2025-09-17 04:05:12The academy’s training grounds were alive with the clang of steel and the thud of fists striking practice dummies. Yet the usual sounds felt distant to Kael. His focus was fixed on the growing weight of eyes pressing against him, whispers following wherever he walked.
“Did you hear? That’s the boy with the aura…” “They say he cracked stone with a glance!” "He’s dangerous. Best to stay away.” Kael ignored them. Fear was useful, but gossip was worthless. What mattered was mastery—of himself, of his power, and of the destiny clawing its way toward him. But destiny never waited quietly. By noon, the academy bell rang, calling students to the combat arena for the weekly sparring trials. Kael rarely attended—until now. Today, something in his chest demanded release, a proving ground for the aura that pulsed hungrily within him. The arena was vast, encircled by towering stone walls etched with runes of protection. Students filled the stands, buzzing with excitement. Even instructors gathered, drawn by the growing tales of Kael’s awakening. When Kael stepped onto the field, silence fell like a heavy cloak. His golden eyes gleamed beneath the sunlight, aura faintly shimmering around him. “Kael Ardent,” the announcer called, voice echoing. “You are entered into the trials. Do you accept the challenge?” Kael’s voice rang clear, steady, and cold. “I accept.” A murmur rippled through the crowd. Who would dare face him? The answer came with slow, deliberate footsteps. From the opposite side, a tall figure entered the arena. Broad-shouldered, with crimson eyes and dark hair tied in a warrior’s knot, Dorian Veylan strode forward, his presence radiating dominance. A known prodigy, favored by the Elders, and rumored to be groomed as the academy’s future champion. Whispers erupted. “Dorian? He’s undefeated…” “He uses flame essence—Kael’s in trouble.” “This will be… bloody.” Kael’s gaze sharpened. Finally, an opponent worth his time. The referee raised his hand. “No killing strikes. First to yield, or incapacitation, decides the match.” Both combatants nodded. “Begin!” At once, Dorian surged forward, flames igniting around his fists. His aura was crimson, blazing, fierce as a wildfire. He launched a punch that roared with fire, aimed straight for Kael’s chest. Kael did not retreat. His golden aura flared outward, colliding with the flames in a burst of heat and pressure that sent ripples across the arena floor. The crowd gasped as cracks formed in the protective runes. Dorian’s eyes widened, but he smirked. “So the rumors were true. Good. I was beginning to get bored.” He launched a flurry of attacks, flames spiraling like serpents, heat distorting the air. Kael met each strike with his aura, his fists glowing golden as they clashed, the sound of thunder echoing with every impact. For the first time, Kael felt the rush of true combat—not training, not testing, but a fight where strength and will collided. His aura pushed back against the flames, growing hungrier with each clash, as if it craved to dominate. The crowd roared. “Impossible! He’s holding back Dorian!” “No, look—the flames are bending!” “His aura… it’s devouring them!” And they were right. With every strike, Kael’s Dominating Aura adapted, coiling tighter, pressing harder, forcing the flames to recoil. The golden light shimmered brighter, swallowing the crimson fire inch by inch. Dorian growled, sweat beading on his brow. “You think you can overcome me? I am chosen by the Elders! My fire will consume you!” Kael’s eyes blazed. “Then burn. Let’s see whose will is stronger.” He unleashed his aura fully, a wave of golden dominance flooding the arena. The ground cracked, dust rising as invisible pressure slammed into Dorian, forcing him back several paces. The flames around him sputtered, struggling against the sheer force pressing them down. Dorian roared, pouring all his essence into one final strike. His body ignited, a blazing inferno swirling into a spear of fire aimed at Kael’s heart. Kael did not flinch. He stepped forward, fist clenched, golden aura condensing around it like a solid force. The two attacks met with a deafening explosion, light and flame colliding in a storm that shook the arena to its foundations. When the dust cleared, Dorian lay on one knee, his flames extinguished, chest heaving. Kael stood tall, aura shimmering with calm, not even a bead of sweat on his brow. The referee hesitated, then raised his hand. “Winner—Kael Ardent!” The arena erupted in chaos. Cheers, gasps, shouts of disbelief. “He defeated Dorian?!” “He’s unstoppable!” “No… he’s dangerous. Too dangerous.” Kael turned, golden eyes sweeping the crowd. Among the faces, he caught sight of cloaked figures watching silently, their gazes sharp and calculating. Not students, not instructors—outsiders. Selene’s warning echoed in his mind: They’re watching. He clenched his fist, feeling the aura pulse in triumph and hunger. Today, he had proven himself. But victory carried a price. Now, the shadows circling him would move closer. As he left the arena, the whispers followed. Some in awe, some in fear, some in envy. Kael walked with steady steps, his resolve hardening. This was only the first duel. The true battles were yet to come.
