Days passed since the beast attack, but for Kael, everything still felt raw.
The academy buzzed with rumors, but none of them captured the truth.
"He just got lucky.""Probably a one-time fluke.""Tetsu must've weakened the beast first."
The students talked in hushed voices whenever Kael walked by, casting sideways glances like he was some strange, broken thing. Even some of the instructors seemed unsure how to approach him.
Tetsu, still recovering from his injuries, just smirked when Kael visited him.
"Let 'em talk," Tetsu said, tossing an apple lazily into the air. "They're scared. They don't know what happened out there, and they don't want to."
Kael sat by his bedside, arms crossed. "Maybe they're right. Maybe it was just luck."
Tetsu barked a weak laugh. "Yeah, sure. You 'lucked' your way into teleporting and crushing a Fracture Beast's skull in midair. Makes sense."
Kael didn't respond. Deep down, he knew it hadn't been normal.The energy still stirred in him when he closed his eyes—a wild, chaotic thing waiting to be fully understood.
But he wasn't ready yet.
And so he let the academy think what it wanted.
— — —
The days blurred together in a haze of low-level lessons.Kael went through the motions: weapon drills, Will control basics, endurance training.He stayed near the back, kept his head down, never showing even a fraction of what had happened during the fight.
If anyone noticed the way the shadows seemed to cling to him a little longer, or how his movements sometimes flickered faster than the eye could catch, they said nothing.
Better that way.
He wasn't ready to stand out. Not yet.
Especially not with what he had begun to dream about at night.
Visions of an ancient battlefield. Towers crumbling. Sky torn open with dark light.And at the center of it all... a lone figure wrapped in black and violet energy, standing against an army.
Kael always woke up gasping before he could see the figure's face.
Something inside him whispered:"You are not the first."
— — —
One evening, Kael found himself at the edge of the academy grounds, looking beyond the great walls to the shattered lands outside.
The world out there didn't care about luck.
It would demand more.
And deep down, he could feel it—the Last Will wasn't done with him.
Not by a long shot.