The air was a heavy, sickening mix of burnt flesh, hot blood, and clinging smoke. Under the red glow of ongoing fires, the aftermath of a "battle" lay sprawled across the land, a chilling epitaph to the Shadow Clan. It hadn't been a clash of equals, nor a fierce engagement between rivals. It was a massacre, delivered by the True Fire Clan.
They called it justice. They always had.
The Shadow Clan had been crippled by a calamity that nearly halved their numbers, an event they had desperately insisted was a natural disaster. In truth, it was the catastrophic result of forbidden jide arts, practiced in secret. These destructive arts were banned by the Covenant of Origins, a sacred and ancient law agreed upon by every founding clan to preserve the world's balance.
The True Fire Clan's attack went unchallenged. The other clans knew the Covenant had been violated, and they offered no defense. The Shadow Clan's fate was sealed by ancient decree and their own fractured state, turning the conflict into a slaughter. For generations, the True Fire Clan had served as the world's cold, unflinching executioners, and they performed their duty now with ruthless finality.
In the end, they left no adult threat standing: any shadowmancer over the age of eighteen was slaughtered. The rest were driven from their ancestral Stronghold into the wilderness, cast out to survive among jide beasts, savage, untamed creatures born of wild jide surges, possessing jide powers but no reason.
Since that day, the spared youth of the Shadow Clan became outcasts, scattered across the outskirts of Amnar. Their name faded into whispers. Their legacy, into ash.
FIVE YEARS LATER
BOOM!
The earth shuddered as Kael was sent flying, crashing back-first into a massive, ancient tree. Though the sun was bright, the towering canopy of the forest in the dangerous outermost regions of Amnar the Land of Clans cast the surroundings in deep shadow. This forest, dominated by jide beasts, was where two exhausted outcasts now fought for their lives.
"Kael!" Malachi roared, his voice laced with pure fury at the beast that had just blasted his companion.
He launched himself toward the four-meter-tall, ape-like creature, an Iron Ape. His dagger was raised, its blade still slick with the blood of the three beasts they'd encountered that morning. Malachi covered the distance in a flash. But the beast, despite its size, was fast. It hurled a colossal fist, nearly half of Malachi's size, straight toward him.
Crushed, it would seem. There was no time to dodge.
Just as the blow was about to connect, Malachi seemed to be violently swallowed by his own shadow, disappearing entirely. The Iron Ape staggered, thrown off-balance by its own momentum. A moment later, Malachi shot out from the shadow pooled behind the beast. He landed directly on its back, burying his dagger deep into the side of its neck. A burst of sharp, dark energy, a concentrated wave of his shadowmancy, exploded from the dagger, slicing through the massive neck. The ape's huge head was instantly severed from its body.
Malachi vaulted off the ape's back as its enormous corpse swayed and crashed to the ground. He spun around and found Kael leaning against the tree, bleeding from his nose and the corners of his mouth. Yet a proud smile cracked across his face.
Malachi rushed to him, his eyes wide with concern. "Are you okay?"
Kael ignored the question, ruffling his long black hair that touched his shoulders. "How old are you now… fourteen?" He coughed. "And you already have such mastery of your jide. I'm jealous, kid."
Malachi gently brushed off Kael's hand and turned away with an arrogant posture. "I'm not a kid anymore."
Kael's smile widened. "You would have been praised by our clan elders if…" He trailed off, and his smile faded. The memories were always lurking just beneath the surface, the screams, the flames, the faces of those who never made it out. He sighed, the weight of five years pressing down on him all at once.
Malachi's countenance underwent a drastic change. His jaw tightened, his fists clenched with fresh, teary rage.
Kael placed a hand on his shoulder. "We should go. The ape's blood will draw more beasts to us quickly, and I'm out of essence. I can't fight anymore."
They supported each other, moving quickly until they stopped a few hundred meters away beneath a patch of dense shade. Kael sat under a huge tree to regain his essence while Malachi stood watch, his back rigid with tension.
After a few hours, Kael opened his eyes. He looked better than before, though his injuries had only partially healed. The essence that flowed through their veins could mend wounds, but it was slow work when reserves ran dry.
"Your turn," Malachi's voice sounded from behind. "I want to take a nap. You're the older one. You're supposed to be watching out for me, not the other way around." He let out a yawn.
"No, we need to cover a bit more distance before the sun sets," Kael said, getting to his feet. "The beasts grow more active at dusk."
"Whatever. Do you think we're close to The Great Divide?" Malachi asked, following alongside him.
Kael pulled a small, blood-stained book from his pocket and looked at it with longing before sighing. "I don't know. We could be, but we can't let our guard down just yet. This book doesn't show a map, but it does say the beasts get stronger the closer we are to the boundary." He tucked it away carefully. "All we have to do is keep walking away from Amnar, and we know we're on the right path. Once we cross The Great Divide and reach Vorash, we'll be safe. We can finally stop running."
Malachi's eyes brightened slightly at the mention of their destination. Vorash had become more than just a place in their minds over the past five years. It was hope itself. A sanctuary beyond the reach of the True Fire Clan, a land where other outcasts had supposedly gathered. A place where they could finally live as more than hunted animals.
Kael suddenly paused, and a frown settled on his face.
"What's wrong?" Malachi inquired, noticing the shift in his companion's demeanor.
"I realized that we haven't met a single beast since our encounter with the iron ape." Kael's voice lowered, his eyes scanning the darkening forest ahead. "And just now, I felt something. An extreme sense of danger, but only for a brief moment. It's gone now, like whatever it was doesn't see us as a threat. Or…" He swallowed hard. "Or it's simply biding its time."
