Tian's room was cut into the stone like an afterthought. No bed, no lanterns, just a mat on the floor and a narrow slot where dry rations slid in each morning.

The air stank of sweat and cold iron.

He sat against the wall with his knees drawn up, breathing slow. Not in meditation. Just trying to stop his bones from shaking. The trembling wasn't from fear. It came from something deeper. Something starting to wake.

He remembered what Rohen had said during their last drill.

You fight like someone trying not to feel.

Tian looked at his hands. No glow. No glyphs. Just skin. But something had moved beneath it when he faced that last blade. A flicker. A throb.

He didn't reach for it. Not yet.

Trial Blades didn't wait for anyone.

The next morning, the bell rang twice. Combat rotation. No weapons. No breaks.

The fighters lined up in the sand pit. Rohen stood above them, arms crossed.

"Pairs. Rotate every hit. No repeating forms. If I see a copy, you run until your heart gives up."

Tian stepped forward.

His first opponent fought with a spear. Fast hands, tight stance. Tian closed the gap, broke the flow, redirected the strike. No effort wasted.

Second was a brute. Fists like boulders. His skin had turned to stone.

Tian didn't block. He moved. Let the blows pass, then tapped pressure points and pivoted before the counter came.

Third. Fourth. Fifth.

He adjusted every time. Changed rhythm. Matched breath. Every rotation burned his muscles deeper.

By the tenth round, his left knee had taken a clean shot. Blood ran along his shin. Still, he stood.

Rohen called a halt.

Most dropped to the ground.

Tian didn't.

Rohen tossed him a cold stone. "Outer Ring patrol. You're assigned now. If anything climbs the ridge, you'll be the first to die."

Tian nodded. "What do I do until then?"

"Bleed smarter."

★★★

That night, he sat at the pit's edge, wrapping his knee. The bruises on his arms had darkened. His ribs felt like cracked glass.

He leaned back.

The stone behind him felt warm.

A faint flicker crossed his arm.

He looked down. Something orange pulsed under his skin. Not fire. Not power. A thread.

It blinked once, then disappeared.

He didn't move. He didn't chase it.

But he remembered.

★★★

Two days later, Tian stood at the edge of the Lower Scar. A rift behind the city, wide as a canyon and twice as deep. No one went in. Nothing came out—unless it meant to kill.

The wind scraped across the ridge, pulling dust behind it. Something old waited below.

A presence.

"Looking for something?" a voice asked.

He turned.

A girl leaned against a black stone. Short hair, worn armor, a burn mark where her badge used to be.

"Veyla," she said. "You've been noticed. Trainers think you're a plant from the north."

"I don't care."

"Good. That's how the dead usually start."

She studied him.

"You felt it. That light. Under your skin."

He said nothing.

She stepped closer.

"If you chase it too fast, it'll burn you from the inside out. That light remembers what you've lost. Not what you want."

She left without waiting for a reply.

Tian watched her vanish into the dust.

Then he looked at his hands again.

Still empty.

Still not quiet.

★★★

He began patrol at dawn.

No partner. No shield.

He moved along the cliffs, boots grinding against loose rock. The air was wrong here. Sometimes too still. Sometimes spinning.

By midday, he reached the five stone markers near the ridge. Old posts. Each carved with a number.

This was the vanish zone.

One line was scratched into the wall beside the fifth post:

If you go forward, you don't come back the same.

He sat beside it.

Waited.

Hours passed.

Then the stone shook.

Not much. Just enough.

He stood. Arms loose. Shoulders relaxed. Breathing steady.

From the canyon, a limb pulled itself free. Not flesh. Not machine. Something between. Its skin shimmered with frozen blue veins.

A creature climbed into view.

Tall. Blind. Silent.

It walked like it remembered where it was.

Tian took one step forward.

The thing moved first.

It lunged.

He dropped, rolled, came up behind it. Struck the leg joint. The sound that came out was wrong.

The creature turned. A limb caught his ribs and threw him sideways.

Pain rang out behind his eyes.

Then something inside him shifted.

His chest lit up.

No flame. No glyph. Just pressure.

