The VoidBorn Ascension

007

Another student was missing.

Kai sat on the academy rooftop, legs dangling over the edge as dusk swallowed the horizon. His eyes weren’t on the sky though they were fixed on the darkened window of Dorm 5C. Malric’s window. The curtains hadn’t moved in two days.

“Transferred,” the headmaster said this morning.

Same word. Same lie.

“Transferred to Obsidian Campus for advanced elemental studies,” they said with those fake smiles, like they’d rehearsed it. Like anyone ever came back from Obsidian.

Kai chewed the inside of his cheek.

That made four students now.

Four gone without goodbyes, without luggage, without even a pulse in the rumor mill.

And no one was talking about it.

Except Seria.

“Did you find anything?” she asked softly behind him. She was always soft-spoken, but lately, her voice sounded thinner stretched, like a thread pulled too tight.

Kai shook his head. “No bags. No packed uniforms. Just a bloodstain near Malric’s sparring locker. It was half-scrubbed, like someone tried to clean it up in a hurry.”

Seria sat beside him, her pale braid brushing his shoulder. “You know what this feels like?”

“Yeah.” Kai’s jaw tightened. “Like cover-ups.”

They sat in silence for a beat. The wind teased the hem of their uniforms, a cool hush that didn’t reach their bones.

“I think I saw something,” Seria said suddenly. “In the woods. The Whispering Grove.”

Kai turned to her.

“Two nights ago,” she continued. “I had another… dream. Only I wasn’t dreaming. I woke up standing at the edge of the forest, barefoot, with dirt on my hands. And I heard voices. Chanting.”

Kai didn’t doubt her.

Not after what happened in Chapter 3. The tongues. The spirit. The warning.

“Let’s go,” he said, already sliding off the roof.

Seria didn’t hesitate.

The Whispering Grove wasn’t on any official map. It was forbidden “for ecological preservation,” they claimed. But everyone knew it was just old forest, half-abandoned, and filled with weird echoes that made your skin crawl.

They reached the edge just after dark.

The moon hovered like a cracked coin in the sky, barely illuminating the overgrowth. The deeper they walked, the quieter it became. No crickets. No wind. Just the soft, squelching crunch of leaves underfoot and the sound of Seria’s anxious breathing.

“Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm.

They had stumbled upon something unnatural.

Beneath the base of a twisted ash tree, long black vines pulsed like veins, slowly slithering deeper into the earth.

Kai crouched, touching the bark. “These weren’t here before.”

“Look,” Seria whispered, pointing at the roots.

There caught between the vines was a boot.

Torn.

Smeared with blood.

Kai’s heart kicked in his chest. He recognized that boot. Malric always wore reinforced combat soles, custom-welded. It was his.

“This isn’t a transfer,” Kai muttered. “They’re being taken.”

Before Seria could respond, a low humming began in the distance.

It was faint but growing louder.

Chanting.

In a language Kai didn’t know. Harsh syllables that grated against his ears and twisted his stomach.

They followed it.

Down a slope of broken stone, through a rusted grate hidden beneath ivy and fallen moss. The air turned stale. Ancient. The stone floor was cracked, but bore faint glowing runes red, then purple, then black. Like something beneath the surface was leaking out.

“What is this place?” Seria breathed.

“The irrigation tunnels,” Kai whispered. “They were supposed to be sealed decades ago.”

“Sealed things don’t hum.”

The tunnel opened into a vast underground chamber, illuminated by flickering torchlight and the eerie glow of a black sigil etched into the floor.

Around it stood at least a dozen figures cloaked in obsidian robes, faces obscured, chanting in perfect unison.

In the center stood a woman.

She didn’t wear a robe. She wore a veil of smoke, curling and shifting with every word she spoke.

“The seal bends. The vessel walks. The coin calls to its siblings. The Void shall reclaim its throne.”

Kai’s blood turned to ice.

That voice.

The one that whispered in his sleep.

The one that called him vessel.

His breath caught in his throat as another figure stepped forward.

He wore a ceremonial robe, but pulled back his hood 

Jin Oroku.

Eyes closed. Head bowed.

The academy’s golden boy.

The top-ranked student.

And he was one of them.

Kai couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. His fingers curled so tightly his knuckles popped.

You bastard. You smug, arrogant…

But it didn’t stop there.

Another figure stepped forward from the ring of chanting Heralds.

They removed their mask.

And Kai saw Instructor Faen.

His elemental combat teacher. The one who called him weak. Who mocked his “null affinity” in front of the entire class.

A traitor.

He stood proudly beside Jin, whispering into the silver-veiled woman’s ear.

Kai’s stomach flipped.

Seria grabbed his arm. “We need to go ”

But too late.

Instructor Faen froze. His head turned.

His glowing red eyes locked directly onto Kai.

“We are not alone.”

Kai shoved Seria.

“Run!”

A surge of black fire exploded across the cavern, roaring toward them.

They darted back into the tunnel, stumbling and gasping as shadows peeled themselves off the walls and gave chase. But it wasn’t just the flames that pursued them now.

Something else was moving.

Something with Kai’s voice.

“You are not supposed to run from yourself.”

The words echoed around them identical to his tone, his cadence.

And when Kai glanced back he saw it.

A silhouette.

His own face emerging from the darkness.

Smiling.

Trapped between collapsing tunnels and a doppelgänger made of shadow, Kai and Seria must either dive into a chasm pulsing with Void energy or face the creature that knows every move Kai will make.