Chapter 11
The Spark of Lightning
The sally port crashed open with a splintering roar. Kaelen, flanked by Ser Joric and Ser Eldric and a handful of the castle's most hardened veterans, poured out into the hellish landscape before the main gate. The plan was simple, brutal, and suicidal: break the formation of the Scale-Tusks before their synchronized tremor could reduce the gate to splinters.
The world narrowed to a tunnel of violence. Kaelen's universe became the arc of his sword, the coppery taste of blood in the air, and the seismic vibrations pulsing through the ground. He fought not as Renly the squire, nor even as Kaelen the archivist, but as a perfect fusion of both—a being of primal instinct and hyper-calculated efficiency. He weaved between the massive, plate-armored legs of a Scale-Tusk, his blade finding the soft seam behind its knee. The beast bellowed and crashed down, its contributing tremor ceasing abruptly.
But for every one they felled, two seemed to take its place. The Knights with them were blurs of activated bloodlines—a flash of frost here from Eldric, a burst of superhuman speed by Joric there—but they were being overwhelmed. The defensive line wavered.
It was then that the main gate, weakened by the cumulative assault, finally gave way. Not with a slow splintering, but with a catastrophic explosion of wood and iron. A creature, larger than any Scale-Tusk, forced its way through the breach. It was a Dire-Boulder, a monstrous bull-like beast whose hide was like granite, and whose charge could level a stone tower.
Ser Joric, seeing the existential threat, became a copper-streaked comet. "Hold the line here! The breach is mine!" he roared, and shot toward the gigantic creature, his speed ability pushed to its absolute limit. He was a darting, stinging wasp against a mountain, his blade scoring lines on the creature's legs, drawing its fury away from the panicked soldiers within.
Kaelen, still engaged with a Scale-Tusk, saw it happen. From the shadows of the shattered gatehouse, a Shadow-Stalker, smarter and more patient than its kin, had been waiting. It had let the Dire-Boulder be the distraction. Now, as Joric danced just out of the massive beast's reach, the Stalker uncoiled from the darkness, leaping in a silent, lethal arc toward the Knight's utterly exposed back.
There was no time.
No time to shout.
No time to think.
There was only the abyss of certain failure, and the raw, screaming will to defy it.
Every ounce of training—the years of drills, the optimized stances, the relentless cultivation of the Breath of the Wild—coalesced into a single, impossible command. MOVE.
The world did not slow down. He accelerated.
A jolt, like a lightning strike from within, fired through his nervous system. It was not pain, but pure, unadulterated power. His muscles contracted with a speed that should have torn them from the bone. The distance between him and Joric's back, a space that should have taken three full seconds to cross, vanished in the blink of an eye. It was not a run; it was a teleportation of flesh and blood.
His sword, a simple but well-forged steel blade, came up not in a parry, but an interception. As it met the descending claws of the Shadow-Stalker, a visible, crackling arc of blue electricity erupted from his palm, racing up the blade with a sharp CRACK. The energy did not slice; it stunned. The Stalker convulsed in mid-air, its lethal strike turning into a spasming, harmless crash against Joric's armored back.
Joric spun, his eyes wide, his own speed and senses allowing him to process the near-death and the salvation in the same instant. His sword flashed, finishing the stunned beast before it could recover.
Silence fell in their immediate vicinity, a bubble of shock in the maelstrom of battle.
Kaelen stood panting, the strange, exhilarating energy fading from his limbs, leaving behind a profound, vibrating awareness. The tiny blue arc was gone, but the echo of its power thrummed in his soul. Soldiers and knights alike stared, their faces a mixture of awe and disbelief.
Ser Joric looked at him, his chest heaving. There was no surprise on his grizzled face, only a deep, grim satisfaction, as if a long-held prediction had finally been proven true.
"Took you long enough, boy," he grunted, wiping blood and grime from his mouth. Eldric chuckled,"The 'Storm-Runner' spark. A rare one. The 'Electric Surge'—lets your nerves scream faster than thought. A defensive blessing for any knight." He gave a sharp, approving nod. "Welcome to the ranks."
The words landed with the weight of a verdict. He had done it. The latent bloodline had been forged in the crucible of imminent death. He had reached the 1st Order threshold.
---
Back in his apartment on Aethelgard, Kaelen's eyes snapped open.
There was no weakness. No soul-deep fatigue. Instead, a surge of clean, vibrant power thrummed through his real body. His nerves felt like live wires, his senses so sharp he could hear the faint hum of the arcology's power grid three levels below. He looked at his hands, half-expecting to see a blue spark dance between his fingers.
He glanced at the chronometer. Only two hours had passed.
He had about a week until his draft screening.
Kaelen rose from his bed. His movements were not just confident; they were preternaturally quick and sure, a ghost of the Electric Surge now etched into his very being. The frantic desperation that had haunted him for weeks was gone, replaced by a cold, solid certainty.
He was no longer a candidate for the draft.
He was an Enhancer.
A confident, razor-sharp smile touched his lips for the first time since the notice had arrived.
He was ready.