The valley of Hoshigawa lay cradled between ridges of pine and stone, a place so small that most maps of the empires never bothered to mark it. Fields of millet and rice swayed golden under the sinking sun, and smoke from clay chimneys curled into the air like quiet prayers. To the farmers and children, this was the whole of the world—mud walls, crooked huts, and the ever-familiar bell tower that leaned like a drunkard.
But for one boy, it was a cage.
Raizen stood on the ridge above the village, the last rays of dusk painting his dark hair copper and gold.
His eyes—storm-gray, restless—followed the fiery horizon as though he could pierce it, as though he could glimpse what lay beyond the ridges and forests. He was twelve that year, his limbs wiry from labor and hunger, his clothes stitched with the threadbare patience of the women who pitied an orphan boy.
The world called him cursed. His parents had vanished the night he was born, lost to a storm so violent that trees had split and roofs had flown. Only Raizen had been found in the wreckage, lying in a half-buried cradle with sparks dancing at his fingertips.
Some whispered the storm had taken his parents as a sacrifice, leaving him behind as its unwanted child. Others said he was blessed, chosen by the heavens themselves.
Raizen knew neither truth nor lie. He only knew the longing that burned inside him, the ache to see more than this valley.
He exhaled slowly, and light crackled faintly along his fingers—thin, jagged veins of lightning that fizzled in the cool air. He flexed his hand, watching the sparks fade almost as soon as they came.
Enerugī. The invisible breath of all things, the essence that shaped fire, water, wind, and steel. To awaken it was every child's dream, the first step on the endless path of cultivation. Some were born with affinities, some discovered them later, but those who shaped their Enerugī into mastery became warriors, protectors, lords—or tyrants.
Raizen had awakened early, too early, lightning flickering around him since before he could speak. Yet it was untrained, unstable, more nuisance than weapon. Once he had singed the rice fields by accident; another time, he had blown the roof off a chicken coop. The villagers called him reckless, dangerous, a walking storm that had no place among them.
Still, Raizen loved the crackle of energy under his skin. It was freedom, it was song, it was proof he was not just another farmer bound to dirt.
He clenched his fists, sparks fading into the coming night.
Someday, he swore. Someday I'll master this. And I'll see the world beyond these ridges.
The bell tower tolled three times, a hollow sound that rattled its warped beams. The villagers finished their toil, leading mules back from fields, carrying baskets of grain, calling children from play. Smoke rose from firepits, the scent of stew drifting across the valley.
Raizen slid down the slope into the village, landing lightly in the dirt street. Children raced past him with sticks for swords, shouting and laughing. An old man cursed at his mule. Mothers scolded sons for muddy feet. It was a life small, ordinary, and safe.
But safety was fragile. Beyond the ridges, the world was never at peace. Beasts prowled forests, some merely wild, others twisted by Enerugī gone wrong—Abyssal Beasts born of corruption. And further still, empires warred endlessly, their armies trampling villages like his without thought.
Hoshigawa's blessing was its insignificance. No empire wanted its barren fields. No warlord wasted time with its crooked huts. Forgotten places were the safest.
Or so Raizen hoped.
That night, the moon climbed pale above drifting clouds, its light silvering the valley. Raizen could not sleep. He rarely did. Restlessness gnawed at him, whispering of horizons unseen. So he wandered, as he often did, to the edge of the forest.
He liked the night here. The crickets sang soft as breath, fireflies winked like scattered stars, and the pines whispered with the wind. In those moments, he could imagine the world was vast and waiting, that his path would one day carry him far.
But tonight, the silence was wrong. Heavy. Stifling.
Raizen froze, senses prickling. The air tasted… off. The hairs on his arms rose. Sparks twitched unbidden across his skin.
A growl rolled from the shadows. Low. Wet. Wrong.
From the tree line stepped a wolf. Or what had once been one. Its body was gaunt, its eyes red with feral light. Black veins glowed faintly beneath its skin, pulsing with sickly Enerugī. Its breath stank of rot, strands of saliva dangling from jagged teeth.
An Abyssal Beast!
Raizen's heart thrashed. He had heard the stories when he was younger, beasts drawn to human villages, their bodies twisted by enerugī corruption. They killed not for hunger but for slaughter, spreading taint wherever they went.
The wolf fixed its gaze on him. Lowered its body. Muscles coiled. It has seen an easy prey.
The look in it eyes filled him with horror.
Raizen's mouth went dry. No weapon. No training. Only sparks.
It lunged.
Raizen threw himself aside, rolling through dirt as claws tore earth where he had stood. Sparks leapt from his palms, striking the wolf's flank. It yelped, staggered but only for a breath.
"Shit!" Raizen scrambled to his feet, chest heaving. Lightning sputtered weakly, uncontrolled. The beast turned, lips peeling back.
It stalked forward, red eyes burning. Raizen hurled another bolt. It seared fur, but the beast barely slowed.
Panic clawed at him. Too fast. Too strong. If it gets me, I'm dead.
The wolf sprang, claws spread.
'No. I don't want to die' Raizen heart beat increased as he felt death looming over him.
Raizen raised his arms in defense and something inside him snapped.
The world slowed. Sound dulled. The wolf's leap stretched into eternity.
And Raizen felt it.
Not just the sparks of lightning. Something deeper. A second pulse beneath his heartbeat. A silence vast and absolute.
It surged outward like a shockwave, unseen, a ripple of balance. The wolf's corrupted Enerugī spasmed, faltered. The black veins recoiled, collapsing as if devoured by nothingness itself.
Raizen's lightning, once chaotic, flared sharp and pure. His palm struck forward, instinct guiding him.
A bolt lanced straight through the wolf's chest.
The beast convulsed, corruption unraveling in crackling light. It crashed to the earth, smoking, twitching once before falling still.
The forest was silent again.
Raizen stood frozen, breath ragged. Sparks still hissed across his skin, but beneath them throbbed that alien otherness. Not lightning Enerugī. Not something he knew.
"What… was that?" His voice was hoarse.
The corpse smoked, reeking of rot. The silence pressed heavy, broken only by his own heartbeat.
Raizen turned slowly, eyes lifting to the village lights across the fields. He had survived. But not by lightning alone. Something else had answered. Something deep inside of him had stirred at that moment between life and death.
He ran towards the village without a second thought.
And in the shadows of the trees, unseen, a pair of eyes gleamed. The figure cloaked in night watched the boy with unreadable calm.
The wind shifted and the figure was gone.
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it's a new novel so please drop some stones