As Vaelin disappeared into the night, Korrin wondered where it had all gone wrong. Why was the village being invaded? Why was Vaelin acting so strangely? Had he truly been the cause of his sister’s death? Yes. He had. If only—

  In the distance, another explosion echoed. There was no more time to ponder on Vaelin’s words. They had to move before they were caught in the crossfire of battle.

  “Father, mother, Rikka. Quick, gather—”

  But before he could finish, the walls of the house exploded, sending the family flying. For a moment, Korrin thought the world had gone black. By the time he regained consciousness, he found his legs buried beneath the rubble, unable to move from his spot. Some distance away, he could hear his father’s grunts and his mother’s moans. Rikka’s position was unknown.

  “Shadryl, there appear to be three survivors.”

  “Tsk, these iron kin sure are tough.”

  From beyond the rubble, two figures emerged, both clad in silksteel armor and obsidian plates. A simple symbol of a glowing moon was engraved into their shoulder pads. The one who appeared to be named Shadryl pointed at Korrin and said, “I’ll leave cleanup to you. I’ve done enough for today.”

  Before Shadryl could take another step, both of Korrin’s parents burst through the rubble, bloodied but standing. Korrin’s father had already activated his ability, his tan skin now with a metallic glint, and Korrin assumed his mother’s ability had allowed her to weave through the collapsing house as well.

  In his mother’s hand, a cooking knife glowed faintly. It was nothing like Vaelin’s power, but it would have to do. Meanwhile, his father wielded no such weapon, opting to employ his iron hand instead. Looking at these two figures, Shadryl could only groan.

  “Run, son. We’ll hold them as long as we can.”

  “Korry, if we don’t make it out of this, I want you to know, we—”

  “This is why I hate iron kin. Even first-tier worms think they can fight.”

  Before Korrin could even process Shadryl’s words, both men were suddenly behind his parents, their blades coated in metallic red blood. His parents went still, their silhouettes staggering. Slowly, the heads of his parents rolled off their necks, blood splashing across the rubble near Korrin’s face.

  “MOTHER! FATHER!”

  With a guttural scream, Korrin dug his hands into the dirt, attempting to pull his way out of the rubble. Alas, his feeble arms failed to dislodge his legs from the debris. Tears began to flood from his eyes as he stared helplessly at the corpses of his parents, struggling to choke back sobs.

  “Last one.”

  But before Shadryl could strike the sobbing Korrin, he swiftly ducked away from an incoming sword. Stumbling into view, Rikka planted herself between the soldiers and Korrin, bleeding and shaking, but determined to make a stand.

  “Interesting, this one’s got a little skill. Borderline resonance!”

  “Let’s not mess around, Shadryl. We have a job to do.”

  “You’re never any fun, Sulinir.” Exhaling a sigh, he gazed at Rikka and gave her a warm smile. “Sorry, I’ll have to finish this quickly.”

  Shadryl didn’t wait for a reply. He immediately moved with flowing grace toward Rikka, making no sound as he closed the distance. His obsidian blade was a sliver of darkness that seemed to swallow the ambient light of the burning village.

  Rikka’s response was a desperate Blade Dance. Even with her body battered and bleeding, she channeled mana into her weapon, forcing the steel to accelerate. The blades met with a high-pitched ring, sparks of silver flying between them.

  “Give up,” Shadryl sneered, his movements becoming a blur. He feinted high, then drove a shadow-laced kick into Rikka’s ribs.

  Rikka spun away, her boots skidding in the dirt. As she stabilized, something shifted. Her eyes, usually a warm copper, suddenly ignited with a brilliant silver flame, a sign of Conduit Ignition. She had achieved resonance.

  “Amazing,” Sulinir remarked from the sidelines, his luminescent eyes narrowing. “She’s crossing the threshold.”

  Rikka suddenly lunged forward with an explosive burst of speed that surprised Shadryl, but only for a second. He quickly countered her sword strike and parried, causing Rikka to stumble backwards. As Shadryl steadied his sword, preparing to defend another of Rikka’s strikes, something strange happened.

  Rikka suddenly flinched. Her gaze lost its focus, almost as if drifting in and out of consciousness. Collapsing to the ground, she covered her ears and began to scream.

  “No! Get out! Get out of my head!” Rikka yelled, her voice cracking horrifically as she clawed at her face. As she began convulsing on the ground, she gagged viciously, vomiting in the process.

  Shadryl could only stand stunned before a vicious chuckle emerged from his mouth.

  “I can’t believe her luck! Divine feedback in the middle of a fight? Did she offend the gods or something?!”

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  Wiping his laughter-induced tears, Shadryl walked over to the suffering Rikka, raising his sword over her head.

  “Let me put you out of your misery.”

  As Korrin stared from afar, tears still pouring from his eyes, he watched as the soldier prepared to strike Rikka’s neck.

  Helplessness. Futility. Those were the emotions he felt in this moment. These were the only feelings he had felt all his life.

  But buried deep in his body, he knew other emotions lay as well. Rage. Hate. Vengeance. These were the emotions he had suppressed. And now they were ready to boil over.

  For the first time, Korrin felt something pulsating in his chest, something other than his heart. Whatever it was, his emotions fed it, driving the pulse faster. Why was he just noticing it now? Whatever it was, his emotions seemed attracted to it, fueling it and causing it to beat faster.

  Then a realization hit him. What he felt now filled the emptiness that kept him hollow his whole life. Even if the power was temporary, he had it now. He had a soul.

