All that remained was rage.
The world, once made of shapes, colors, and names, had become a dark, formless smear—a prison where time dared not move. Diaz floated in that vastness like an abandoned thought, blind, mute, dissolved in his own absence.
The fall, the push, his father's eyes, the flames, the altar... —all throbbed like red-hot irons hammering inside his skull.
For a moment too long, he believed he was dead. But what kept him from it... was pain. Not just any pain. A kind of pain that didn't beg for relief, but demanded response.
That pain didn't want him to forget. It wanted him to remember everything. It wanted him to fight back.
And then... something changed.
A light. Pale as the memory of a fire. A warm presence, not aggressive—but watchful. Something that didn't comfort, only... allowed.
Diaz felt the weight of his body for the first time. The air was dense, dry, with the metallic scent of old embers and enchanted blood. He tried to move his fingers—they responded like cracked stone. When he opened his eyes, they revealed distorted, flickering shapes: black stone, living runes, an ancient ceiling covered in self-moving symbols.
He lay on an altar of darkened crystal—or perhaps living obsidian. And before him... her.
"He's awake," said the voice. But there was no relief. There was predator's joy in her eyes. The gleam of someone watching a forge ignite.
"Don't try to stand. You are between the end and what has yet to be named," said the woman, with the voice of a tired goddess. Calm, but with a presence that crushed. It felt like hearing a spell recited in silence.
Diaz turned his head, every centimeter of movement costing a thousand invisible cuts. The figure wore a cloak of feathers like living embers, her face as firm as divine sculpture. Young. But eternal. Her eyes didn't ask—they judged.
"Where... am I?" he murmured, his voice as weak as dust.
"In a tomb the world forgot. But that remembered you." She stepped closer. "You were rejected by the sky. But the ashes recognized you as heir."
A single tear fell. His father's words still echoed like a sentence:
"Diaz is no longer my son."
He looked at himself—fragile, wounded, forgotten— and something broke. Not pride. What came after it.
The woman touched his forehead. Her finger burned like an ancient pact. And as the touch glowed, golden runes lit beneath his skin, like truths tearing through the silence of his flesh. They descended to his chest. Stopped over his heart.
"Why did you save me...?" he asked, eyes now frozen. Not from weakness. From incubated hatred.
She smiled—not with affection, but with... conviction.
"Because you weren't made to die like a Gloters. You were forged to be... the end of what they call order.
My flames accepted you, because they recognize in your blood what will yet burn the world."
Diaz closed his eyes. Slept. Dreamed. But his dreams bled.
He dreamed of Angeline. The mother the world erased. She sang softly while the world conspired for her death. And then, the sheets covered in blood. And the father. A living statue. No emotion.
He awoke sweating. And when he looked around, he knew: reality was worse.
Three months passed.
When he stood for the first time, he was no longer the same.
The sanctuary where he stayed resembled a womb of stone and fire. A temple buried beneath ages, carved by something between gods and monsters. Runes pulsed on the floor with every step. Statues with sculpted eyes followed him. The flames on the walls burned without consuming. The place responded to him.
The woman introduced herself: Asla.
She guarded a legacy she refused to reveal.
"Your truth isn't ready to be heard," she said. "First, you must shape your body, your mind... and your fury."
Diaz trained until his flesh begged for mercy.
He ran, cut, burned, breathed magical flows until his lungs pleaded for air. He meditated until his soul trembled. And every time he fell... he rose colder.
During one of those meditations, a crack of light burst from his chest—a living spark of silver-blue, shifting energy. The room's runes fell silent. Asla only watched, with a cruel smile.
"You are awakening... finally."
"Awakening what...?" Diaz asked, breathless.
She pointed to the center of his chest. There, a core shone for an instant—like a constellation trapped beneath flesh.
"What your mother sealed. What your wrath will free."
That night, Diaz stood alone before the flames. The fire didn't burn his skin. He saw himself in it.
And then, he whispered:
"They think they killed me. But they forgot one thing...
Ashes... don't break.
They wait.
And return.
And when they return... it's to consume everything."
His eyes burned.
Not with tears.
But with prophecy.
And the peace he wanted for Elyndros... would not come from compassion.
It would come from wrath.
Gloters Mansion — Training Grounds
The air crackled with raw energy.
Four elite mages surrounded Armim Gloters, forming a square of execution. Each channeled a distinct branch of the Force of Storm—runic ice, cutting wind, pulsing electricity, and atmospheric pressure. The ground around them bore scars from hundreds of battles, but never one like this.
Armim—fourteen years old, a body sculpted by the House's rigor, steel eyes and a firm jaw—held both his channeled swords: Volkran and Shyrren.
The blades danced with living runes, fueled by the same Primordial Force that had rejected Diaz.
"Attack now!" one of the instructors shouted.
The first mage launched a runic cyclone, spinning like an invisible scythe. Armim slid across the field, activating Gloters Technique #7: Vortex Cut—his swords spun in opposite directions, creating a rupture field that split the attack with a dry crack, like thunder biting iron.
The second mage attempted a lightning leap—too fast. But Armim was already airborne, executing Technique #4: Cloudbreaker—a sequence of two curved strikes with Volkran and Shyrren that crossed mid-air, leaving a trail of sparks on the enemy's chest, slamming him against an ancestral statue.
