2025-07-09 18:16:57Kai burst into Seria’s room, chest heaving, fingers curled tight around the warning note.
Empty.
No sign of a struggle. No blood. No overturned furniture.
Just stillness.
And a glowing glyph on the floor , soft, silver, pulsing like a held breath.
“Seria?” he whispered.
No answer.
He crouched slowly, fingers hovering over the strange rune. It thrummed, a faint buzz rising into his bones. The second his skin touched it,
FLASH.
The room disappeared.
He blinked.
Now standing inside a circular chamber lit by floating candles, he spun around. Shelves lined with old books and glass vials stretched toward the domed ceiling. Shadows curled along the edges, curling like smoke.
And then,
Footsteps.
She stepped out from behind a bookshelf.
Seria.
Alive.
But her face was wrong. Pale. Ashen. Her lips trembled, and her eyes,red, wet, hollow.
“Kai…” Her voice cracked. “You came.”
His breath caught. “You’re safe…”
Relief hit him,sharp, fast,but it didn’t last.
She wasn’t looking at him.
Not directly.
And her right hand was behind her back.
He stiffened. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere the walls don’t listen.” She gestured to a stone bench. “Please. Sit.”
He didn’t move.
“What is this place, Seria?”
“A vault,” she said. “Old. Sealed from surveillance glyphs. I needed to talk. Alone.”
She crossed the chamber slowly, poured tea from a chipped kettle. Her hand shook as she passed him the cup.
Kai didn’t drink it.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked.
She sat down across from him, fingers tight in her lap. “Because I thought I had more time.”
“Time for what?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “To choose.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Seria,what the hell is going on?”
She looked up finally. Her eyes broke.
“I poisoned the tea.”
Silence.
The words echoed louder than any explosion.
“…What?” he whispered.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,”
The cup fell from his hand, shattering against the stone.
Pain struck his gut,sharp, blooming like fire under his ribs.
His breath hitched.
He stumbled backward, legs buckling.
“WHY?!” he shouted, crashing into a bookshelf.
Books rained around him.
He hit the floor, choking.
Seria scrambled to his side. “They made me! I didn’t want to,I didn’t have a choice, Kai!”
Her hands hovered uselessly over his chest.
“Who?!”
“The Heralds. The ones hiding inside the Academy. They found me months ago,they knew I could get close to you.” She sobbed, her fingers curling into fists. “They bled me. Bound me with blood magic. Every disobedience meant someone died. They turned my healing into shackles.”
His vision blurred.
The pain twisted deep. He couldn’t feel his hands anymore.
“They said you’d destroy everything if left unchecked. That you were a walking apocalypse. They wanted to stop you before you awakened the final seal.”
“You could’ve… warned me…”
“I tried!” she cried. “That night,the glyph, the scream,I wasn’t possessed. That was the seal. Trying to break.”
He wheezed, the room spinning. “Why me?”
“They said you were the key.” She cupped his face, sobbing harder. “They made me believe you were a weapon, not a person.”
His body shook. Darkness edged his vision.
But deeper than the pain, deeper than the betrayal,
The Void stirred.
Not chaotic.
Not uncontrolled.
Focused. Calm. Waiting.
Kai’s hand moved,slow, trembling,and touched her chest, just above her heart.
Her eyes widened. “What are you,?”
“I’m done being the weapon.”
He pushed.
Void energy surged out of him,slow and deliberate. Not a blast. Not a curse.
A cure.
Seria screamed.
Black vines erupted across her neck and shoulders, pulsing beneath her skin like infected veins. She arched back, eyes wide in agony.
“No,don’t,KAI,!”
Her body jerked violently.
Then,
Light.
Not Void light.
Silver flame.
The corruption flared, shrieked,and then burned away, disintegrating in streams of holy fire.
Seria collapsed to her knees.
And above her,
Wings.
Translucent, massive, made of light and ash. They burst open from her back, shaking the shelves.
Kai slumped sideways, breath shallow. “Seria…”
She rose slowly, her feet not touching the ground. Her hair lifted, weightless. Her eyes glowed with twin halos.
When she spoke, two voices came out,hers… and something divine.
“The seal is weakening. And I… am no longer bound.”
Blackness.
Kai woke with a gasp.
Stone.
Dirt.
Cold.
He was somewhere else,no books, no candles. Just dripping water and crumbling walls.
He tried to sit. Couldn’t.
Then came a voice.
Smooth. Too close.
“You saved her.”
Pause.
“Now who will save you?”
He froze.
Something moved beyond the darkness.
“The others are watching now.”
A faint glow lit up a far wall. Not light,a sigil.
One he recognized.
The same rune from the coin.
“You were never the last. Only the first.”