He moved again.

His kick landed harder. The ground cracked.

The creature reeled.

Tian followed.

Every step left a faint trail behind him. Not dust. Not sound. Just something echoing.

He struck with both hands.

A ripple passed through the creature's chest.

It fell.

Not dead.

Just finished.

Tian exhaled.

Three fighters arrived behind him.

Veyla led them.

She stared at the creature. Then at him.

"You touched the vein," she said.

He didn't answer.

She dropped a cloth bundle at his feet.

"Patch up. Your shift isn't over."

Then she was gone.

Tian looked at the fallen thing. At the broken trail behind him. At the ridge still wrapped in silence.

Something had woken.

And it had answered.

But he still didn't know its name.

The horn sounded twice.

Tian tightened the wraps on his forearms, pulled his cloak over his shoulder, and stepped into the open air. Outer wall rotation. Less training these days. More patrol. More silence.

More fear.

He passed the gate guards without a word. They didn't stop him. Everyone in the lower rings knew his face by now.

The climb took him up a narrow staircase carved into the cliffs. Wind scraped dust across the stone. Old scorch marks lined the walls. Faded blood ran in the cracks between steps. Trial Blades had been rebuilt over centuries. Every layer rested on something that had already died.

At the top, the wall stretched for hundreds of paces. North led to open desert. West to the Scar. He paused at the turn, eyes scanning the ridge where he had fought two days ago.

No one had asked him what happened.

They just logged the kill.

He found Rohen standing near the signal post, leaning against a rusted beam. A long scar ran from his ear to his collar. He smoked a reed pipe and watched the horizon through the smoke.

"Movement in the southern trench," Rohen said without turning. "Something climbed out yesterday. Scout team didn't come back."

Tian stood beside him.

"Anyone sent after them?"

"Three squads. You're not listed."

Tian didn't answer.

"You want the mission?" Rohen asked.

"I want to see what keeps coming."

"That's what I figured."

The sky was cloudless, but something shimmered out past the ridge. Not heat. Not sunlight. A ripple in the air, like glass shifting in a dream.

Rohen exhaled slowly. "You felt it, didn't you?"

Tian gave a small nod.

"It hurts when you ignore it," Rohen said. "Goes quiet when you fight."

Another nod.

"That's the start. You're not climbing the ladder like the others. You're waking something old."

Tian didn't speak.

Rohen tapped ash off the pipe and pointed toward the inner wall. "Until that something wakes all the way, you train. You bleed. And you learn to tell instinct from ego."

He let the pipe fall into the dirt.

"Come on. The instructors want to track your movement again. No combat. Just trace mapping."

Tian followed him down the stairs.

They passed the mess halls, walked through the lower rings, and entered a narrow room shaped like a funnel. Three instructors waited inside. The walls had been scrubbed clean of glyphs. The silver circle in the center was bare except for faint dust lines.

"Walk the line," one said.

Tian stepped in.

"Slower," the man barked.

He moved. Heel to toe. Every shift of weight natural, unforced.

Behind him, the air shimmered.

The instructors leaned forward.

In the dust, faint lines began to glow. Orange spirals. Thin like threads. Barely visible unless you knew what to look for.

"He's not at ignition," one muttered.

"But the spiral pattern's stable."

"Color points to fire memory. Deep core. Central channel."

"Any break signs?"

"None. Pressure's high, but stable. He's holding it down."

Tian stopped.

The room felt colder.

One instructor stepped closer. "When did the first spark appear?"

"I don't know," Tian said.

"Who trained you?"

"No one."

The man narrowed his eyes. "Then this is natural emergence. Dangerous. Rare."

"He's adapting," Rohen said. "Not burning out."

Tian stepped out of the circle.

He didn't ask questions. There were too many already.

On his way out, a younger fighter stood in the hall, watching him. Barely fifteen. Thin frame. Steady eyes.

The boy didn't flinch.

He just whispered, "What are you becoming?"

Tian walked past him without a word.

He didn't have the answer.

But something inside him did.

And it was already awake. Yaah yaha yaha yaha yaha yaha yaha

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