There was no warmth left in his bones.
Kael lay beneath the stolen cloak, unmoving, his body hidden beneath dead leaves and layers of blood-soaked mud. Around him, the Grand Magic Zone shifted and howled, its chaotic mana writhing like a living thing, ancient and hungry. The forest did not sleep. It never did. Even in the moments when its monstrous howls died down, the silence that followed felt like the breath before a scream.
He hadn't moved in two days.
Not because he was resting—rest was a fantasy. It was because his leg refused to bear weight, and the infection crawling up his thigh had begun to pulse with fever. Every time he blinked, stars danced in his vision. His stomach ached with a gnawing emptiness that felt more like something clawing from the inside out.
But even in this broken state, he clung to life.
Something inside him—something cold and violent—refused to let him go. It wasn't instinct. Instinct had long since withered. This was something more primal. A defiance, not born of pride, not born of courage. Just refusal.
He would not die here.
Not like the others.
---
The pulse returned on the third night.
It came in silence, not sound—a pressure from within. Not pain, not comfort, but… presence. Like something ancient had taken notice of him. Like he was a blinking ember in a sea of dead ash. He didn't hear a voice, but the message carved itself into the hollow of his bones:
"You live because I allow it."
Kael opened his eyes. Something was glowing beneath his skin.
He tore the cloak aside and stared down at his chest. Faint, like a wound healed but not forgotten, a rune pulsed in violet. It was the same shape as the symbols carved into the stone beneath The Lower Womb. A curse? A blessing? He didn't know. It didn't matter.
It was his now.
---
The beast came at dawn.
Kael didn't know what it was—its shape was wrong, shifting. Part feline, part reptile, part shadow. The mana leaking from it cracked the trees, and its breath stank of spoiled time and rotten storms. One eye burned yellow. The other socket was hollow.
It didn't roar. It didn't charge.
It stalked.
Kael knew he couldn't outrun it. Couldn't fight it. Couldn't scream.
But he could think.
He crawled, dragging his body across broken stone and mossy roots, leading the beast through the woods. He remembered the sinkhole—a mana fissure that sapped energy, even air. A void. He had felt it the day before, when a leaf touched its rim and crumbled to dust.
The beast followed.
Its breath was getting closer. It wasn't in a hurry. It wanted to play.
Kael reached the edge and slid himself sideways, bracing just beyond the threshold. He reached for a stone, a jagged thing slick with blood, and hurled it—weakly, but with purpose.
The sound echoed behind him.
The beast leapt.
Right into the hole.
Kael didn't move. Didn't breathe. He listened to the thing scream—not in pain, but in rage—as the mana-fissure devoured its form. It didn't even leave bones.
Just silence.
He had won. Not with power. Not with strength. But with will, and cunning.
He passed out moments later.
---
Time faded again.
When Kael awoke, he was underground. Not deep—but below a ridge of roots and stone, protected from wind and sky. His body had been moved—he had been moved. At first, he panicked. He reached for a weapon, anything, but found only dry bark and old moss.
And then he saw it.
Carved into the wall in jagged strokes, using a claw or stone, a single word:
"Live."
Not written in any language he'd seen, but he understood it all the same.
And below it… a faint pool of glowing water. Mana-rich. Liquid magic, pure and untouched.
He drank.
And for the first time, his body responded.
The fever receded. His wounds didn't close, but the rot stopped spreading. His breathing steadied. The pain dulled.
Something had saved him.
Or something had decided he wasn't ready to die yet.
---
The dreams began after that.
They came without warning. No sleep required. Just flashes—of skyless halls filled with chains that bled light. Of a broken mirror that showed him with silver hair and violet eyes, both burning like stars. Of wings, not angelic, but forged from broken laws and unspeakable freedom.
One night, he saw himself floating in a realm with no up, no down—just pressure, and eyes. Watching. Endless eyes.
And in the center, a book. Not black. Not silver. Not even white.
Just empty.
No cover. No title. Just a no-leaf grimoire… waiting.
Waiting for him.
---
Kael began to change.
He grew stronger—not by training, not yet—but by enduring. His bones set wrong, but they set. His skin grew calloused. His pain tolerance grew monstrous. He learned to eat the things that shouldn't be edible. Mushrooms that sang. Flesh that bled magic. Fruit that screamed when picked.
He vomited the first week.
The second, he stopped noticing.
He watched the forest. Learned its patterns. Knew which storms meant wild mana surges and which meant monsters. He slept in the crooks of dying trees, in the hollow bones of ancient giants.
He didn't cry. He didn't speak.
He simply watched.
And one night, something watched back.
---
It wasn't a beast this time. It was a man.
Or what had once been a man.
He wore no clothes, only skin burned black by magic. His mouth was sewn shut with silver thread, and his eyes glowed with knowledge no one should hold. He floated above the ground, whispering without sound. Around him, the air rippled—not with mana, but with history.
Kael didn't hide.
He didn't run.
He stepped out.
The figure turned, drifting toward him. No expression. No threat. Just curiosity.
And then… he nodded.
A single, slow nod.
And vanished.
Kael stood frozen for hours, unable to explain what he'd just seen.
But from that day forward, the forest changed. The trees leaned away from him. The beasts circled but did not approach. Even the wind seemed to part.
He was becoming something the forest recognized.
---
Weeks passed. Maybe months. He stopped counting.
Kael carved only one thing now, again and again, on bark, on stone, on bones.
His name.
"Kael."
Not given. Not remembered.
Chosen.
If the world would not name him, he would name himself.
If the world would not save him, he would become something it could never touch.
He didn't know what he was yet. A boy? A curse? A mistake?
But whatever he was… he lived.
---
And high above, in a place where time had no authority, Lucius Zogratis closed a tome made of bone.
He stared into a mirror that did not reflect, and whispered:
"The balance is shifting."
---
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