The traumatic shock on the bridge had opened the deepest, most sealed vault in Kai's mind. He was lost in the past, an observer watching the seven-year-old version of himself in a memory that felt terrifyingly real.
The Garden and the Spark
The scene was bathed in the warm, golden light of a setting sun. Young Kai was sparring in a grassy courtyard with a man whose face was intentionally obscured—a protective, swirling blur of white light. They clashed wooden swords playfully, the sounds echoing the joy of a simpler time, a life before the King of Stone's Order.
"This is boring! I want to go back inside and play my games, Dad," young Kai whined, dropping his wooden sword onto the grass.
The word Dad struck the adult Kai's trapped consciousness like a physical blow. A flood of raw, aching grief hit him. I called him Dad. I forgot the only name that mattered.
The blurred man knelt down, his voice kind but firm, perfectly echoing the cold discipline that would later define his purpose. "Even so, Kai, you need to be strong enough to defend yourself. And when I'm not here, you must be strong enough to defend your mother."
The word Mother struck a second, deeper chord. Kai hadn't known he had a mother, either. The blank white space of his forgotten life was instantly being repainted with devastating color, bringing tears to his eyes in the memory.
Young Kai, fueled by a pure, loyal determination he couldn't explain, instantly picked up his sword, his little chest puffed out. "Fine! If it's for Mother, then LETS DO THIS!"
The sheer, focused will of the child, unburdened by fear, was enough. A sudden, powerful bust of wind erupted around the child, momentarily cracking the dry earth beneath his small feet. The blurred man's white hair whipped around his face. It was the first, forgotten spark of the Air stone, activated not by fighting, but by a simple, desperate need to protect.
The blurred man broke his facade, cracking a smile that was wide and filled with relief. "Good. See? That's the way. It seems that one works."
The Prison and the Breakdown
The pleasant scene dissolved into a cold, metallic nightmare. Years had passed. The Code Citadel was now a prison.
Young Kai stood shivering in a vast, cold detention chamber with his mother and father. Around their necks, thin, metallic anti-Stone necklaces glowed faintly. These devices were specifically designed to suppress the chaotic energy of the Stones, rendering their extraordinary powers inert.
The first tragedy of their containment occurred in chilling silence. A squad of blurred guards in dark armor arrived. They did not speak; they merely took Kai's mother by the arm and guided her, with sickening politeness, down a mysterious, dark hallway lined with intricate crystalline containment fields.
Kai and his father were left alone.
The blurred man—Kai's father—let out a choked cry, his massive frame shaking with internal, silent rage. He rushed to the clear glass wall separating them from the hallway and began bashing his head against the transparent material, once, twice, a sound of agonizing, futile rage that couldn't shatter the glass. The anti-Stone necklace saw to that. He collapsed, his breath ragged, the raw fury impossible to contain.
He looked down at young Kai, who had just fainted from a combination of hunger, fear, and the physical stress of being near two powerful, restrained Stones. The father, ignoring his own pain, reached for his chest.
He pulled out a small, shard-like object—a piece of his own clear Stone, visibly merged with a similar, water fragment. In this world, couples often merged their stones using a Fire Stone user, creating a permanent bond: if one piece was alive, the other would glow clearly. He checked the fragment. It glowed clearly, confirming the horrifying reality: his wife was alive. The guards hadn't killed her. Yet.
The memory paused on his grim face, a moment of profound, cold determination.
The world inside Kai's memory exploded.
A massive, dimensional explosion tore through the facility's outer walls, vaporizing large sections of the lab. Alarms blared, red lights flashed, and the enormous, crystal containment machine they had been guarding began to fail, sparking violently. The King's forces had breached the final defense.
A man rushed into the lab—a high-ranking Code member with striking green and purple eyes and wild, disheveled hair, screaming with primal fear.
"EVERYONE QUICKLY! JUMP IN THE PORTAL!" he shouted, pointing toward a shimmering, unstable vortex he had just ripped open in the floor.
Behind him, secured in a shimmering, temporary bubble, were two young, sleeping boys: Soren (Null, with black hair) and Horuto (with yellow hair). The Code scientists had been trying to protect the Prime Stones.
Dozens of blurred scientists and allies rushed into the chaotic, shimmering portal, disappearing instantly. Only Kai (unconscious) and his father remained.
The energy burst from the outer breach grew closer, turning the air sickly green. Aris knew his final stand was here. He scooped up his unconscious son, clutching him tightly.
The Traumatic Farewell
The time for protection was over. Aris turned toward the breach and faced the final, tragic moment. His face was fully unblurred, the scarred, cold visage of the weapon Null was currently fighting, now visible to his son in memory.
He knew he had to save his son's life, even if it meant sacrificing the memories they shared. He was condemning Kai to amnesia.
He threw the boy toward the fading portal, aiming for the dimensional safety on the other side.
"I ARIS!" he screamed, his voice choked with paternal devastation, tearing his own heart out. "I showed you many things! I taught you to write, do math, to cook, to be active! Please don't forget me, my child!"
He added, his voice cracking: "Please, sir, take him! He is safe with you! I can't leave my wife!"
The boy shot into the vortex. The portal was too chaotic, and young Kai's head slammed against the hard, crystallizing lip of the dimensional aperture with a sickening thud, fracturing his consciousness and enforcing the memory loss.
