Home / Fantasy / Heir of Lightening / Chapter 102. Learning the Dark.

Chapter 102. Learning the Dark.

2025-07-13 22:13:58

Kirin sat by the fire, chewing the last bits of roasted beast meat the tribe had given him. It was spicy, greasy, and rough on his tongue but it was real food, not raw guts or dried bones, and that made it the best thing he’d tasted in weeks.

Across the fire where the strange semi-sentient demons, his new hosts, watched him with quiet awe. Most didn’t talk, but they weren’t hostile anymore. Some even offered shy nods or placed little gifts at his feet like strange fruit, bone-carved trinkets, or handfuls of ground herbs.

He’d spent hours tending to them, crushing roots, boiling leaves, mixing herbs and forcing bitter brews down the throats of their sick children. It had been brutal, exhausting. But something about it felt… right. Like he was finally doing something instead of just surviving.

“Human...” a deep voice called from behind him.

Kirin turned his head.

A tall figure stepped out from one of the dark stone huts near the centre of the village. His skin was rough and dark red lik

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Chapter 141. The Culling.
It started without warning.No announcements, no sounds, no shadows crawling under the door to whisper of what was coming. Just death. Raw, bloody, unannounced death.At first, Kirin thought the screaming was part of someone’s nightmare. Until the sound didn’t stop. Until it grew louder and closer. Until he heard the crack of bone. The splatter of something wet against metal. The sound of someone choking on their own blood.Then he knew.Something was wrong.He pressed his back against the wall and held his breath. Just silence now, heavy silence. Then...Boom!A door somewhere far off slammed open, followed by running footsteps and that same horrible gurgle again. Kirin closed his eyes, listening, counting the steps. They were working cell by cell. Efficient and mechanical.He looked at the floor where he’d hidden the blade.Just a sliver of obsidian, no markings. Nothing special looking. Just sharp. Sharper than anything he’d ever touched.He hadn’t expected to use it so soon. Maybe
Chapter 140. The Signal.
Time was an illusion in the prison. There were no windows, no clocks, no sunrises or sunsets, only the occasional shuffle of demon footsteps and the scraping sound of metal trays against stone when food was dropped off. Days bled into nights, and nights into nothing. For Kirin, existence had become a loop of boredom and silent madness.But lately, something had shifted.The heat that had flooded his cell days ago had left a strange warmth in the air, like a memory that refused to leave. The message he carved. I AM STILL HERE remained etched in the stone, blackened at the edges as if something had scorched the words after he finished them. The blade the demon gave him now sat wrapped in cloth under the slab that passed for a bed.And the old man was gone, dead. His voice silenced.That silence was beginning to eat at Kirin.He laid on the floor, staring at the ceiling. The rock under his bed, the one that didn’t belong to this world pulsed faintly every now and then. He didn’t know wha
Chapter 149. Ashes Speak.
The heat had come and gone, as if the cell itself had taken a breath and exhaled fire. Now, the stone floor was cold again. Lifeless again and still.Kirin’s body was too weak to pace, but his thoughts refused to rest. He had carved those words.I AM STILL HERE Into the stone as if it were a spell. A rebellion. A refusal to vanish. And something… something had heard him.The pulsing rock, the heat, the air that tasted like coal and lightning, none of it made sense. Not yet.And maybe because of all that strangeness, or maybe just from sheer exhaustion, he collapsed onto the cold slab of rock he called a bed. The blade clutched to his chest. The words burning behind his eyelids.Then, sleep took him.But this time… it wasn’t empty.***Flames danced in every direction, not the suffocating kind, but flames that flickered like old memories. The air shimmered with smoke and ash, but Kirin could breathe in this place, a dream, a vision, or something in between.The world before him was o
Chapter 138. Burn the Silence.
Kirin sat with the small blade resting across his palms like it was a dead bird, quiet and stiff, but somehow too warm for steel. The old man’s voice still echoed in the corners of his mind, faint like a ghost stuck on repeat.“The fire isn’t what takes you... it’s what leaves behind the silence that kills.”The silence had never been louder.The blind man was dead. Kirin hadn’t cried. He didn’t know how, maybe he forgot. Or maybe this place had burned out that part of him. Still, grief curled up beside him in the cold like a loyal dog, refusing to leave.He clenched the blade tighter.It was simple, ugly black metal with no markings. It didn’t hum with magic, didn’t glisten with runes. But it felt old. The kind of old that had seen wars. The kind of old that was tired of staying silent. Just like him.So, when he pressed it to the floor, there was no hesitation.Scrrrrch!The blade scraped into the stone with a shriek like nails across bone.I AM STILL HERE.Letter by letter, he carv
Chapter 138. The Demon’s Gift.
Kirin didn’t sleep much anymore. Not out of fear, or because of nightmares. He just didn’t see the point.The dark didn’t bother him. The silence didn’t either. What bothered him, what really got under his skin were the stories. The blind old man on the other side of the cracked wall had been feeding him tales like fire feeds on dry wood. Rebellions. Gods. Betrayals. He spoke as though the world had ended long before Kirin was ever born. And the worst part?Kirin believed him.Tonight, the silence had returned. The old man hadn’t spoken since dusk. Not a whisper. Not even one of his nonsense chants. Kirin pressed his ear to the cracked wall, feeling the rough edges of the broken stone dig into his cheek.Nothing.That’s when he heard it. Not a whisper, not a story, but a sharp clink. Like metal against rock. He turned fast, his back against the far side of the cell. He expected a rat. Maybe one of the smaller demons coming to drop off that sludge they called food.But no. It wasn’t fo
Chapter 136. Stories of Fire.
The wall between them was just wide enough for light and breath to pass through. A jagged crack from the quake, and yet, it changed everything.On the other side sat a man who looked like he had been buried and then forgotten, skin the colour of ash, hair long and tangled like roots, and eyes… sealed. Scarred shut. Not just blind. Taken.Kirin sat close to the gap, leaning forward like a child hungry for bedtime tales. The man hadn’t spoken at first. He’d simply breathed, shallow, wheezing, every inhale sounding like it had to fight its way up from a pit.Then finally, as if the silence of a thousand years had finally rusted off his tongue, the man spoke.“You smell like smoke,” he said.Kirin blinked. “What?”“Like fire, but the kind that hasn’t burned yet. The kind that waits. I know that smell. I once had the same smell about me too.”That was the start.He never gave his real name. Sure he said his name was Caleb, but was it really? Kirin asked, but the man only laughed like someo

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Latest Chapter

Chapter 141. The Culling.

Chapter 140. The Signal.

Chapter 149. Ashes Speak.

Chapter 138. Burn the Silence.

Chapter 138. The Demon’s Gift.

Chapter 136. Stories of Fire.