The VoidBorn Ascension

004

The rumor spread before sunrise.

By the time the first bell rang at Blacksteel Academy, everyone had heard it:

The Null boy shattered a ranked student’s weapon. Without touching it.

“Used a spirit coin, I swear. One of those cursed relics,” someone said near the mess hall.

“Bullshit. I heard he channeled a void wraith. Saw it with my own eyes,” a boy whispered too loudly near the eastern dorm.

“Didn’t lift a finger,” another chimed in. “Just stared,and boom.”

No one knew the truth.

Not even Kai.

He sat at the edge of his bunk, hunched over, staring at his right hand like it was foreign.

“What did I do…” he muttered, flexing his fingers. “What even was that?”

The mark on his chest hadn’t pulsed since the fight, but it was still there,like an eye carved into his skin, waiting.

Still.

Watching.

Waiting.

“The Void stirs…”

The voice. That same impossible whisper that came with the coin. It echoed in the back of his mind like a curse that wouldn’t leave.

Kai clenched his fist. His fingers shook.

Am I cursed? Or was I always this?

A knock shattered the silence.

He jerked upright, heart lurching. His eyes darted to the corner, expecting shadows.

But it wasn’t a wraith.

It was a girl.

Short. Sharp-eyed. Arms crossed like she’d been waiting her whole life to be annoyed.

“You coming or not?” she asked flatly.

Kai blinked. “…Sorry, who are you?”

“Name’s Nyra,” she said, unimpressed. “Your new handler. Apparently.”

“My what?”

Nyra huffed. “Instructor’s orders. You scared the crap out of everyone yesterday. Staff’s panicking. So they assigned you a leash.”

Kai frowned. “Babysitting?”

“Exactly,” she said. “Except I volunteered.”

“You volunteered?” His tone shifted from confusion to suspicion. “Why?”

“Because I don’t buy the crap they’re saying about you.” She glanced behind her, then back at him. “And because… I’ve seen worse.”

Kai hesitated. “Worse than me?”

“Worse than what you might be,” she said. “But let’s not test that today, yeah?”

He grabbed his cloak and followed her.

Nyra didn’t speak much on the walk, and Kai didn’t know what to ask. Blacksteel’s halls were quieter than usual,students stared as they passed, conversations stopping mid-sentence. One boy made the sign of warding. Another backed into a doorway like Kai carried the plague.

Kai tried not to care. But each stare chipped something loose inside him.

“I didn’t even do anything,” he muttered under his breath.

Nyra glanced sideways. “They’re scared. Fear makes people stupid.”

“And you’re not scared?”

“I’m always scared. Just better at hiding it.”

They stopped at a sealed archway etched with runes older than the Academy itself.

“This wing’s off-limits to most,” Nyra said. “But Master Riven requested you personally.”

“Riven?” Kai repeated. “I’ve never even met him.”

She looked him over once, as if assessing whether he was telling the truth. “You will.”

The room was colder than it should’ve been.

Master Riven sat on a stone mat in the center, cross-legged, hands resting on his knees. His eyes were pale,clouded by age or something worse,but he turned his head precisely as Kai entered.

“You arrived later than expected,” Riven said softly.

Kai stiffened. “Do I… know you?”

“Not yet,” Riven replied, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement.

There was something wrong about the man. Not wrong like evil,wrong like he didn’t belong in a place bound by time. Even the air around him felt slow, like it moved through molasses.

“You did something impossible yesterday,” Riven continued. “You shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t be able to exist.”

Kai swallowed. “So what am I?”

“Sit. Let us find out.”

Nyra took a step forward. “You sure he’s ready?”

“He has to be.”

Kai sat cross-legged across from him, uneasy. “This… this isn’t going to be like last time, is it?”

Riven’s hands began to glow, soft and silver. “I will not harm you. But I must see what lies beneath.”

“Wait,what do you mean ‘beneath’,”

But it was already happening.

The floor, the walls, even the light,it all shattered.

He was falling.

Backwards.

Into fire.

Screams filled his ears. The scent of ash clogged his lungs.

He landed in a village wrapped in flame,his village.

He saw himself.

A child. Barely five. Cowering under a table.

And then,

“Mom…” he whispered.

She was there. Running barefoot through fire. Hair matted with soot. Eyes wild with desperation. In her hand,

The coin.

She skidded behind the forge, blood pouring from her palms as she gripped a shard of metal.

Her voice broke as she carved into the stone: “Forgive me… please, forgive me…”

Kai moved closer. But he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t speak. Just watched.

“I’m so sorry, Kai,” she whispered. “This world doesn’t deserve what’s sleeping inside you.”

A figure appeared behind her. Tall. Robed. A blade in hand. Masked.

She didn’t scream. Didn’t run.

She smiled.

And slipped the coin into a hidden compartment in the wooden sword.

“Sacrifices that cannot be undone… must not be forgotten.”

Then came the blade.

And everything went black.

Kai screamed as he snapped back into his body.

His chest heaved. His mouth was dry. Sweat soaked through his shirt.

Across from him, Riven sat exactly where he’d been. As if nothing happened.

Kai gasped, “What,what the hell was that?”

“A memory,” Riven said, voice like gravel. “Locked in your blood. Your mother carved it into the world before she died.”

“Why? Why hide it in the sword? Why lie?”

“Because she knew what you carried. And feared what others would do if they found out.”

Kai clutched his chest. “What is it, Riven? What am I?”

“You are not a mystic,” Riven said slowly. “Not a mage. Not a warrior.”

Kai’s pulse spiked. “Then what,”

“You are a vessel.”

The room tilted.

“For something that should never have touched this world.”

“No,no, no,” Kai stood. “You don’t understand, I didn’t ask for this. Take it out. Seal it. Cut it,do something!”

Riven looked at him, blind eyes somehow seeing too much. “It’s too late.”

“Then help me!”

“The Void doesn’t open doors, Kai. It infects them.”

That night, Kai didn’t sleep.

He lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, palm over the mark.

She knew. She always knew.

Why didn’t she warn me?

To protect me?

Or to protect them from me?

He sat up, breath ragged.

Maybe he should leave. Disappear. Hide in the slums. Maybe this whole academy thing was a mistake.

He couldn’t even remember why he came anymore.

I don’t belong here.

Something stirred.

A faint sound.

Soft. Like silk gliding over stone.

His eyes darted to the far corner of the room.

Nothing.

Then,

A shadow moved.

Long. Boneless. Slithering across the ceiling like smoke.

“What the hell…” he whispered.

The shadow coiled downward, stretching across the wall. Its limbs were too many. Its eyes too bright, flickering like dying stars.

Kai stood, backing away, pulse roaring.

“Who’s there?” he croaked.

The shadow didn’t speak with a voice. It laughed inside his skull.

“So much fear… for something not yet awakened.”

“Get out of my head!”

“The coin broke the first seal. And the seal remembers you, vessel.”

He staggered, reaching for the sword under his bed.

“You are not ready. But the others… are watching.”

The creature slithered closer. Its limbs twisted in impossible angles.

“The sealed ones hunger. The bloodlines stir. You are the key. And the crack has begun.”

“Stay back!”

The shadow lunged.

Straight into his chest.

Kai choked, clutching the mark as searing heat ripped through him,

Then it was gone.

The room returned to silence.

But far away,beneath oceans and ancient stone,a tower long buried began to tremble.

And somewhere in the dark, something woke up.

Something that had waited centuries.