  At first, he tried to pull away from the overwhelming feeling. But the image of Rikka screaming on the ground tore through him, and something inside finally broke.

  On the outside, Shadryl seemed to notice a change in Korrin’s demeanor. But he realized too late. Suddenly, Korrin lifted his arm, golden runes circling around his fingertips. Opening his eyes, golden flames enveloped his pupils, hot tears streaming down Korrin’s face.

  Unlike everything he had been taught, the power didn’t come from outside. It surged up from inside his chest, hot and violent, flooding his limbs. Words he didn’t understand clawed their way into his mind. With audible rage, he screamed them aloud as golden light tore from his fingertips.

  “Mn?r?l ?lxion!”

  “Shit, Sulinir, run—”

  But before they could react, a beam of golden runes shot from Korrin’s arm and enveloped the area in a blinding light, almost as if the sun had fallen. Then with a flicker, the light disappeared, returning the night to its shadowy embrace.

  “Damn, I thought we were done for.”

  In the wreckage of a ruined house, Shadryl and Sulinir stood, rubbing their eyes from the prior flash.

  “Who knew that brat was a caster, at least tier-three,” Shadryl said curiously as he sheathed his sword, gazing at the bodies of Korrin and Rikka. However, their battered figures had changed since the flash. Both Korrin and Rikka now had metallic crystals growing from every pore in their body, almost as if transforming into ore themselves.

  “Complete mana burn crystallization. I guess their bodies couldn’t handle the power.”

  “Shadryl, should we report on these two? The magic the boy used was unusual; I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Too much paperwork. They’re dead anyway, no need to investigate this further.”

  “Very well.”

  With those last words, the eyes of both soldiers flickered with a pure black flame, their bodies slowly sinking into the shadows. Finally, the village stood silent with only the crackling of fire and the collapsing of buildings reverberating throughout the night.

  Korrin woke in the early morning, the crystals on both his and Rikka’s bodies slowly fading away into golden sparks as he did. A splitting headache throbbed in his head as he freed himself from the rubble. The powerful feeling that had pulsated in his chest the night before was long gone, leaving him hollow once more.

  Limping over to Rikka’s lifeless body, a distraught expression lingered on his face as he put his ear to her chest. Luckily, Rikka’s heart beat steadily, her chest rising and falling with the morning breeze. A sense of relief instantly washed over his weary face.

  However, this feeling disappeared the moment he turned his head to face the bodies of his parents, their heads resting in a dark pool of dried blood. He limped over to them, his hands shaking as he attempted to grab their faces. But he couldn’t. The moment he stared into their blank eyes, a feeling of nausea infiltrated his mind, causing him to turn his head and vomit.

  Wiping his mouth, his eyes began to sting. He wondered if his parents would have wanted him to cry or if they would want him to hold his head high with dignity and honor. Was he a good son? He would never know. At least this one time, he wondered if they would forgive his weakness.

  And so tears poured from his face, their droplets splashing onto the bodiless heads of his parents. He didn’t know how long he cried, how long he sobbed and choked. He was only awoken from his despair as his stomach rumbled, reminding him of the need for food.

  Wiping the last of his tears, he slowly made his way to the village storehouse, where he knew emergency rations hid. As he walked past the disheveled paths and ruined structure of the village, many houses charred or still ablaze, he saw many familiar faces scattered beneath the rubble. Many had attempted to fight back as well, swords still tightly gripped in their bloodied hands.

  Yet it was all futile. Whatever had stormed through the village had left almost no survivors. Mothers with slit throats. Fathers with impaled chests. Children cleaved in half. That was all that remained of the inhabitants.

  Reaching the storehouse, he looked across the central plaza to the stone platform on which he had received adulthood just a few weeks before. Kneeling in the center, surrounded by the many columns that rose from the stone base, was the brutalized body of Haldrek, his hulking frame impaled by numerous swords.

  Surrounding him were countless soldiers and villagers, their bodies coated with severe wounds and gashes as well. Korrin’s eyes surveyed the square for Vaelin’s body but didn’t find it. With so many corpses, maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. However, Korrin had little energy to care and instead grabbed rations from the wrecked storehouse and returned to his home.

  In the distance, clouds roared with thunder, their dark figures bloating out the sun as they crawled through the sky. Korrin swiftly built a makeshift shelter with the debris, covering Rikka’s unconscious body with tattered cloth. It was not long before a cold rain showered the decaying village, extinguishing the dwindling fires.

  Korrin had done well to protect Rikka, but that left him little time to prepare himself, leaving him exposed to the harsh elements. As he fell asleep, shivering in the rain, he could only curse at the sky and the gods residing within it.

  Dreams of fire. Dreams of slaughter. Violent visions swarmed Korrin’s head throughout the night as he slept shivering in the cold rain. At the end of the dreams, Korrin saw a vision of a boy whose family lay slaughtered before him, the boy’s eyes devoid of emotion. Instead of crying, the boy simply flicked his glowing fingers, the bodies of his parents disappearing as living ones shifted into reality.

  An echo reverberated through his head in a language he shouldn’t have understood, yet felt strangely familiar. It spoke: “Mn?r?l ?lxion—v?il thren veráth.”

  Or as Korrin understood it: “Minor Illusion—veil the truth of form.”

  A sharp pain flared in his side. Then cold fingers brushed his arm.

  “…orrin! Korrin! Oh, thank goodness you’re awake! Come on—up. If you’re going to bleed out, at least do it someplace less filthy.”

  It was the merchant.