The third and fourth hesitated—fatal mistake. Armim plunged one sword into the ground, focused his aura, and channeled the Resonant Storm through the earth. Energy surged through the field's runes and exploded beneath their feet, launching them skyward.
With a blinding spin, Armim slashed an X. The Storm's tendrils burst from his blades like blue claws.
Silence.
Three mages down, unconscious. The fourth was struggling when Joyce appeared beside the arena, arms crossed, half-smiling.
"Impressive..." she said. "Even the fourth fell. Now, you're starting to look like a Gloters."
Armim panted, but his eyes stayed cold.
"He moved fast," he said, wiping sweat with his forearm. "But still one step behind."
Joyce descended the stairs and approached, examining the cracked ground, lit runes, and bodies on the field.
"You're being summoned." Her smile sharpened. "Father wants to speak with you."
For a moment, Armim hesitated. The mention of "father" still brought a chill no Storm Force could erase. But he nodded.
"I'm going now."
Armim entered the office like an officer before a supreme general.
The room reeked of history and brutality. The furniture looked like petrified war relics. The walls were covered in magical maps and bloodline diagrams. At the center, Artur Gloters XIV, the Patriarch, reviewed reports like someone drafting strategies for a ruined kingdom.
He didn't look up.
"You've seen what happens to the weak in this house."
Armim, cold as the stone beneath him, stood straight.
"Yes, sir."
"You're going to the Royal Mage Academy of the Beast Kingdom. Don't shame me like the fifth did. Surpass your brothers. Take what is yours."
Armim stepped forward, knelt, fist over chest.
"I will not fail, father. Diaz was a crack. I am the steel."
Then Artur looked up.
The Patriarch's eyes were no longer human—they were like tired gods judging lesser creatures. A cutting gleam sliced through the room, and magical pressure exploded.
The aura he exhaled wasn't power—it was dominion. A spiritual weight that tore at the soul.
Runes on the floor trembled. The air thickened, saturated. A mirror cracked silently.
Armim felt his knees falter for a second. Just one. His chest burned. It was as if the very Storm Force inside him shivered before this titan he called father.
Armim's thought, breathless, tense:
"What an aura... monstrous. As if the world was made only for him... and all of us... mere extensions of his will."
But he endured. He did not retreat. He did not break.
Artur stared into his soul.
"Then prove it."
Rhenstar Mansion — Solar Tower
Lord Rhenstar's office looked less like a room and more like a war relic wrapped in luxury. The walls were dark marble streaked with gold veins like lightning. Shelves held grimoires sealed with silver threads. At the center, an oval stained glass cast golden light on the patriarch's command throne: Lord Velkan Rhenstar—hair like polished iron, beard braided threefold, eyes sharp as enchanted arrows.
Before him stood Liah Rhenstar—cloaked in ceremonial attire, shoulders straight, expression neutral like one trained not to feel... even when everything screamed inside.
Velkan, seated behind his enchanted wood desk with living roots, didn't look up as he spoke:
"The marriage to Diaz Gloters is canceled."
The words fell like ice in golden air. No explanation. No prelude. Just the bare blade of truth.
Liah blinked once, slowly.
"Canceled?" she repeated, voice firm, with a subtle tremor buried behind the words.
"Diaz was disinherited. Failed the resonance ritual. Declared... unfit. Dead to the Gloters lineage. Diplomatically, that's the same as truly dead."
Silence.
Liah clenched her fingers beneath her sleeves, out of sight. A slight spasm. She remembered the boy with eyes like bottled storms. That mute presence carrying a weight no one his age should bear.
"And the pact?" she asked, controlling each syllable like a warrior controls her blade. "The contract runes?"
Velkan finally looked up. His features showed no regret. Only calculation.
"Already renegotiated with the Gloters' new hope. Armim. You'll have to adapt."
You'll have to adapt.
As if it were as simple as changing a dress.
"Armim..." she murmured the name like tasting poison.
Liah turned slightly, walking to the arched window. From there, one could see the Rhenstar training fields, where rune-archers drew constellations with enchanted arrows. A world she knew by heart. A world that, for the first time, felt... small.
"This isn't just politics, father." Her voice was calm but burned inside. "Diaz wasn't ordinary. I felt something that day."
Velkan rose slowly. His presence crushed doubts.
"Exactly why he was banished, daughter. He wasn't normal. And anomalies... are dangerous."
Liah met his gaze. For the first time, without lowering hers.
"Or maybe the problem is that he was too real for this alliance farce."
Velkan stepped closer, stopping just a breath away. His stare pierced.
"You will marry Armim. He is stable. Resonates with the Force. Being shaped for leadership. Diaz was a crack. You are the bridge."
An invisible knot tightened in her throat. But she swallowed. Her posture remained upright. Her eyes, firm. And in the silence that followed, something in her... shifted.
Liah's thought:
"The crack... is where the light enters. But no one here wants light. Just predictable reflections."
She bowed. Not in submission. But in strategy.
"As you wish, my Lord."
But as she left the room, her eyes slid to the Gloters crest hanging on a side tapestry. The storm-wolf mark still lingered, even as Diaz's name was being erased from records.
She looked at the symbol with intense emptiness.
And thought:
"They think they can bury a name... but some names echo even in tombs. Diaz... the world will still speak yours—not as a curse, but as truth."
And she descended the stairs with the lightness of someone carrying something more dangerous than resentment: a doubt planted in the heart of an heiress raised to obey.
Six months later...