"Or what?" Malachi pressed.
"I fear we've entered the territory of something extraordinarily powerful."
"Rooooarrrrr!!!!"
Before Kael could elaborate, a great roar erupted from behind the thick vegetation in front of them. The sound was nothing like the Iron Ape's cry. It was deeper, more primal, carrying a weight that made the very air tremble. Even the distant jide beasts hidden throughout the forest seemed to fall silent at its call.
Malachi's hand instinctively moved to his dagger. "Please tell me that's not—"
"Run," Kael whispered, already pulling Malachi backward. "We run. Now."
They bolted through the forest, their feet pounding against the earth as branches whipped past them. Behind them, the sound of splintering wood and crashing trees grew louder. The creature was pursuing, and it was fast. Too fast.
"It's catching up!" Malachi gasped, glancing over his shoulder.
Through the trees, Kael caught a glimpse of it: a towering, humanoid figure wreathed in a sickly aura. Its movements were graceful, almost ethereal, despite its massive frame. Then, without warning, invisible force slammed into them both like a tidal wave. Telekinesis.
They were hurled sideways, crashing through undergrowth. Malachi struck a tree hard, the wind knocked from his lungs. Kael rolled to his feet, his eyes wide with realization. The creature wasn't just chasing them. It was toying with them, using its power to control space itself.
"Get up!" Kael pulled Malachi to his feet, but the creature descended from above, dropping down with terrifying speed. Its humanoid shape became clearer, something between man and predator, with eyes that burned with an intelligence that shouldn't exist in a jide beast.
Another wave of telekinetic force compressed around them, tightening like an invisible fist. Kael felt his ribs strain, felt the pressure increasing. This was it. There was nowhere left to run.
"Malachi," Kael said, his voice steady despite the crushing weight around them.
He raised his hand, and darkness erupted from him like a tidal wave. The world around them collapsed into absolute black, and the temperature plummeted so violently that the air itself seemed to shatter. Ice formed instantly, crystallizing everything in a fifty-meter sphere around him. The creature froze mid-motion, its body encased in glacial death.
For three eternal seconds, there was nothing but darkness and cold and silence.
Then the light rushed back.
But something was wrong.
Through the edges of the dissipating darkness, Kael saw it: a faint glow of light still clinging to the creature's form. The beast's eyes still burned, fighting against the domain's absolute darkness. It was resisting.
Kael's breath came in ragged gasps. His essence was already drained to nothing, but the creature was still moving, still conscious, still fighting within the frozen vacuum. It wasn't enough. He wasn't strong enough.
There was only one choice left.
"I never imagined my first time using my domain would also be my last," Kael whispered.
He reached into his pocket with shaking hands and pulled out the small, blood-stained book. He pressed it into Malachi's hands.
"Kael, what are you—"
"Get to Vorash. Don't stop. Don't look back." Kael's eyes met his, filled with a sorrowful finality. "I can't protect you from it this time."
Before Malachi could respond, Kael's foot connected with his chest, sending him flying backward out of range. Malachi hit the ground hard, gasping, just as Kael thrust his hand forward.
The sphere of darkness reformed, but this time, a faint greenish-gold hue tainted the black. His life force burned like wildfire, pouring out of him in waves, making the domain exponentially more powerful. The darkness became absolute, suffocating, inescapable. The cold intensified beyond comprehension.
The creature's resistance crumbled instantly.
Within the sphere, annihilation reigned. The ancient trees that had stood for centuries were flash-frozen in an instant, their bark cracking and splitting as moisture crystallized violently within. The earth itself groaned, the soil and stone beneath Kael's feet turning white with frost so deep it reached bedrock. Smaller creatures caught within, insects, rodents, a bird mid-flight, became brittle sculptures of ice, suspended in their final moments. The air itself seemed to solidify, tiny crystals forming and hanging motionless in the absolute stillness. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Nothing lived.
Then the light rushed back, and the vacuum collapsed.
The devastation was instantaneous. Every frozen thing within the fifty-meter sphere exploded. The trees didn't fall. They burst, showering the forest floor with razor-sharp splinters of frozen wood. The ground cracked and heaved as ice-locked stone fractured into countless pieces. The creature's massive form, encased in glacial death, detonated into a thousand glittering shards that scattered like crystalline snow. The sound was deafening, a chorus of snapping, cracking, and shattering that echoed through the forest like thunder.
When silence finally returned, nothing remained but a perfect circle of devastation. Where towering trees had stood moments before, only jagged stumps and frozen debris remained. At the center of the destruction, Kael collapsed to his knees, his body wracked with tremors. His skin had taken on a pallid, lifeless hue. Every breath was shallow, struggling.
Malachi scrambled to his feet, clutching the book, his eyes wide with horror. Now he understood why Kael had kicked him away. The domain spared nothing. Had he remained within its range...
"Kael!" He rushed toward him but stopped at the edge of the frozen circle, afraid to step onto the shattered ground.
"Go," Kael breathed, his voice barely a whisper. "Live."
Kael's eyes closed, and his body went still, cradled in the crystalline remnants of his own domain.
Malachi stood frozen for a long moment, tears streaming down his face, the book clutched tightly in his trembling hands. The weight of it, the weight of survival, of being left behind, crashed down on him like an avalanche.
But Kael's final command echoed in his mind. With one last, anguished look at his companion's lifeless form, Malachi turned and ran. He ran toward Vorash. He ran toward the future Kael had bought for him with his own life.
He didn't look back.