The VoidBorn Ascension

002

Kai woke up cold and damp.

He wasn’t in his bed. Hell, he wasn’t even in a room.

Instead, he was lying on the edge of the slum ruins, half-buried beneath someone’s broken fish crate, the smell of brine and rotting scales clinging to his clothes. That’s because he’s roof collapsed in the middle of the night and he had to leave in the middle of the night.  A torn tarp fluttered over him like a cheap burial shroud. When he sat up, his back screamed and his ribs pulsed like bruised drums.

The sunrise hadn’t fully broken yet. Only slivers of orange kissed the rusted rooftops and cracked mud paths of Ironvale’s outer ring. Sleepy merchants dragged their carts past him, paying him no attention. Children fought over a rotten apple a few feet away. It was the same as yesterday. The same as every day.

Except it wasn’t.

Kai’s hand drifted to his chest. His fingers touched raw skin,just below the collarbone. There, where the dream had burned him, something still throbbed.

A mark.

Faint. Webbed like ink soaked into veins. But it was real.

“What the hell…” he muttered, voice hoarse.

Was it really a dream?

The battlefield, the voice, the coin,no, he didn’t imagine it. The coin was gone, but the fear it left behind was still in his blood. He felt… altered. Not stronger. Not smarter. Just… wrong, like a puzzle piece jammed into the wrong puzzle.

And then the bird came.

Not just any bird,a falcon. Obsidian-feathered, gold-eyed, sleek like a royal knife in the air. It dove from the sky and landed right in front of him. And in its clawed grip, a scroll.

It was wrapped in velvet ribbon. Sealed with a crimson wax crest.

Blacksteel Academy’s crest.

People turned. Eyes widened. Carts screeched to a halt.

Someone from the crowd chuckled nervously. “That thing lost?”

“Who’s getting a scroll from there in this dump?” another muttered.

The falcon didn’t move. Its sharp eyes scanned the street. Then, with a precise hop, it stepped toward Kai.

His stomach dropped.

“You?” someone whispered behind him. “That’s gotta be a mistake.”

But Kai stepped forward anyway.

The falcon tilted its head slightly, as if inspecting him, then dropped the scroll gently at his feet.

The moment he picked it up, he felt it. Cold. Heavy. The seal glowed faintly, and his mark pulsed in response.

He broke the seal.

Kai Arclight,

By formal decree of the Blacksteel Selection Council and upon the personal recommendation of Interim Master Riven,

You are hereby summoned to participate in the outer rank trials at Blacksteel Academy.

Failure to appear before dusk will be taken as refusal. No second summons will be issued.

,Signed, Headmaster Varn Talos

The street fell into stunned silence.

Then came the laughter.

High-pitched, mocking, cruel.

“Blacksteel?” someone snorted. “Him? They let mongrels in now?”

“I’ll bet he’s there to clean the toilets,” a vendor jeered.

“He’ll trip on the carpet and beg to go home in two minutes,” someone added from a nearby rooftop.

Even the falcon looked at him,dead in the eye,then took off with a screech like it agreed with the crowd.

Kai didn’t speak. He didn’t blink.

He folded the letter neatly, tucked it into his pocket, and walked.

He didn’t know why. He didn’t know how. All he knew was that for the first time in his life, someone had called his name,and it didn’t come from a gutter, a guard, or a debt collector.

It came from Blacksteel.

So he went.

The gates of Blacksteel Academy were not made for people like Kai.

They were carved from obsidian, etched with runes older than Ironvale itself, and towered high above him like the open jaws of some ancient beast. Crimson wards glowed at the corners. Arcane gargoyles watched from stone posts. The students walking past him didn’t glance his way,because they didn’t need to. His clothes, his gait, his slum stink… he stood out like a weed in a rose garden.

Inside, the halls gleamed. Arc-lamps pulsed with runes, students passed holding grimoires that hovered midair, swords that whispered in tongues, familiars that shimmered with flames and shadow. They looked like legends in training.

Kai felt like a rumor.

He made it as far as the registration atrium when the whispers started.

“Is that… the slum rat?”

“I heard he’s a Null.”

“Then why’s he here?”

“Someone must’ve paid to humiliate him.”

A tall, bored-looking woman with glowing eyes handed him a badge. “Pit one,” she muttered without looking.

“Pit?” he asked.

She finally looked up. Her lips curled. “Combat trials. It’s what we do with first-day trash.”

She pointed toward the dueling coliseum behind her.

Pit One wasn’t a pit.

It was a sunken ring, surrounded by tiers of students watching like spectators at a bloodsport match. Fire users warmed their hands against their own flames. Ice wielders flicked icicles from their nails. One girl floated, cross-legged, midair while reading.

Kai looked ridiculous standing there in patched boots and a secondhand tunic.

A blade was tossed at him,wooden, chipped, one side barely sharp.

“Let’s see if the coin-flipper lasts sixty seconds,” someone yelled.

Across the ring stood Jorik Dran. Third-year. Fire magic specialist. He stretched his neck and arms like he was preparing for a warm-up jog.

Kai didn’t even get a chance to ask why he was being thrown into a trial.

The judge barked: “Begin!”

Jorik moved like a viper. One second, he was standing. The next, he was airborne, feet ablaze. His boot nearly caught Kai’s jaw,he barely ducked in time.

“Nulls don’t block, huh?” Jorik sneered.

He pressed forward. Fist, flame, heel. A whirlwind of strikes forced Kai back.

The wooden blade was useless. It clashed once against Jorik’s forearm and nearly splintered.

Students started cheering,for Jorik.

“Break his legs!”

“Cook him!”

Kai gasped for breath. The heat blurred his vision. Each strike left a shockwave that tore into his already-bruised body. He stumbled, hit the edge of the ring, collapsed to one knee.

And then…

Everything slowed.

Again.

Like someone turned the volume of the world down.

The crowd. The fire. Even the blood pounding in his ears,it all dulled.

He could see.

Really see.

The rhythm of Jorik’s attacks, the breath between his feet landing, the hitch in his right leg when he turned. Kai rose,not strong, but… certain.

Jorik twisted midair for a finishing strike.

Kai didn’t block.

He stepped through it. Just a fraction late.

The flame kissed his shoulder, but didn’t land full force.

And with one clean pivot, Kai shifted the weight of the chipped blade,

,and cracked Jorik’s kneecap from the side.

The older boy roared in pain.

Kai grabbed the moment. He stepped behind him, reversed his grip, and slammed the hilt against Jorik’s spine.

Then, while the flames still fizzled around them, Jorik raised his sword, growling,and Kai shattered it. Just a flick. No aura. No spell.

The enchanted blade cracked down the middle like glass.

Gasps.

Stunned silence.

Even the instructor blinked twice.

Kai dropped the wooden sword on the ground.

He didn’t raise his hands. He didn’t smile. He just turned and walked out of the ring, eyes empty.

But inside,deep in his chest,the mark was pulsing. Warmer now. Calmer.

Almost… pleased.

That night, Kai sat in the academy’s corner dormitory,a single cot, one cracked window, and a desk too small for a full parchment sheet. He hadn’t spoken since the trial.

His body ached.

But not as much as his thoughts.

Then… a slip of parchment slid under his door.

No knock. No footsteps.

He waited, tense, then picked it up.

There were only five words.

“The seal cracks too early.”

And below it, a sigil he didn’t recognize. A spiral. A ring of teeth.

And something inside his chest twitched again.

Not from fear.

From memory.

Someone knows. And they’re watching.