THE MARTIAL HEALER

Chapter One – Ashes of Oakwood

The wind howled through the crooked trees, cold and hungry. Smoke curled in the sky like a serpent dancing above the shattered remains of Oakwood Village. Once quiet and tucked between two forested hills, the town now smoldered its charred bones laid bare.

Rashford Oakwood knelt beside the remains of his home, ash coating his fingers as he sifted through the blackened ruins. His breath hitched in his throat. What had once been a warm hearth where his mother brewed bitterroot tea was now a scorched pile of rubble.

He should have been here. He should have died with them, The soles of his boots scraped over broken glass and splintered wood. His limbs trembled not from the cold, but from shame.

The Awakening Ceremony had called every youth to Silverpine Temple, three days' ride away. An opportunity to spark the dormant Core in one's body. To prove their potential. To earn power. To matter.

He had returned with nothing, The priest had declared his Core inert. A rare failure. No magical affinity. No elemental resonance. Not even a flicker of martial talent. “Born broken,” someone had whispered behind him. “Trash.”

Now, standing amidst the ruins of everything he’d known, Rashford felt that word carve into his bones more deeply than any sword could.

He stumbled forward, knees sinking into a patch of disturbed earth. A trail of crimson dotted the ground, dried blood. Not from fire. From violence. The raiders hadn’t come for coin, they’d come for slaughter. “Rash…”

The voice was faint. So faint he thought it was the wind, but no, it came again, rasping like gravel dragged across stone. “Rash…ford…”

He turned so fast he slipped on the ash. There, wedged beneath the collapsed beam of the apothecary shop, was a man’s broken frame, charred cloak, blood-matted beard, skin burned and peeling. “Master Faen?” Rashford choked out.

His old mentor, the village healer. The man who had taught him how to bandage wounds and brew tinctures, back when Rashford still believed herbs and kindness could change the world.

Faen’s body was crushed, but his eyes still burned. “You… have to listen…” he croaked. “They came… looking… for you.”

Rashford froze. “What do you mean?”

Faen coughed, blood and soot frothing at his lips. “Your mother… she fought them. She had the old seal… the Oakheart seal… They feared it.”

He grabbed Rashford's wrist with startling strength for a dying man. “They know what you are. What you could become.”

“I’m nothing”

“Liar!” Faen spat blood. “You were born with the Forge. Hidden… dormant. She hid you. Suppressed it. It saved you, but now… they’ll come again. They always come.”

“What Forge? What are you talking about?”

Faen wheezed. “Don’t… don’t waste time with questions. Take this.”

From within his robes, Faen produced a black scroll wrapped in leather, bound with red thread. “Burn this… with blood. Your blood. At midnight. Only then… will the Soul remember…”

Rashford barely caught the scroll as Faen’s hand fell limp, the healer exhaled, one final breath, and then the light in his eyes flickered out.

Rashford sat there for a long time, the scroll resting in his hands, the wind howling around him like wolves mourning the dead.

That night, Rashford climbed to the hill above Oakwood, where the temple ruins still stood. Moonlight bathed the crumbled stone in silver. Midnight neared, The scroll was warm.

He pricked his thumb on a jagged bit of glass and let the blood drip onto the leather, Nothing.

Then, the scroll jerked violently in his grip. The red thread hissed and vanished into smoke. The leather peeled away as if alive. The scroll unfurled.

Words shimmered in a language he couldn’t read. His blood soaked into the parchment and vanished. The air grew heavy, Suddenly, the ground trembled. A crack opened beneath him, so sudden and silent he didn’t have time to scream. He fell. Fell deep into the earth.

When Rashford woke, everything was dark. He was lying on cold stone. The scroll was gone, A pulse echoed through the cavern a deep thrum, like a heartbeat made of thunder.

He stood slowly, limbs aching, and turned in a slow circle, A single glowing rune hovered in the air before him. It pulsed with golden light, humming in rhythm with his chest.

Then, a voice neither male nor female, not spoken but placed directly into his mind. “Soul signature verified. Candidate: Rashford Oakwood.”

“Status: Coreless. Dormant Forge: Detected.”

“Initiating Soulforge Activation.”

“Warning: Probability of death: 89%.”

“Do you accept?”

Rashford stared at the rune, he thought of Faen’s words. His mother. His father whom he barely remembered, only ever hearing whispers about "the one who walked into battle and healed with his hands."

He thought of the ashes of Oakwood, He clenched his fists. “Yes,” he whispered. “I accept.”

The rune exploded, Pain shot through every inch of his body. Not just pain change. Something ancient and molten poured into his veins. His bones snapped and reknit. His heart stopped. Started again.

A surge of images flooded his mind: diagrams of the human body, acupuncture points, martial stances, blade techniques, chants, healing auras knowledge. Endless, divine, horrifying knowledge.

He screamed as his Core ignited not with fire or lightning or wind but with metal. Molten, shifting, alive, The Soulforge Core, He fell to his knees, gasping, fingers clawing at the stone as his body sizzled with invisible heat.

Then silence.

He opened his eyes. His vision had changed, he could see the flow of energy in the air. The blood movement in his own veins. The hidden fracture in the wall beside him. He felt… whole.

A voice echoed again.

“Soulforge Core awakened. Martial and Medical pathways unlocked. Evolution potential: limitless. Caution: Soul stability compromised.”

“Forge must be tempered… through death.”

Suddenly, the cavern began to collapse, Stone cracked above him. Energy sparked like lightning in the darkness. The awakening had disrupted something something ancient. He ran.

He emerged into the night soaked in sweat and dust. The temple hill had split open behind him, stone glowing with residual energy.

In his hand, he realized he was clutching something, A blade, curved and dark as midnight, pulsing with the same light as the rune had. A martial weapon… forged by the Soul itself, He didn’t remember grabbing it.

Just as he turned to climb down the hill, he heard voices below. Not villagers. Not allies, Men in black cloaks. Silver masks. No insignias, One knelt beside Faen’s corpse. “He’s gone,” the man said. “But the Forge is active. I can feel it.”

A second man looked toward the hill. Straight at Rashford. “There,” he said.

Rashford froze, He recognized that voice, He had heard it three days ago at the Awakening Temple. It belonged to Taren Voss, the priest who had declared him Coreless.

Taren pulled down his mask, His face was twisted with something between triumph and madness. “Well then,” Taren said, drawing a slender, gleaming blade. “Let’s finish what we started, shall we?”