Just as the boy vanished, a second, closer explosion detonated in the hallway where his wife had been taken. The dimensional force collapsed the structure, trapping Aris and sealing his route to his wife.
The memory inside Kai's mind was reaching its final, devastating climax. The entire Code Citadel Laboratory was collapsing under the massive force of the enemy's breach. Aris's scream of anguish over his wife—"FAHHHHHH!"—was still echoing as the hallway she was taken down collapsed in a fresh burst of dimensional fire, trapping him.
The man with the green and purple eyes—the Code scientist responsible for the emergency extraction—looked at the carnage, then at the three young, unconscious assets (Soren, Horuto, and the newly thrown Kai) floating in his temporary bubble. He received a cold, absolute command through his temporal link.
"This is a order! RETURN NOW! The primary assets must be secured!"
The scientist did not look at Aris. He leaped into the fading emergency portal, leaving the King's Blade behind. The portal snapped shut, leaving Aris completely alone, trapped between the wreckage and the encroaching enemy forces.
He was a legendary warrior, but without his Kinetic Control (due to the anti-Stone collar), he was just a man. He fought the advancing shadows for less than a minute before the overwhelming numbers of the King's Guard immobilized him.
The King's Proposition
Aris awoke in absolute darkness. He was stripped bare, strapped tightly to a cold, metal chair. His arms were bound together above his head. His entire being was wracked with pain, shame, and the cold, terrifying knowledge of his failure.
A distant gate slowly hissed open, letting in a blinding, crimson light. Through the gate stepped a figure of lethal grace and horrifying authority: the King of Stone.
The King's presence commanded the very air. He possessed red hair that shimmered like captured flame and an unsettling, absolute beauty that masked cold cruelty. His eyes were a shocking, crystalline pink. Most conspicuously, his right arm was missing—a clean, surgical void at the shoulder, proving he was the true, flawed King.
He walked slowly, stopping directly in front of Aris. He raised his intact left hand and gently tilted Aris's chin up, forcing their eyes to meet.
"Why did you not leave when you had the chance, Aris?" the King asked, his voice smooth and utterly devoid of emotion.
Aris replied in a hoarse, weak whisper. "To go get my wife. To find a way to get out of this place. We were only... an experiment."
The King of Stone smiled, a terrifyingly sharp expression. He lowered his hand and stepped back.
"How about this," the King proposed, his voice suddenly resonating with immense authority. "I will let your wife and your son—the small one, Kai—be free. They will be able to get out of this dimension, out of this kingdom. You said you were just an experiment? Fine. I will honor that. They will be free of the Code."
Aris, broken and defeated, sobbed. He could not fight this force. The idea that his child and wife could live freely, completely outside the horrific cycle of the Code, was the ultimate lifeline. He lifted his head, tears streaming from his eyes, pleading with the monster before him.
"Then please," Aris whispered, his voice trembling, "let me do anything. I don't want nothing to happen to him. Let him be free."
The King of Stone extended his left hand—a formal gesture that demanded submission. "You will continue with the research. You will become my missing arm, my Right Blade, and my Second in Command."
The guards surrounding the room gasped. To be Second in Command—the rank everyone coveted—was to be the King's equal in all but name. To offer it to a low-tier Air Stone user who had just defied him was unheard of.
Aris did not hesitate. The memory of his son's small, determined face, and his wife's trapped silence, was his only guiding star.
"I accept."
Aris reached out, crying uncontrollably, and took the King's hand. In that instant, he accepted the bargain, securing the physical safety of his family and plunging himself directly into the King's control.
The Creation of the Weapon
Hell was immediately on Earth for Aris. He became the King's missing right arm—a tool. He was subjected to brutal, non-stop experimentation, his Kinetic Control power fundamentally twisted and enhanced to serve the King's conceptual will. He was forced to fight and copy the abilities of countless subjects—different people, Elves, and bizarre dimensional creatures—until his own original essence was almost extinguished.
During this horrific transformation, he was made to forget. The King surgically removed the sentimental attachments that threatened Aris's perfect discipline. He became blind(58%] in his left eye—a physical mark of the broken part of his soul—and he entirely forgot the existence of his wife and, most crucially, his son, Kai. Aris became nothing more than the perfect, lethal embodiment of Order.
He was a broken man who expected to die at 50 from the sheer physical strain of the borrowed, chaotic power raging within his enhanced body.
He fought the original Soren (Null) before his memory loss—an impossible fight that ended with soren losing everything. And now, years later, he was fighting the new, far stronger Null (Soren's reincarnation), locked in a high-speed, catastrophic duel across continents.
The sheer impact of their power clashes was immense, a shockwave that tore through reality itself, causing them to fly thousands of miles in seconds—one minute in the USA, the next second at the shores of Japan.
The Reality of Grief
On the broken bridge, Kai's body was no longer just convulsing. He had witnessed his father's entire, agonizing journey—the pure love, the forced choice, the ultimate, tear-soaked sacrifice that created the monster.
His tears were no longer streaming; they were falling hard, loud, painful sobs that wracked his entire frame. He looked up at the sky where the battle raged, seeing not a villain, but a tragic prisoner fulfilling an order that had cost him everything. The weight of his father's forgotten love crushed him.
End of chapter 53
See you later