmured, rising slowly to his feet. “So the vessel wasn’t empty after all.” He walked to the window and looked out across the lightning-lit skyline of Vhal Tarren. “The elements gather,” he said softly. “Prepare the contract. The boy’s bloodline is awakened. He won’t remain wild for long.”

He turned, eyes gleaming. “He’ll come to us. One way… or another.”

Back in Lowhollow, Zarek stepped out into the gray light of morning. Smoke coiled behind him from the shattered door. The villagers stood frozen behind stalls, behind curtains. Zarek didn’t flinch beneath their gazes. He lifted his chin. Eyes toward the distant towers of Arcvale Academy, now silhouetted in the rising sun.

“I won’t run dad,” he said, voice low.

“If they want a monster…” He clenched his flaming fist, still glowing, “I’ll show them one.”