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chapter 140 - The Drift Market
The salt air bit at their throats long before they saw the sea.Kael’s steps dragged, his boots crusted with white dust from miles of wind scorched plains. The horizon shimmered under heat haze, fractured light playing over something vast that floated above the distant waters. For a while, he thought it was a mirage until Selene pointed, squinting through the glare.“There. The Drift Market.”Her voice carried a faint rasp, exhaustion stitched between words.They’d been walking for two days since the Glass Node incident. Neither of them had slept properly. Every time Kael closed his eyes, he saw flashes of crystal light and felt the echo pulse at the base of his skull, the lingering hum of the Second Rhythm. It no longer hurt, but it remembered him, like something unfinished tugging behind his heartbeat.The Market came into view slowly, a sprawling patchwork of rusted hulls and ancient stone platforms lashed together by chains, drifting above a flat, mirrored sea of salt. Airships ho
chapter 139 - Dorian’s shadow
He woke to silence.Then came the pain.It crawled up from his ribs, slow, crawling, wet like something remembering how to live inside him. When he finally opened his eyes, the world was sideways. The ground glittered with black dust, and smoke coiled upward from what used to be the Dominion’s outpost.The air stank of ozone and blood. The shard that once lived in his chest lay inches from his hand, cracked into dozens of mirror splinters. Every fragment reflected a different piece of him, eyes, lips, jaw but none of them aligned.Dorian stared at them for a long time before whispering, hoarse, “You failed me.”The wind answered by scattering the pieces like ash.He tried to stand and nearly collapsed. The golden sigils that had once covered his arms were gone, leaving only faint burns in their shape. His body once a conduit of near divine power felt suddenly mortal. Weak. Breathing hurt, his pulse beat unevenly, like a clock missing half its gears.“You shouldn’t be alive,” a voice m
chapter 138 - The second seal
The plains shimmered like glass under a dying sun.Kael and Selene moved across the horizon in silence, boots crunching over brittle salt crust. The air was too still, so quiet that even their breath sounded like trespass. The world here had forgotten how to breathe.Ahead, the land rose into a mirrored swell curving upward like the frozen crest of an ocean wave. Beneath its translucent surface pulsed faint veins of pale gold, threading toward the heart of a buried sphere.Selene stopped first.“The Glass Node,” she whispered.Kael didn’t answer. He could feel it pulsing inside his bones, like a second heartbeat, an echo syncing to the rhythm that had haunted him since the Stone Vein. The closer he stepped, the louder it became. Not in sound, but in remembrance.Each pulse seemed to whisper through his ribs.“Return the balance… Unmade one…”He flinched. The words weren’t spoken aloud, but they still hurt.Selene glanced back. Sweat darkened the collar of her cloak; her hair clung to
chapter 137 - The glass steppe
Every movement sent ripples of fractured reflections across its surface, so that each step they took seemed to echo in light.A low hum vibrated through the soles of their boots. It wasn’t quite sound, not fully. It was a pressure that lived inside bone.Selene squinted into the glare. “It’s… beautiful,” she murmured, then frowned. “And wrong.”Kael didn’t answer. His pulse had already started syncing to the hum beneath their feet, an invisible rhythm threading through marrow and thought. The air tasted of iron and ozone, like a storm that had forgotten how to rain. When he blinked, the world seemed to split for half a heartbeat, two horizons, overlapping. Two Selenes walking slightly out of step with each other.He stopped.Selene turned. “What is it?”Kael pressed a hand to his temple. “I… saw...” He hesitated. “You. Twice.”“Heat mirage?” she asked, but her voice carried that careful edge she used when pretending she wasn’t worried.“Maybe,” he said. But it wasn’t. The mirage didn’
chapter 136 - The quiet between pulses
The desert had forgotten the battle, but Kael hadn’t.The dunes around the broken Stone Vein lay quiet again, no tremor, no light, only the faint shimmer of heat bending the horizon. Wind whispered through hollow rock, carrying the smell of dust and something older, ozone and ash, the lingering taste of what Dominion energy left behind when it burned through the world.Kael walked with a limp. His boots sank deep into soft sand, each step sending pain crawling up his leg. He could still feel the hum beneath his skin, faint but constant, like a second heartbeat refusing to fade.Selene followed a few paces behind, cloak drawn tight against the wind. Her hair stuck to her face with sweat and grit. She hadn’t said much since dawn. Neither of them had. Words felt fragile now, and silence easier to bear.When they finally reached the outpost, little more than three stone huts and the broken ribs of an old Dominion tower, Selene didn’t wait for Kael’s p
chapter 135 - The first node awakens
Dawn came like a wound, sharp, bleeding color across the horizon.Kael and Selene crested the final dune before the desert opened into a vast basin of black stone. The air hummed faintly, as if the earth beneath their boots were inhaling.At the center of that basin stood a monolith towering, smooth, half-buried in sand.It wasn’t carved, it was grown, its surface a fusion of glass and metal that seemed to shift colors with the rising light.And from deep within it, Kael could feel the pulse, the Second Rhythm, steady, waiting.Selene stopped beside him, shielding her eyes.“That’s the Stone Vein?” she whispered. “It doesn’t look asleep.”Kael nodded slowly. The Rhythm inside him was resonating, almost painfully.“It’s been awake longer than we thought.”The wind hissed through the basin. Sand skittered across the stone like whispers running between graves.They began their descent, cautious and silent. Each step drew them deeper into the hum, until it felt less like sound and more li
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