Chapter 26
The silence of Calvenne's underbelly was anything but peaceful.
Far from the crowded plazas and the whispers above, the underground reeked of damp and rot, its narrow corridors echoing faintly, as if the stone itself whispered the secrets of the dead.
It was there that Kael had taken refuge.
Not in a palace of schemes, not atop a tower… but in a forgotten corner, a collapsed old warehouse that even rats seemed to shun.
A Body in Ruin
Sitting against a cold wall, he pressed a hand to his side. The makeshift bandage he had tied was already soaked through with dried blood.
His breathing rasped, every inhale a stabbing pain across his ribs.
His eyes still burned with power, but his body was little more than dead weight.
He knew it.
Infinite mana, caged in a fragile prison.
When he tried to stand, his legs trembled.
Power surged in his mind, ready to flood outward, but his muscles quivered like those of an old man at death's door.
It was a cruel sensation—like an endless sea trapped in a shattered vessel.
A bitter laugh escaped him, echoing faintly in the dark.
"What irony…" he murmured.
"Limitless power… inside a body too weak to hold it."
The Shadow of Doubt
Memories of the inn returned in painful flashes: the old mage piercing his illusion, blades ripping through his defenses, Selene absent, silent, already gone to another fate.
He closed his eyes, swallowing the bitterness.
No—he had no right to falter.
The world had no use for a broken Kael, bleeding out in the dark.
But for the first time in a long while, a thought struck him like a knife:
What if this weakness condemns me to fail?
Doubt—an enemy he had always turned against others—now gnawed at him from within.
First Attempts
So he tried.
He focused, guiding his mana not outward—no illusions, no traps, no invisible walls—but inward, into himself.
Heat surged through him, blistering, consuming.
His muscles swelled slightly, his veins throbbed with violent pressure.
For a fleeting heartbeat, he felt raw strength flood his body.
But then his body cracked under the strain.
A spasm folded him in half, blood spilling from his lips.
He collapsed to the ground, shivering like a carcass ready to come apart.
The mana had obeyed.
But his body had refused.
Waiting in the Shadows
He lay there for a long while, eyes fixed on the damp stone arches above him.
The cold seeped into his bones, but he ignored it.
In his mind, failure was only a step.
He had already learned one truth:
yes, his body was weak—but it could be forced, reshaped, bent until it adapted.
And in the rancid solitude of these ruins, Kael swore to himself:
"I will break my limits. Even if I have to break myself."
The City's Murmurs
Above him, Calvenne rumbled.
From the tunnels, he sometimes caught the echoes of rumors drifting down:
"They say he's wounded…"
"Some claim he's already dead…"
"Selene vanished with some of his belongings…"
Kael listened, but did not stir.
Let them think him finished. Let them celebrate his fall.
It only set the stage.
Because in the darkness, where no one looked, a fractured shadow was slowly reforging itself.