The training grounds don't look like much—scrap metal walls, half-buried exo frames, and a sky that never stops bleeding orange. But every bruise on my body says otherwise.
I dodge left, pivot, swing low. My blade cracks against Rovan's practice staff. The force of it rattles my bones.
"Too wide," he snaps. "Cut from the elbow, not the shoulder. Again."
I grit my teeth, step back into stance.
This is what every day's been. Dawn to dusk, drills. Conditioning. Feedback that feels more like a hammer than advice.
But I keep showing up. Even when my knees ache. Even when the ghost in my head tells me to slow down.
Lucien's voice drifts in as I raise the blade again.
"Your stance is collapsing under stress. Weight too far back. Center yourself."
"Working on it," I mutter aloud, ignoring Rovan's raised eyebrow.
Another strike. Then another. This one lands clean, slicing air with that satisfying hiss.
Rovan grunts. "Better. Keep pushing."
---
Later – Quarters
By the time I stumble back to my bunk, my arms feel like molten steel. I crash onto the cot, sweat drying in patches, uniform clinging to me like regret.
Lucien's voice buzzes again. More insistent.
"Merge rate has accelerated. Cognitive overlap nearing 35%."
"So what does that mean?"
A pause.
"It means you're changing. Memory pathways are converging. Skills not your own may surface."
I stare at the ceiling.
"You're saying I might remember things that never happened to me?"
"They did. Just not to you."
Then come the dreams.
---
in my dreams
I'm not me.
I'm standing on a mountain of crystal and flame. The sky has cracked open above me—fractured like glass.
Before me is a heart. Not metaphorical—a real one. Suspended midair. Giant. Glowing like a dying star.
I reach for it. My hands—older, stronger, regal—grip something embedded inside.
A piece of it comes free.
The world screams.
Then silence.
---
Back to Reality
I wake with blood on my lips. Bit down hard in my sleep.
Lucien's voice is calm, almost expectant.
"First fragment vision. You retained more detail this time."
"I saw…" I swallow. "A heart. A star. I think I pulled something out of it."
Lucien is quiet.
Then:
"You're starting to remember him."
I sit up, heart pounding.
"Who?"
"The one whose body you wear. The original interface—code-named Veyraxor. The first king."
My breath catches.
"That was real?"
"Incomplete. But yes. The starcore shattered because he stole a third of its mass. And he used it to build the Veyrax Kingdom."
"…And now I'm wearing his face?"
"You're more than that. His DNA. His imprint. And something else. The core responds to you. That's why you could execute Form 7. Even briefly."
I sit in silence.
Lucien continues: "The world believes he died after eighty years on the throne. That he sacrificed himself during the Starfall. But he merely disappeared. Controlled aging. Identity alteration. He vanished by choice."
"…And lived peacefully."
"Until now."
---
Next Morning – Mess Hall
The chatter in the room barely registers. I'm picking at some synthetic protein mix when a voice breaks through.
"Yo. Rookie."
I glance up. Merc named Taris. Older, sarcastic, always limping like a war injury still bites.
"You ever visit the capital?" he asks.
I shake my head. "Why?"
"You look real familiar. Like some old statue in the central plaza. King something. Hell, maybe you're just royalty and don't know it."
I force a laugh. "Yeah. Right."
Inside, my stomach turns.
---
Training Ground – Rovan's Briefing
He throws a datapad onto the ground. The image flickers—a supply train derailed, energy crates gone, wiped convoy.
"Raiders hit Sector 9 again. Civilians dead. Council's getting desperate. Offering creds for anyone who tracks the bastards down and survives."
Someone whistles low. "Mercenary work already?"
Rovan glares. "This isn't optional. You want to join the Core Guard? You pass this. You don't? Go back to being some back-alley blade punk."
He tosses me a modified headset. "You're up, fracture-boy. You lead your team."
"Why me?"
"Because whatever the hell's inside you wants out. Time to let it."
---
Second Mission – Sector 9 Outskirts
The air's dry, hot. Metallic dust clings to everything. Our team—three recruits, one scout—moves through the derailed convoy slowly.
