The air in the crevice was thick enough to chew, a suffocating mixture of humidity, stone dust, and the sharp, metallic tang of fear. Elian stood frozen, his wrist still trapped in the guard's iron grip. His Frozen blue eyes darted to the mud-caked lump in his tunic. The light was no longer just a glow; it was a rhythmic pulse that felt like a second heart beating against his ribs.
"Found something shiny, did you, runt?" the guard rumbled, his voice dripping with a predatory sort of glee.
Kaito's mind honed by years of navigating , shifted into overdrive. He forced his breathing to slow, trying to adopt the mask of a terrified, confused child.
"I... I don't know what you mean, sir," Elian stammered, his voice thin and cracking. "It's just a hot rock. I thought... I thought it might be worth an extra ration of water."
A glint of a devious, yellow-toothed smile appeared on the guard's face. He didn't care about the lie. To him, Elian wasn't a person; he was a loot chest that had just been unlocked. He didn't want the "hot rock" for the fortress; he wanted it for the black markets of the Lawless Zone.
"An extra ration, eh?" the guard hissed. "I think you found a Aether-crystal, little crow. And Aether-crystal are far too heavy for a runt like you to carry."
Without warning, the guard's free hand balled into a fist the size of a mallet. He drove it straight into Elian's solar plexus.
The world exploded into a vacuum of white light. The force of the blow was cataclysmic for a twelve-year-old body already weakened by weeks of malnutrition. Elian felt his feet leave the muddy floor as he was sent flying backward, his small frame slamming into the jagged obsidian wall of the crevice.
CRACK.
The sound of his back hitting the stone was loud, but it was nothing compared to the sensation inside his chest. As he collapsed into the muck, gasping for air that wouldn't come, something happened. The Mid-Grade crystal, caught between his sternum and the stone wall during the impact, changed.
Usually, a Mid-Grade crystal under such pressure would cause an Aether-bleed, a violent explosion that would have vaporized Elian's torso. But Elian wasn't a Hollow.
Inside his body, near his Solar Plexus there was a sudden surge of raw, unrefined energy. Like a starving predator, the "Hollow" within him didn't wait for permission. It didn't wait for Elian to learn how to cultivate. It simply opened its mouth and drank.
The guard laughed, a wet, guttural sound, as he slowly walked toward the crumpled boy. "Easy pickings," he muttered. He reached down with his left hand, wrapping his thick fingers around Elian's neck and hoisting him up against the wall.
Elian's legs kicked feebly. He tried to strike out, to struggle, to use any of the "modern" combat logic Kaito possessed, but it was all in vain. The physical disparity was too great. His 12-year-old arms were like twigs against a mountain of muscle.
"Let's see what you have here," the guard said, his eyes wide with greed. He reached into Elian's mud-stained tunic, his fingers searching for the sapphire glow.
His hand came out clutching a handful of grey, lifeless crystal.
The guard blinked. He looked at the crystal in his palm, then back at Elian's chest. The light was gone. There was only a dull crystal. There was only a cold, dark residue where the Aether had once been. The stone had been fully absorbed, run down of every drop of energy in a matter of seconds.
"Where is it?" the guard roared, his face turning a mottled purple. "Where did you hide it, you little rat?!"
"I... I don't know..." Elian wheezed, his vision swimming. His thoughts of pure confusion but he could feel it now—a sensation of molten lead rushing through his veins. It wasn't power; it was agony. The Mid-Grade energy was too dense for his unrefined pathways. It was forcing its way through him towards his solar plexus.
"Liar!"
The guard lost his composure. The prospect of a fortune had vanished into dust, and his greed turned into a mindless, white-hot fury. He dropped Elian and began to beat him.
It was a systematic, brutal assault. Each kick and punch sounded like a wet sack of grain being hit. Elian's crew, hearing the commotion, rushed toward the crevice.
"Stop! He's just a boy!" Talin yelled, his voice echoing through the tunnel as he tried to push through the crowd of fearful slaves. Even Baraq let out a low, mourning howl, and Kaelen stood at the edge of the shadows, his eyes uncharacteristically wide.
But the other guards stepped in, drawing their batons to keep the "Crows" back. "Stay back! This is disciplinary action for theft!" one shouted.
The butcher-build guard didn't stop until Elian was a broken heap in the mud, his face a mask of red and grey dust. The guard stood over him, breathing heavily, his knuckles dripping. He reached down and spat on the boy's unconscious form.
"You think you're clever, runt?" the guard whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying promise. "I won't kill you. Not yet. I'm going to make sure they throw you into the Pit of the 'Outcasts.' I will give you a fate worse than death."
Just as the guard turned away, a final, resonant sound echoed deep within Elian's fading consciousness. It wasn't a bell, and it wasn't the sound of the pickaxes.
It was the loudest Click he had ever heard.
As Elian drifted into the dark, his internal world shifted. His consciousness started shifting somewhere else.