2026-10-24 08:39:48For one impossible instant, Kael knew what the creature would do before it moved.
It felt like he could read its mind. He simply followed his intuition and threw himself sideways.
The Frostfang's claws tore through the air where he had been standing. Its shoulder struck a crate, splintering the wood and sending metal equipment flying across the ground.
Kael hit the dirt and rolled.
Pain shot through his arm, but he wasn't going to back off.
The creature turned towards him again.
This time, Kael saw recognition in its eyes.
The sensation vanished almost immediately, leaving him gasping on the ground.
“Restrain it!”
Three instructors attacked at once. Runes ignited beneath their feet, and chains of golden light erupted from the earth, wrapping around the Frostfang's limbs.
The creature roared and fought against the restraints.
A final burst of magic forced it to its knees.
And silence descended over the training grounds.
Kael remained where he was, staring at the creature.
His hands were shaking.
He had nearly died.
He should have been thinking about the claws that had almost torn him apart, or the instructors who had failed to contain the beast.
Instead, he could not stop thinking about that strange moment when he had known where the attack would land.
And for one brief instant, he had felt something that did not belong to him.
“Get up.”
An instructor stood over him.
Kael pushed himself to his feet.
The man examined him from head to toe, then looked towards the restrained Frostfang.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Don't lie to me. That creature was about to tear you apart. You moved before it even launched its attack.”
“I don't know how.”
The instructor's expression hardened.
“Are you saying you predicted its movement?”
“No. I mean...” Kael struggled to find the words. “I felt something.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
The instructor stared at him for another moment before turning towards the other staff members.
“Take him for an examination. Now.”
Kael looked back at the Frostfang as the handlers dragged it towards the containment enclosure.
Its pale eyes remained fixed on him until the doors closed.
For the first time in eighteen years, Kael wondered whether the problem had never been his inability to awaken a talent.
Perhaps nobody had been looking for the right thing.
---
The examination chamber was smaller than Kael expected.
A circular platform occupied the centre of the room, surrounded by crystal instruments and metal pillars engraved with magical runes. An examiner stood behind a glass console, reviewing the report delivered by the instructor.
Kael waited near the entrance.
“Stand on the platform,” the examiner ordered.
Kael obeyed.
The man activated the instruments.
Blue light spread across the platform, rising around Kael's legs before reaching his chest. For several seconds, the crystals remained dark.
Then one of them flickered.
The examiner frowned.
He leaned towards the console and adjusted a dial.
The crystal flashed again.
A thin line of symbols appeared above the platform, too quickly for Kael to read. The symbols twisted, rearranged themselves, and disappeared.
“What was that?” Kael asked.
“Remain still.”
The examiner pressed another control.
This time, the instruments released a low hum. Light flowed through the pillars, gathering around Kael's body.
The crystal flashed a third time.
The examiner stopped moving.
Kael looked at the display.
A strange pattern had appeared, pulsing between two different colours. Every time it seemed about to settle into a stable reading, it changed.
“Is that my talent?” Kael asked.
The examiner did not answer.
He repeated the test.
The result appeared again, then collapsed into a blank display.
The examiner swore under his breath.
He shut down the instruments and approached Kael with a small crystal disc.
“Hold this.”
Kael took it.
Then nothing happened.
The examiner waited.
Still nothing.
“Release it.”
Kael placed the disc on the console.
The man examined it, then looked at Kael with an expression that made his stomach tighten.
“The equipment is malfunctioning.”
“Then why did it react to me?”
“It didn't.”
“I saw it.”
“You saw a faulty instrument produce an inconsistent reading. That is all.”
Kael's hands curled at his sides.
“You don't believe that.”
The examiner's eyes snapped towards him.
“You are an unclassified student who survived an encounter with a dangerous creature. That does not make you special, and it certainly does not qualify you to question my work.”
Kael lowered his gaze.
He had heard those words so many times that they should no longer have hurt.
Yet they did.
The examiner opened the door.
“Return to your assigned duties. You will be informed if another examination is required.”
Kael stepped into the corridor.
The door closed behind him.
He stood there for a moment, staring at his reflection in the polished stone wall.
Nothing had changed.
He still had no talent. He still had no answers. And tomorrow, the academy would probably send him back to cleaning equipment while the other students trained with abilities he could barely imagine.
But he remembered the Frostfang's eyes.
He remembered the fear he had felt that did not belong to him.
And he remembered moving before the creature attacked.
For the first time, his hope was not built entirely on a prayer.
Something had happened.
He just had to discover what it meant.
---
Inside the examination chamber, the examiner waited until the corridor fell silent.
Then he reopened the test record.
The display showed the same empty results as before.
He frowned and retrieved the stored readings, comparing them with the academy's recognized talent classifications.
Nothing matched.
He tried again, widening the search to include rare and unregistered abilities.
The console hummed, and a line of symbols appeared, making the examiner lean closer.
For a fraction of a second, a classification emerged beneath the readings.
Then the screen went black again.
He stared at the empty display, his face draining of colour.
“No.”
He restarted the instrument.
The system returned to its original state, showing no registered talent and no abnormal readings.
The examiner checked the stored record.
The classification was gone.
He stood motionless for several seconds before reaching for the communication crystal on his desk.
Then he stopped.
If he reported what he had seen, the director would demand an explanation.
And he had none.
The examiner looked at the blank screen one final time.
His voice came out as a whisper.
