Chapter 2: Awakening
Light swallowed everything.
For a heartbeat, Kael thought he had died. There was no ruin, no Shard, no sky—only the infinite stretching in every direction. Space bent and folded like ripples on a pond, each pulse echoing through his bones.
He tried to breathe, but there was no air. Tried to move, but there was no body.
Then the voice returned.
"Infinity chooses the empty."
It didn't speak in sound. It struck straight into him, reverberating through every memory, every failure, every hollow part of him he'd tried to bury.
The fragment inside his chest pulsed. Energy—not fire, not wind, not anything he'd ever sensed—poured through him. It didn't flow like spirit energy. It expanded, as if reality itself were unfolding to make space for something impossible.
The black void around him rippled, and suddenly he was standing—not in the ruins, but on a vast plane of reflective glass. Above him hung shattered stars, suspended like shards of a broken mirror. Each fragment hummed with faint light.
And at the center, floating inches above the glass, was the fragment.
It no longer looked like a mere stone. It was a swirling core of impossible color, its edges bending the air. When Kael stared too long, his vision tunneled, like the world was both infinite and pressed right against his skin.
He approached, hesitant. Each step left ripples on the mirrored ground.
When he reached out, the fragment reached back.
Tendrils of light unfolded like vines, brushing his fingertips. The contact wasn't physical—it was total. A rush of visions slammed into him: mountains splitting under waves of power; sects rising and falling like tides; a distant sky cracking open to reveal a blinding core.
Somewhere in that flood, he saw himself—not as he was, but standing tall on a broken skybridge, facing an endless storm.
Then the visions collapsed inward, drawn into his chest like water down a whirlpool. The fragment shot forward and embedded itself in the space behind his heart.
Kael gasped.
His body snapped back into the real world. He hit the ground hard, dust exploding around him. The ruins shook faintly, loose stones clattering. His chest burned—not with pain, but with raw, surging energy trying to burst free.
He clutched his shirt, gasping. A faint glow bled through his skin, patterns like shifting constellations crawling across his chest before fading just as quickly.
"What… what was that…" he whispered.
The air around him changed. It was subtle at first—the ruins no longer felt heavy and dead. Instead, everything had weight, like invisible strings stretched between every stone and every breath. He could feel the way the wind curled around broken pillars, the distant hum of energy lines running beneath the Shard's crust.
For the first time in his life, he could sense the world.
Kael laughed breathlessly. It wasn't a triumphant laugh; it was half shock, half disbelief. He—Kael, the rootless boy—could feel spiritual energy.
No. Something more than that.
He staggered to his feet. His vision sharpened unnaturally. Every crack in the walls, every mote of dust floating in the air stood out in perfect clarity. He could hear distant echoes too—villagers far away at the ceremonial plateau, forges cooling in the night.
And beneath it all, the Nexus fragment pulsed inside him like a second heart.
But it wasn't peaceful. It was hungry. Not devouring him, but pulling. Drawing in stray energy from the air, threading it through his veins, reshaping channels he hadn't possessed before.
Kael fell to his knees as heat flared in his core. His non-existent meridians… formed. The pain was sharp, searing. His whole body trembled as if he were being carved from the inside out.
He clenched his teeth. If he screamed, the sound might bring unwanted attention. So he pressed his forehead to the cold stone and endured.
Minutes—or maybe hours—passed. When the pulsing finally calmed, Kael collapsed backward, chest rising and falling in ragged breaths. The night air felt different against his skin. His limbs no longer ached with the dull fatigue of a laborer. He felt… light. Awake.
Alive.
He lifted his hand. For a moment, faint silver lines traced along his palm, like starlight mapping invisible circuits. When he focused, the glow responded—dim, unsteady, but there.
A sound bubbled up from his throat. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sob.
"I… I can cultivate," he whispered.
The words hung in the ruin's silence like a declaration to the heavens.
Then the ground thumped. A low, distant pulse, like a drumbeat through the stone.
Kael froze.
That wasn't in his head.
The pulse came again—louder this time, like a heartbeat echoing through the earth.
Kael rose slowly, eyes narrowing. It wasn't coming from inside him. It was outside, spreading through the ruins and out into the night like ripples in water.
