2025-09-16 04:09:08The Hall of Elders was silent.
Kael stood at the center, his heart thundering in his chest as the five robed figures fixed their gazes on him. Their eyes were sharp, ancient, and unyielding. Behind him, Rynald knelt, his words still hanging in the air like venom. “He’s dangerous!” Rynald had shouted. “He awakened a demonic power that nearly crushed us all!” Now, all eyes waited for Kael’s answer. The silver-bearded Elder, the one who had spoken before, leaned forward, his fingers curling over the arm of his chair. “Kael,” he said gravely. “You stand accused of wielding a forbidden force. Speak carefully. What is it that resides within you?” Kael’s fists clenched at his sides. He could still feel the faint pulse of the aura inside his chest, a storm waiting to break free. It wasn’t demonic. He knew that much. It didn’t whisper corruption—it roared with authority. He lifted his chin. “I don’t know what it is,” he admitted. His voice was steady, though his insides churned. “But it’s mine. I didn’t steal it, I didn’t beg for it. It awakened in me when I was dying. If that makes me guilty, then so be it.” Gasps rippled through the hall. No one spoke to the Elders so boldly. Rynald’s eyes widened, then narrowed in fury. “You see? He admits it! That thing inside him isn’t normal aura. He’ll bring ruin to the academy if you don’t act now!” Kael spun toward him, rage flashing in his golden-flecked eyes. “You speak of ruin? You and your friends were the ones beating me half to death! If not for this power, I’d be lying cold in the dirt right now.” The Elders murmured among themselves, voices low but tense. One of them, a woman with raven-black hair and piercing eyes, raised a hand for silence. “Enough. Both of you.” Her gaze pinned Kael like a spear. “Power such as this cannot be ignored. You may not know what it is, boy, but we will find out.” Another Elder, his tone colder, added, “And if it is indeed forbidden… we cannot allow it to remain unchecked.” Kael’s pulse quickened. The implication was clear: if they deemed his aura too dangerous, they would strip it from him—or kill him. For a heartbeat, fear flickered in his chest. But then, just as quickly, resolve replaced it. He met their eyes one by one, his voice firm. “I’ve lived without power my whole life. I’ve been mocked, beaten, cast aside. This is the first time I’ve had something—anything—that’s mine. I won’t let anyone take it from me.” His words rang through the chamber, bold and defiant. The Elders were silent, their expressions unreadable. Finally, the silver-bearded Elder sighed. “Defiant… and unyielding. Just like the aura itself.” He leaned back, stroking his beard. “Very well. Kael, from this day, you will be placed under observation. You will continue your training at the academy, but your progress will be closely watched. Step out of line, and we will act.” Kael exhaled slowly, relief and dread mixing in equal measure. At least they weren’t executing him on the spot. But Rynald’s expression twisted with outrage. “Honored Elders! You can’t let him walk free! He humiliated me in front of everyone—” “Enough, Rynald.” The raven-haired Elder’s voice cracked like a whip. “Your pride is not our concern. Leave, before you shame yourself further.” Rynald’s mouth opened in protest, but the weight of her gaze silenced him. Red-faced, he bowed stiffly and stormed out, shooting Kael one last venomous glare. Kael stood alone under the Elders’ scrutiny. “Go,” the silver-bearded Elder said at last. “Return to your quarters. And remember—your every step is now under our eye.” Kael bowed deeply, his jaw tight. “Yes, honored Elders.” He turned and left the hall, the heavy doors slamming shut behind him. The corridors outside felt colder than before. Kael’s breaths came heavy as he walked, his mind spinning. Observation… watched… It was little better than a cage. But deep inside, the aura stirred, pulsing with quiet strength. It was as though it whispered a promise: They may watch you. They may fear you. But they will never control you. Kael’s lips curved into a grim smile. Let them try.
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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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