“That's impossible.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE WOUND THAT WAS NEVER THERE
Then the entity disappeared again as if he had never been there, and silence returned.Inside, Healer Umi unwound the bandage one turn at a time, humming under her breath the way she had hummed over every bleeding student since the term began.But suddenly she stopped humming at the last layer.Lael noticed the change on her face immediately. Colour drained from her face. Then, her fingers, which had set broken bones and stitched open wounds without a tremor, began to shake, causing the linen to rattle against the metal tray.“Is it that bad?” His voice came out weaker than he intended.Umi did not answer.Kael lowered his gaze.He watched where they had told him a blade had pierced his chest with shock, because now, there was nothing. No torn flesh, no blood, not even a scar. Only a thin golden line stretched across his skin, fine as a strand of hair caught in lamplight.It pulsed once.Kael leaned forward.The line shimmered beneath his skin, its faint glow spreading like sunlight b
CHAPTER ELEVEN: ARRIVAL OF THE ENTITY
*A Day Before(The attack)*For several moments, nothing moved.Then the air became heavy, and the enslaved had to cover their eyes because of the sand that came with it. Some of them had fainted during the fight when they could not bear the cruelty that came with the way Kael had handled them. Then, a sudden faint golden light started spreading across the courtyard.It began beneath Kael's body, travelling through the cracks in the stone and reaching the wounded students scattered around him.The light touched the first fallen student, causing his own fingers to twitch.And wound across his chest began closing, and the torn flesh started knitting together until only bloodstained clothing remained.Nearby, an instructor who had been motionless for several minutes suddenly drew a breath, and his eyes opened.He coughed, then slowly pushed himself upright.One after another, the wounded began to stir.Broken bones repaired themselves. Deep cuts closed. The blood covering the ground faded
CHAPTER TEN:THE AWAKENING
The blade sank deeper.The attacker withdrew his weapon, thrust it deep into him again and watched Kael's body collapse.Another student screamed somewhere behind him, but the sound grew distant. The battle, the explosions, and the cries of the wounded slowly faded into silence.Suddenly, Kael's eyes remained open for a moment.He tried to breathe, but his chest felt cold; his limbs refused to move, and the world above him blurred into darkness.In that darkness, everything stopped, but deep within him, something stirred.A low rumble travelled through the darkness, and he swore he heard the voice clearly in his head."Is he dead?"He felt another voice answer, calm and gentle."His body is failing, and the wound is too severe.""Then what are we waiting for?" the first voice snapped. "Get up! If he dies here, we remain trapped inside him forever!!""Thorne, shouting will not change his condition.""And your calmness will not save him, Madden!"A brief silence followed."Miguel," Madd
CHAPTER NINE: LIMP BODY OF KAEL
Kael had learned three things since arriving at Veylcrest Academy.The first was that talent determined a student's worth.The second was that wealth could turn even the cruelest behavior into an acceptable offense.The third was that nobody cared when the weak were mistreated, provided the person mistreating them was strong enough.He discovered the third lesson that morning in the western training courtyard.Yesterday's examination had ended like all the others. No awakened talent. No explanation for his strange reactions. Nothing to prove he was anything more than a talentless student who had somehow earned a place at Veylcrest.The memory followed him through his morning duties, souring his mood with every passing minute. He carried practice weapons toward the equipment hall, gripping them so tightly that the wooden handles pressed into his palms.A sharp crash interrupted his thoughts.A broken training sword lay scattered across the stone path. Beside it, a first-year student h
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE TRUTH
A thin line of blue light appeared inside it.Another followed.Then another.The symbols rotating around the crystal began moving faster, their orderly pattern breaking apart as unfamiliar markings flashed across the surface.The examiner stood abruptly."What is that?"Kael stared at the crystal.If only the instructor knew he had no answers, too.A deep pulse passed through the instrument.For a fraction of a second, the entire room filled with blue light.Kael felt something stir beneath his skin.It was not the same as the sensation he had experienced near the Frostfang. This felt distant, as though something buried deep inside him had shifted in its sleep.The crystal flashed again.Then everything went dark.The examiner stumbled backward.A sharp crack travelled through the metal frame, and the crystal's surface became cloudy.Kael pulled his hand away."What happened?"The examiner did not answer immediately.He leaned over the instrument, checking its runes and examining the
CHAPTER SEVEN: PERHAPS THERE'S A TALENT?
Across the training grounds, a barrier surrounding one of the larger enclosures flickered violently.And blue runes flashed along the stone pillars before several went dark at once.A deep roar shook the trees.The enormous creature Kael had heard earlier slammed its body against the enclosure.And that particular barrier fractured."Everyone back!" an instructor shouted.A second impact sent magical energy rippling across the ground. Students struggled to stand, but they kept stumbling as the protective field buckled, and a violent surge of power burst from the damaged pillars.Then the barrier collapsed.And immediately, the creature surged through the opening.It was a Frostfang just like the other time, a beast with the body of an enormous wolf, scaled shoulders, pale blue markings along its flanks, and two curved horns that swept backward from its skull. It stood nearly as tall as a horse, and its claws tore deep furrows into the earth as it charged.The nearest instructors rea
You may also like
Alex Brim, Hero for Hire
krushandkill28.9K viewsAn Important Villain
P. Artim30.0K viewsI AM BEYOND HUMAN
South Ashan23.7K viewsConquer the Heaven World With the Ouroboros Snake's Sigil
Bystander57.4K viewsMy System Devours Immortals
daive300767 viewsOn This Island, I Make the Rules
Blamy124 viewsThe Apocalypse Agenda
Ayaka 116 viewsThe Baker's Basement: Crust, Crumbs, and Conquerors
Lembayung71 views