Shin woke at 4:00 a.m.
No alarm. No hesitation. His eyes opened as if on cue, and within seconds, he was already moving—brushing teeth, hydrating, stretching, breathing.
It had become routine. Not out of discipline, but necessity.
Wind stopped responding months ago—not in silence, but in stagnation. Shin had hit a ceiling. His compatibility stayed frozen at the same point regardless of how much divine energy he refined. No matter how precisely he inhaled and directed it, Wind remained still at just over fifty percent.
A bottleneck.
But that didn't mean he was idle.
Each morning for the last three months, Shin had trained without fail—absorbing divine energy from the atmosphere, compressing it within his meridians, refining it like diamond dust in his blood. His body had changed in more ways than one. The difference wasn't visible at a glance—but beneath the surface, everything had sharpened.
He could see clearly at distances that once blurred. A mosquito on a billboard twenty meters away no longer escaped notice. He could hear the stress in steel pipes as water pressure shifted through them. His strength, already abnormal, had reached the point where a casual grip once bent a metal rail in his shower.
It was not so much about improving as it was about transcending his own limits. Every day, the distance between him and a normal human grew further apart.
This morning, however, was not for training.
It was for testing.
Shin dressed in dark runners, a windbreaker, and a light pack. He left the apartment without drawing attention and caught an early train south to Leiden. He then transferred to a regional bus that took him to the outskirts of a quiet village that barely had a name. From there, he walked through a brief detour off a crumbling sidewalk, past an old sign swallowed by weeds, and into a forgotten stretch of road that led to an empty bypass near the highway.
It was early enough that no one would be watching—no pedestrians, no parked cars, just open asphalt.
Perfect.
He pulled a modified cycling speedometer from his pocket—retooled to measure up to 200 km/h—and calibrated it himself. He wanted to ensure the results were accurate, but more importantly, no off-the-shelf product was designed for this.
He set it and let it sync as he considered putting on earphones. Unfortunately, he realized he couldn't be confident to keep them safe and ended up putting them back in his pack, which he hid behind a small bush. He would return to pick them up later.
He stretched. Light warmup, just enough to wake up his muscles. Then, he ran.
No powers. No divine assistance.
Just Shin—body alone.
40 km/h.
50.
His strides were sharp, surgical even. His feet struck rhythmically against the asphalt with no wasted motion. He looked at the speedometer:
60 km/h.
70.
The wind didn't resist him. Instead, it moved around him, almost dancing in his wake. Was it he making it do that? Or did the wind react like this on its own? He was no longer sure.
80
86, 88—
His lips parted.
A sound slipped out—part breath, part disbelieving laugh.
Even without Wind or Lightning, he was already running at near-car speed. A living machine sculpted by weeks of energy purification, kinetic adaptation, and raw mental discipline. His raw body had now surpassed all human limits. He was faster than most vehicles on a city street—and he had barely begun.
Time to push further.
He inhaled once.
The air stirred—and then rushed to meet him.
Wind curled beneath his heels, behind his shoulders, threading through his pulse. It didn't push—it danced. It invited.
Shin accelerated.
93…
101…
109 km/h.
The road blurred. He moved past the village edge and onto the open highway. A few early cars blinked past him—their drivers oblivious to the streak of wind that had passed them.
He leaned forward and let his entire frame commit. Wind folded over his shoulders like wings. Leaves spun in his wake.
115…
118…
121—
His heart pounded now, not from exhaustion, but from thrill. His lungs burned sharp and clean, each breath a knife of clarity.
Still not enough.
He summoned Lightning, and the world gasped.
A crackle of pressure pulsed through his body. His veins lit with internal sparks—not visible, but electric enough to hum beneath the skin.
And then—he surged.
It wasn't running anymore. Not entirely. His steps no longer depended on friction or momentum. They skimmed. Bounced. Skipped across the world like stones over water.
He gasped. The wind was no longer wind. It had shape. Presence. It passed through his lungs like a living thing.
"Well," he managed, coughing, "that's probably fine."
The speedometer flickered—
149 km/h.
Then, it started glitching. 149.7… 149.8… the screen froze.
It had stopped tracking.
"Figures," Shin muttered under his breath, still accelerating.
He glanced at a passing car's side mirror.
There was no reflection.
Wind had taught him long ago how to distort airflow, bend light, and redirect heat signatures, but combined with this speed? He was a phantom. Even cameras couldn't frame him. Even light had to guess where he was.
And light, it seemed, couldn't catch him now.
He smirked, breath jagged.
"Just one last thing to check." He took a deep breath—
And everything slowed down. Or rather, he had become so fast that the world could no longer keep up.
