2025-09-19 01:00:01The mist parted. Kael stepped into the next chamber. Unlike the crushing chains or the shadowed void, this place resembled a vast courtyard lit by a blood-red sky. The air was heavy, vibrating with sorrow.
He looked around, muscles tense. The aura within him stirred, restless.Then the voice came, deep and unrelenting."Strength bends flesh. Will breaks chains. Fear reveals truth. But power demands sacrifice. What will you surrender, Kael Ardent? What will you bleed for your dominion?"The ground rippled. Figures appeared—familiar figures.Selene. Standing proud, arms folded, watching him with sharp green eyes.Beside her, Elias, the quiet scholar Kael had befriended in early training.And then—his mother. Gentle-eyed, her figure almost too fragile to be real. Kael’s breath caught. He hadn’t seen her in years, not since she had vanished from his life under circumstances no one dared explain.Each figure stood be
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 53 - THE DESPERATE COUNTER
The blade came down like falling night.Voidfang shimmered with that strange, bending light, half-real, half-phantom as it cut straight for Kael’s throat.The crowd held its breath.Selene’s nails bit her palms, eyes wide and unblinking. Arwyn leaned forward ever so slightly, the staff in his hand humming with restrained power. Even the other students-friends, rivals, enemies alike felt their hearts clench.Kael’s knees buckled. His vision swam. His body screamed at him to move but there was nothing left to give.Nothing… except instinct.His heel scraped stone as he stumbled backward, head tilting away at the last possible second.The blade hissed past, grazing his cheek instead of severing his throat. The sting of cut skin burned down his face. Blood ran warm, slipping across his jaw.Too close. Way too close.Before Dorian could recover the blade, Kael lashed out not with elegance, not with precision
CHAPTER 52 - THE EDGE OF COLLAPSE
The air had grown thinner. Every breath Kael drew scraped down his throat like sand, hot and ragged. Sweat trickled from his temple, stinging his eyes. His ribs throbbed, every shallow cut left by Dorian’s blade humming like a curse beneath his skin. His fists trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of keeping his aura compressed, condensed tighter than ever. Dorian’s grin, infuriatingly calm, had only widened. The faint shimmer of Voidfang still wavered along his sword, an edge both unreal and undeniable. “You’re slowing, Kael,” Dorian said, almost gently. “Your body can’t keep up with your fury.” Kael’s jaw clenched. He blinked sweat from his lashes. “Keep talking. It won’t make your cuts deeper.” But his voice—low, strained—betrayed the truth. Dorian moved again, too fast, too clean. A blur of moonlit steel carved across Kael’s vision. Kael twisted late. The
CHAPTER 51 - THE HIDDEN FANG
The arena still quivered from the last clash. Dust drifted down like ash, glowing faintly under the light of the wards.Kael’s chest rose and fell, steady but deeper now, the heat of battle carving lines of strain across his skin. His fist pulsed with pain where it had smashed against Dorian’s blade, knuckles raw and bloodied.He flexed them once, slow. The sting bit deep, but it grounded him.Across the platform, Dorian stood hunched, one knee bent, sword angled toward the ground. His chest heaved faster, but his grin hadn’t faded. If anything, it looked sharper.“Impressive,” he murmured. His voice carried strangely, laced with aura that threaded into the air. “You’ve pushed further than I thought. But Kael…” His lips parted wider, teeth catching the light. “…you still don’t know what I truly fight with.”Kael’s brow furrowed. His aura stayed coiled, wary. “Then show it.”The air shifted.Dorian straightened, rolling h
CHAPTER 50 - BLADES AGAINST A STORM
The platform quaked as aura clashed again, harder, sharper. Sparks spat from the runes, scattering across stone like fireflies.Kael drove forward, his aura pressing outward in waves. Every step was a drumbeat, the pressure swelling until students near the warded circle instinctively flinched, clutching at their chests.Dorian didn’t falter. His blade slashed upward, cutting a crescent through Kael’s pressure. His aura condensed sharp as glass, focused into a single edge. Where Kael’s dominance pushed, Dorian’s control sliced.Steel kissed fist. The shock snapped through Kael’s arm, rattling his bones. He swallowed the sting in his knuckles, his eyes narrowing.Fast. Too fast to swat down like before.Dorian’s grin tightened. “You’re slower than I thought.”Kael snorted once, a low exhale through his nose. “And you’re lighter than you pretend.”He surged forward again.The duel became a storm of rhythm: sword cu
CHAPTER 49 - THE ARENA OF NAMES
The clang of the Academy bell rolled across the training grounds, heavy and resonant, cutting through idle chatter like a blade. Students stiffened where they stood, and a hush rippled through the crowd.The courtyard gates opened with a groan of iron, revealing the broad stone platform reserved for sanctioned duels. The platform’s runes shimmered faintly in the morning light, a lattice of glowing wards meant to contain destructive aura surges.Kael stood at the edge of the crowd, his arms folded loosely across his chest. His eyes lingered on the platform, calm, but a slow heat coiled inside his chest. His ribs ached faintly from wounds that had not entirely healed since the Deathwood. He rolled his shoulders once, too stiff. He breathed out, steady.“They’ve called it,” Selene murmured beside him. Her arms were crossed as well, though more tightly, her jaw rigid. “It’s official now. No running from this one.”Kael didn’t answer. His gaze slid acr
CHAPTER 48 - THE WAITING STORM
The academy felt strange in the days after the Deathwood return.Kael walked through the stone courtyard, his boots clicking too loudly against the polished tiles. Or maybe it wasn’t the sound, maybe it was the silence that followed him everywhere. Conversations dimmed when he passed. Heads tilted, whispers fluttered like nervous birds.He tried to ignore it, but his body betrayed him. His jaw tightened, his shoulders locked. His aura, though he suppressed it, pulsed faintly, and people could feel it like the air thickened for a heartbeat before returning to normal.By the time he reached the dining hall, he was already weary of the stares. He sat, set down his tray, and reached for his chopsticks. His fingers, restless from suppressed tension, slipped. The chopsticks clattered loudly against the wooden table.The whole room froze.Kael exhaled through his nose, slowly, and picked them up without a word. His hand trembled just slightly be
You may also like
The Trinjule Sword of Heaven
Storian writer12.5K viewsLegend of Oasis : A tale of magic and mystery
Ramutshatsha Arikonisaho17.3K viewsREX: The Powerful Being
Moni Sky13.1K viewsBecome the Strongest God
Jajajuba32.8K viewsChaotic Ascension: Rise Of The Strongest Demon
Author Ruby 19 viewsI Became the Sect Master’s Shadow
Artemis Dee40 viewsLEVI
CK Hawks1.3K viewsHow I destroyed the whole world
E.T Graves136 views