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010
Kai opened his eyes to darkness.Not the kind that came with night or shadows. This was weight. This was a silence that pressed against the skull, dense, suffocating. The kind of dark that breathed.He sat up slowly, his muscles aching. His mouth tasted like ash and metal. No sign of the candlelit chamber. No sign of Seria. Just cold stone beneath him and a strange pulse in the air, steady like a heartbeat.He wasn’t alone.“Kai,” came the voice. Smooth. Too smooth. Familiar. Wrong.He stood. “Who’s there?”A faint light glowed behind him. He turned and the voice was suddenly behind him again.“You saved her. Now who will save you?”He lunged toward the sound but a hand shot out of the black and grabbed his wrist. It wasn’t solid. It felt like fog and ice and bone all at once.Then “Enough,” barked a voice. Rough. Grounded. Real.The darkness peeled away like smoke blown from a flame. Kai blinked as shapes formed. Bookshelves. Braziers. Carved runes.Riven.The old man stood before h
009
Kai burst into Seria’s room, chest heaving, fingers curled tight around the warning note.Empty.No sign of a struggle. No blood. No overturned furniture.Just stillness.And a glowing glyph on the floor , soft, silver, pulsing like a held breath.“Seria?” he whispered.No answer.He crouched slowly, fingers hovering over the strange rune. It thrummed, a faint buzz rising into his bones. The second his skin touched it,FLASH.The room disappeared.He blinked.Now standing inside a circular chamber lit by floating candles, he spun around. Shelves lined with old books and glass vials stretched toward the domed ceiling. Shadows curled along the edges, curling like smoke.And then,Footsteps.She stepped out from behind a bookshelf.Seria.Alive.But her face was wrong. Pale. Ashen. Her lips trembled, and her eyes,red, wet, hollow.“Kai…” Her voice cracked. “You came.”His breath caught. “You’re safe…”Relief hit him,sharp, fast,but it didn’t last.She wasn’t looking at him.Not directly.
008
The tunnel collapsed behind them in a roar of stone and fire.Kai and Seria were flung into the forest clearing, landing hard as a shockwave rippled through the trees. Leaves scattered into the air like birds taking flight, and dirt rained from the sky.Kai choked, coughing violently as the air turned to ash in his lungs. “Seria… you okay?”Seria nodded, shaky and pale. “That… that wasn’t just magic. That thing… it wore your face, Kai.”He didn’t answer.His eyes stayed fixed on his trembling hands,fingers curled, knuckles white, veins faintly pulsing.Not from fear.From something deeper. Rage. Shame. Power.He’d felt the pull again. Deep in the ruins,when the shadow whispered, when the air turned black. It had called to him. Tempted him.And he’d run.Just like his mother had all those years ago.“I could’ve stopped it,” he muttered.“No,” Seria said gently. “You chose not to lose yourself.”He turned away.But the worst part wasn’t the shadow.It was what it meant: Jin knew. Faen k
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
006
The silence in the Council chamber was so sharp it could’ve carved through bone.Kai stood at the center of the obsidian circle, the weight of every stare pinning him down like iron chains. Twelve crimson-robed mystics loomed above him, each seated on thrones sculpted from jagged black stone. Some wore literal masks,iron, bone, glass. Others wore expressions far worse.No warmth.No welcome.Just scrutiny.The air felt thin. Too thin. His lungs fought for breath.“Explain,” Councilor Dareth growled. His voice scraped like gravel in a blade sharpener. “You shattered a Class-Five training chamber. No enchantments. No runes. No focus seals. What, precisely, did you invoke?”Kai’s throat worked, but the words tangled.“I didn’t…” he started, then stopped.What was the point of lying?He forced himself to meet their eyes. “I don’t know.”Councilor Mireya leaned forward, emerald irises glowing like cold flame. “You don’t know? Are we to believe you stumbled into a destabilization wave capab
005
Kai hadn’t slept.Not after the shadow. Not after the voice.He lay awake for hours, hand pressed to his chest where the mark still pulsed like a second heartbeat,steady, quiet, ominous. By the time the first rays of dawn kissed the eastern spires of Blacksteel, he was already out of bed, boots crunching against gravel as he stormed across the Academy grounds.This time, he didn’t knock.He shoved open the wooden doors of the sealed wing.“Riven!” His voice echoed through the stone corridor like a crack of thunder. “You said the lock is cracking? Then tell me what’s inside it!”The blind man didn’t flinch. He was already sitting cross-legged, as if he’d been waiting all night.“It has begun,” Riven said calmly.Kai’s hands curled into fists. “Don’t give me riddles. A shadow came into my room last night. It spoke. It knew my name. You said I’m a vessel,for what, exactly?!”Riven turned his head slowly. Though his eyes were milk-white, they locked onto Kai like they could see straight t
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