And in that moment, he transformed.
His eyes shifted first, turning to glinting silver, not glowing—but impossibly clear. Hair that had been a muted ash darkened into deep raven-black, lengthening slightly as it spilled just past his shoulders.
The change wasn't violent. It unfolded like a breath taken in reverse—graceful, proud, absolute.
His clothing shimmered and then reformed. A long outer coat of white and silver was layered over a fitted black under-tunic adorned with quiet gold patterns—not decoration but declaration. Ornamental chains and clasps settled against his chest with geometric precision.
It wasn't armor, at least not in the traditional sense. But in this form, he didn't need armor.
This was the form he reserved for motion beyond meaning. It was for when the world needed to be surpassed, not just challenged.
A lesson he learned the hard way: the first time he triggered it intentionally, he was still in his apartment.
Not his smartest idea.
But he'd been curious, of course. Who wouldn't be? The transformation wasn't just visual—it came with pressure. Power. Presence. He wanted to understand how it worked, how long it could last, and what exactly it could do.
So he practiced.
He went through it countless times. The theory was sound enough. His body had already adapted to the high levels of divine energy; all he needed was to test activation thresholds and observe stability.
Simple. Controlled. Minimal risk.
In his head.
So he sat on the floor, closed his eyes, and whispered: "Now."
The result nearly evicted him.
The sword had manifested automatically. The air condensed so violently that three lightbulbs popped in unison. His landlord, who lived a floor below, knocked on the door minutes later claiming he "heard an explosion and smelled ozone."
Shin had answered in a bathrobe with half the power still active. The poor man took one look at him and mumbled something about incense before apologizing and backing away.
After that, Shin never tested it at home again.
He glanced at the speedometer again. It was static—locked at 200 km/h—possibly higher. There was no way to tell.
He blurred through a final curve and then turned sharply off the highway, passing a rusted fence and skidding into an abandoned riverside park. Dust kicked up around his feet as he decelerated, his breath heaving not from fatigue but from exhilaration.
He stood still momentarily, hands on his knees, letting the air cool around him.
Then straightened—slow, quiet—and looked into the warped mirror mounted to the rusted post nearby.
A man with storm-colored eyes stared back. Hair black as midnight, falling just past his shoulders. His presence didn't feel human—not exactly.
This was the version of him the world wasn't meant to meet. The shape taken when limits weren't just broken—they were discarded, as he now existed beyond the vocabulary of men.
He wasn't sure when the changes had begun. The longer hair, the sharper lines, and the way light clung to his frame were different now. Ever since he began seriously refining divine energy, his reflection had grown distant—familiar, yet elevated. Like a sketch slowly turning into a sculpture. And the more divine energy he drew in, the more complete that sculpture became.
The silence here was different. Not empty—just indifferent. Like the rusted signs and cracked pavement had seen too much to bother reacting anymore.
This place didn't ask questions. It didn't ask what he was now, or what he was becoming.
He wondered—if someone saw him like this, truly saw him—what would they think?
Bow? Run?
Laugh?
Somewhere in the distance, a crow shrieked once and then fell silent. Ha. Shin smiled. Even nature seemed to know when to shut up.
There was something about abandoned places. They didn't judge. They didn't stare. They just accepted.
A good match, really. He found that refreshing.
He could still remember who he'd been—kind of. A student. A brother. A sarcastic, quietly tired version of a person who hadn't yet touched the light.
That guy once failed a physics lab because he forgot to plug in the circuit.
And now the same man could short out an entire grid with a sneeze.
Was this what losing humanity felt like?
Not pain. Just… a quiet reduction.
A soft scrape at the edges of self, until even the shape faded?
He stared at his reflection—storm-eyed, black-haired, perfect lines etched where softness used to be.
It looked like him.
But was it?
A god was taking shape where a boy used to stand. And he let it happen.
He turned toward the highway—toward the signs and lights and careful human logic stretched over a world that no longer fit inside it.
That version of reality was cracking. Quietly, but irreversibly.
Since he wasn't the only crack.
Sooner or later, others would surface. Some louder. Some worse.
The world where money and nations ruled was already fading. This new era belonged to monsters and gods.
And he wasn't going to stop.
Whatever was lost—whatever he became—he would rise. He would climb higher and higher, until he uncovered everything:
The Elementals.
The Spider.
The Stag.
The source of this power.
He would reach the very edge of resonance. And then—only then—decide what it was worth.
He stared at his reflection again, just long enough to catch the flicker of movement behind his eyes.
Then looked away and went home.