Far above, on the upper ledges of the Shard, crimson lanterns flickered to life. Shouts echoed faintly through the wind.
"They felt it," Kael muttered.
The Ember Fang elders had long placed spiritual beacons throughout the Shard—meant to alert them to unnatural fluctuations of energy. A rootless boy wouldn't normally trip them. But the Nexus wasn't normal energy.
He stumbled toward the ruin's entrance, moving on instinct. His newly awakened senses buzzed, picking up faint signatures in the distance: approaching footsteps, lantern light, spiritual pressure that pressed like a heavy fog.
Search parties. Fast.
Panic surged through him. He couldn't let them find him here—not like this. Not with a Nexus fragment in his chest. He'd be dissected before sunrise.
Kael ducked into a collapsed hallway and moved as quietly as he could. His body felt unfamiliar—faster, sharper, like someone had quietly rewired him. The smallest shift in weight carried him farther than expected. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once.
He paused at a corner, breathing shallow. His senses stretched out instinctively, scanning the ruins like ripples. He could feel the searchers—three of them, moving carefully but steadily, their spiritual energy like flickering torches in a dark room.
One of them was strong. Stronger than anyone he'd ever been near before.
"Spread out," a man's voice ordered, calm but heavy with authority. "The surge came from this sector. If it's a rogue beast, eliminate it before the elders arrive."
Kael's chest tightened. Elder Rokan's men.
He pressed his back to the wall. He needed to get out, circle around the ruins, maybe slip back into the village before dawn. If he could just make it through tonight, he'd have time to figure out what happened to him.
He took a slow step backward.
A stone crumbled under his foot.
"Over there!"
Three lantern lights flared brighter, converging. Spiritual energy surged toward his location like a crashing wave.
Kael cursed under his breath and sprinted down the hallway. His body moved faster than he'd ever imagined possible, feet gliding over uneven ground. Behind him, the searchers gave chase, their voices echoing through the ruins.
"He's fast—don't let him escape!"
They didn't recognize him yet. That was his only advantage.
The hallway ended abruptly in a collapsed chamber. Jagged debris blocked the way forward. He spun around, heart pounding as lantern light spilled into the room.
Three silhouettes emerged from the shadows. The man in front wore crimson-trimmed armor, his spiritual aura crackling faintly.
"A boy?" the man said, brow furrowed. "No… you're the source."
Kael's back hit the wall. His breath came in ragged bursts. The fragment inside him pulsed in response to his fear, like a living thing. Energy coiled in his veins, unsteady and wild.
"I—I didn't—"
The man raised a hand. "Seize him. We'll let the elders decide."
The two behind him stepped forward.
And then it happened.
The Nexus pulse inside Kael spiked. A wave of raw force exploded outward from his chest—silent, invisible, but overwhelming. The air warped. Dust and loose stones levitated briefly before scattering.
The three searchers staggered backward. One of the lanterns shattered, plunging half the room into shadow.
"What—what was that?!"
Kael stared at his hands in shock. He hadn't done it intentionally. It was like the fragment reacted to being cornered.
The armored man's eyes widened, then hardened. "It's him. He's the anomaly." He reached for the blade at his waist. "Subdue him before—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
A second surge blasted through the ruins—this one not from Kael, but from the sky above. A deep, resonant hum spread through the Shard, vibrating every stone, every bone.
Far above, villagers and elders turned their gazes toward the heavens. The Nexus Stone, distant and untouchable, burned brighter than it had in centuries.
And its light was pointing straight down… to the ruins.
The searchers froze. Kael did too. A single thought cut through the chaos like a blade:
They all know where I am now.
Lanterns flared across the Shard like stars igniting. Alarms rang. The air thrummed with gathering cultivators.
The armored man recovered first. His expression turned from suspicion to fear to greed. "The Nexus is responding… to you."
Kael backed away slowly. His pulse raced. He didn't understand what was happening inside him—but every instinct screamed that staying here meant death.
Above them, the Nexus's light intensified, a silent beacon announcing to the world that something impossible had awakened.
And Kael was standing at its center.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading Chapter 2: Awakening ✨
Kael's quiet life is over — and the entire Shard now knows something is happening in the ruins. Chapter 3 will dive into the fallout 👀