The roar of the crowd was one of Kaelen Dusk's earliest and sharpest memories.
He was thirteen when his parents sold him. The money they got would keep them fed for months, but for Kaelen, it meant chains. Shackled and dragged into the fighting pits of Karness, he learned that day that he was unwanted—that his life was worth less than a loaf of bread.
The pits reeked of blood, sweat, and fear. Boys and men were thrown against beasts or each other, forced to fight while nobles, merchants, and even high and middle-class spectators laughed and cheered from above. Kaelen would have died quickly if not for another boy: Darin.
Darin had been in the pits longer. He was tougher, sharper, and his voice gave Kaelen courage when despair hit. They guarded each other's backs, shared scraps, and endured punishment together. In a place where everyone was alone, they found something rare: friendship.
For a while, Kaelen almost forgot he had been discarded. For a while, he felt like his life had meaning and that he was needed.
—
The day everything changed started like any other. Chains rattled, handlers shouted, and the crowd demanded blood. Then Count Albrecht Veynar appeared, dressed in silks trimmed with gold. His smile was cruel. He watched Kaelen and Darin closely, noticing how they stood like brothers.
"A pair," the noble said loudly. "How touching. Let's see how strong that bond really is."
He pointed at Darin. "You. Fight the beast. If you win, I'll grant you freedom. And perhaps… something more."
The crowd cheered. Kaelen's stomach dropped. He wanted to stop it, but guards shoved Darin into the arena. The gates opened, and a scaled hound lunged forward, poison dripping from its fangs.
The fight was brutal. Darin was clawed and bitten, but he refused to give up. Kaelen clutched the bars until his hands bled, whispering for him to survive. At the last moment, as the scaled hound lunged with its jaws wide, Darin drove his sword straight into its gaping mouth. The blade pierced through the roof of its skull, and the beast convulsed before collapsing lifelessly at his feet. Broken and bleeding, Darin stood victorious.
The noble clapped, laughing. "Excellent. As promised, you are free. And for your special reward…" He paused, enjoying the moment. "A choice. Take your companion into freedom with you—or take enough gold to live rich for the rest of your life."
The arena went silent. Kaelen's chest pounded. His throat burned.
Darin looked at him, torn. Then his eyes hardened. "I'm sorry," he said.
He chose the gold.
Kaelen froze as his only friend walked away, his chains removed, pockets heavy with coins. The noble laughed, and the crowd joined in, mocking the boy left behind. Kaelen felt something inside him snap and go hollow. He was not needed. Not wanted. Not even worth saving.
For weeks, anger consumed him. He fought wildly, hoping for death. But death never came. Instead, as he looked at the nobles and merchants laughing above, something clearer took shape. Darin hadn't been wrong. In this world, freedom belonged only to those with power. Money, strength, status—without them, you were prey.
At that time, Kaelen believed his fate was to be alone, so he kept himself apart, never allowing anyone to get close.
—
Months passed. Just after his sixteenth birthday, something stirred inside him. During a fight, as the crowd screamed, Kaelen felt the world itself move. Mana touched him for the first time, sharp and wild, flowing into his body. His senses sharpened. He smelled blood before it spilled. He heard the beast's heartbeat before it pounced. In that moment, his trait awakened: Predator's Instinct. In this world, people did not need a system to explain their traits or attributes—the knowledge simply imprinted itself into their minds the moment it awakened, as if it had always been there.
He soon realized he was part of the seventy percent who could sense mana. He hid it carefully. New awakeners sold for a lot, but those from bloodlines of mana users fetched true fortunes, since they carried the chance of high talent. Knowing this, Kaelen chose to cultivate in secret. For an entire year, he drew mana into his dantian while training the ability that came with it, until at last he broke into the Initiate Realm.
When his attribute awakened—Hunter's Sense—his perceptions grew sharper than most in Initiate. Every sound, every smell, every movement pressed into his mind. With this heightened awareness, he could smell and hear where people were, allowing him to move unseen. Having studied the pits and their routines for over a year, he finally slipped away without drawing attention.
Chains broke. Kaelen ran.
For months, he fled across Karness, hunted but never caught. He barely slept, keeping his senses stretched at all times so that even the faintest sound or smell would wake him. By the time he finally reached the Grey Terminal slums, he was starving, ragged, and sleep-deprived.
There he met Varin Krael, boss of the Ash Serpents. Varin offered protection—protection from nobles, guild masters, and anyone else who might drag him back. Kaelen accepted. In the slums, Varin's word was law, and Kaelen knew he couldn't survive alone.
In time, Kaelen became one of Varin's enforcers. He fought, killed, and obeyed orders. Yet the lesson of the pit never left him. He was replaceable. His strength was not the greatest. He was not the most talented. And though he wore the mask of an enforcer, inside he carried only emptiness.
He convinced himself that survival was enough. That he would keep breathing so long as he was useful. But in the quiet hours, when exhaustion pressed in, Kaelen felt like little more than a shadow—unwanted, unneeded, and forgotten by fate itself.
And so Kaelen's days blurred into one another—an enforcer with no purpose beyond survival, a shadow drifting through the slums of Karness, unaware that his path was slowly drawing toward something, or someone, who would change everything.
—