Kael stood in the street, the broken bodies of the guards at his feet, the woman staring up at him with wide, ragged breaths, and the weight of a thousand dead pressing into his spine.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Ash drifted in the morning light, catching on the edges of his torn cloak. The faint glow of his white eyes—marked by the black Xelvor emblem—cast shadows across the dirt, the symbol a quiet, terrible promise of what was yet to come.
Around him, the whispers bloomed.
They spread like cracks through the brittle bones of Gravewood—low murmurs, wide eyes, faces shrinking back into the shadows. Merchants froze at their stalls, beggars shrank into doorways, and the scum who called themselves cultivators—Tier 1 Low, most of them, a few scraping into Mid—watched with thinly veiled fear.
Kael felt their gazes.
The judgment. The doubt.
Who is he? What is he doing here? He can't survive this. He'll die like the rest of them.
The burden coiled tighter, a chain around his ribs.
He clenched his fists until the bones ached.
The dead were watching.
He could feel them—his father, his mother, his brother—ghosts pressing into his skin, their expectations burning like brands.
Make them remember.
The woman at his feet stirred, pushing herself up on shaky arms. Blood smeared across her cheek, dark against pale skin, but her eyes burned with something Kael recognized—stubbornness, the will to live, even if it meant crawling through the filth.
That faint pulse in her aura, the subtle flicker of potential—it was real.
He could see it now, clearer than before.
Not strong yet, not refined.
But compatible.
A seed for the Xelvor bloodline.
A future heir, or the mother of one.
Kael's breath slowed, the burden pressing heavier against his chest. This wasn't a decision. It was an instinct—old as the blood in his veins, a whisper in the marrow of his bones.
She was necessary.
His voice came low, rough, the weight of exhaustion and rage tangled in every syllable.
"Get up."
The woman flinched, then obeyed, dragging herself to her knees, her breath ragged.
Kael's gaze swept the street.
They were still watching.
Waiting.
The city itself seemed to pulse around him, a slow, gathering pressure building in the bones of the ground.
He felt it—a ripple, subtle but sharp.
A predator's gaze.
The Tier 2 aura flared again, stronger this time, brushing against Kael's skin like the tip of a blade drawn across his throat.
Low Tier 2. Maybe Mid.
Stronger than him by a margin that should have crushed him flat.
The presence lingered, waiting. Watching.
Kael's heart thudded, slow and deliberate.
Fear coiled at the edge of his mind, sharp as a dagger's kiss.
He wasn't ready.
Not for this.
Not for a Tier 2.
But the burden didn't care.
The dead didn't care.
He could almost hear them—his ancestors whispering in the ash, the weight of the Xelvor legacy pressing harder.
Rise. Or let the ashes claim you.
Kael's voice cut through the silence, low but sharp enough to carry.
"Tell me your name."
The woman blinked up at him, confusion flickering through the pain.
"I… I have no name," she said, her voice rough as sandpaper.
Kael's lips curled, slow and cold.
"Then I'll give you one later."
He turned, his gaze sweeping the street once more, burning the sight of Gravewood into his memory.
It was a city on the verge of collapse—fractured, diseased, infested with weak men playing at power.
And yet… it was dangerous.
Not because of the guards, or the merchants, or the petty cultivators barely clinging to Tier 1.
But because of the presence that lingered, watching from the dark.
Kael felt it coil tighter, a slow, steady pressure—like a noose tightening around his throat.
The Tier 2.
The one who ruled this place.
Kael took a breath.
The air was heavy with rot and smoke, the scent of unwashed bodies, spilled blood, and the faint, sour tang of fear.
It pressed into him, mixed with the weight of his ancestors, the crushing expectation of legacy, the knowledge that if he failed here, if he fell now…
The Xelvor name would die with him.
He straightened his spine.
His heart thudded once, slow and cold.
Let them come.
Let the Tier 2 descend upon him like a storm.
Let the weight crush his ribs, shatter his bones, tear him apart.
He would stand beneath it.
Or he would die standing.
The woman staggered to her feet behind him, breathing hard, eyes wide with something that wasn't quite fear—something closer to awe, or perhaps the raw, animal recognition of a predator in the room.
Kael didn't look at her.
He stepped forward, past the broken guards, into the mouth of the city.
The ash seemed to swirl around him, caught in the draft of something larger stirring.
Eyes followed him.
Whispers rose.
A merchant murmured, voice barely a breath:
"Who… is that?"
A beggar flinched back, muttering, "He'll be dead by nightfall."
A child watched from a crack in the wall, wide-eyed, the image of the white-eyed man burned into her memory.
Kael heard them all, and the burden pressed tighter.
He would not break.
Far above, in the heart of the city, a figure stirred.
A man, cloaked in ragged robes, his skin pockmarked and lined with old scars, sat in a crumbling hall, surrounded by the flickering embers of half-spent spirit stones.
His eyes opened, slow and dark, a deep, hungry gleam within them.
He felt the ripple.
The disturbance.
A new thread tugging at the web of power he had spun around Gravewood.
A threat.
Or an opportunity.
The man's lips curled, a thin smile spreading like a crack through his weathered face.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Kael felt it—the gaze settling on him like a hand around his throat.
His breath sharpened.
His heart beat steady.
He took another step.
Gravewood would fall.
The Xelvor name would rise.
And the multiverse would remember.