Lucien guides in my ear: "Lifeforms approaching. Cloaked signatures. Estimated: six. Interceptors."
"Positions!" I bark.
The others scatter. I feel the weight of the sword in my hand. Light, sharp. Mine.
Then they hit us.
Flashes of motion. Blades. Smoke.
I move before I see them. The body acts on its own.
Parry. Cut. Step. Spiral.
Blood. Sparks. Screams.
It's too fast. Too clean.
By the time I stop, four are down. The last two are already running.
Behind me, silence.
Then someone whispers, "What the hell are you?"
I don't answer.
---
Aftermath
We recover the energy crates. One of them has a glowing mark.
Lucien hums in my ear. "Starcore fragment detected. Minimal trace. But it's a start."
"A start to what?"
"To finding the rest. To finishing what he began."
I exhale, long and slow.
So this is it.
Not just survival.
Not just being Kael.
I'm hunting pieces of a god I never knew I was.
---
Two weeks.
That's how long it took before my hands stopped shaking. Before I stopped waking up thinking I was still bleeding out in that arena. Before I started to feel like I had a spine again.
Rovan wasn't gentle. He didn't believe in soft starts. Day one of recovery training was a punch in the gut—literally.
Rovan said with his usual blunt tone, "If you can stand, you can swing. If you can swing, you can learn. If you can learn, you have no excuse."
His philosophy was brutal, simple, and effective.
Form 5.
That was the target now. Reflex layering. Integrating instinct with movement. Stopping my body from betraying my intent. Because right now? My body was still playing catch-up to the thing inside it.
Lucien.
He didn't speak often. Not unless I dug into that corner of my mind where he rested like a loaded gun. But when he did, it was like the air crystallized.
"You're still thinking in straight lines," Lucien had said after I botched a Spiral Vault cut and landed flat on my ribs.
"You're not a soldier anymore. You're potential. Start moving like it."
I didn't fully understand what he meant, not then. But every time I failed, I started hearing his meaning louder.
---
Training grounds were layered. Underground compound, six tiers deep. Most rookies like me stuck to tier one or two—basic footwork, kinetic control, dummy combat.
But Rovan? He pulled strings. Tier four access.
"You want to survive mercenary intake? Then train with the bastards who already made it," he barked.
So I trained with monsters.
There was Aelra, a woman with gold-threaded veins and a tongue like a whip. She could parry bullets with her fingers. There was Vask, a former enforcer with cybernetic arms, who cracked walls just by shadowboxing. They weren't mentors. They were warnings.
"Don't die, rookie. Not 'cause I care. It just messes with the arena's win-loss stats," Vask told me once, not even glancing my way.
---
Evenings were worse.
When my muscles screamed and my bones felt like they'd been melted down and re-cast, that's when Lucien would return.
Not as a voice.
As memory.
His fragments bled into my dreams. Deserts scorched red under three moons. Throne rooms made of obsidian and grief. A blade of glass and starlight that moved like breath.
"You fought with gods…" I murmured once in my sleep.
"And bled like men," Lucien replied quietly.
---
Two nights before intake, Rovan handed me a black band.
"Put this on your right arm," he instructed.
"Why?" I asked.
"Mercenary marker. Keeps friendlies from gutting you on sight."
"I don't have any friendlies," I said flatly.
He shrugged, "Neither do we. That's why it works."
---
Mercenary Intake: Orientation Mission
Not one of the formal contracts yet. This wasn't like the mission in the city or the arena rescue. This was just to see if we could function at all.
Think of it as a boot dipped in acid. You either survive it, or dissolve.
Designation: Outer Extraction - Class C
Team: Five recruits. One observer. Minimal intel.
Objective: Retrieve a sealed data core from a downed off-world vessel.
Threat level: Unconfirmed anomaly presence.
"Sounds simple," I muttered.
Rovan smirked. "It's never simple."
---
Dropzone was dust and static. Night vision engaged automatically through my combat visor. The air reeked of scorched code—something digital had died here recently. Fried micro-matter. Burned silicon.
We moved in formation. I didn't speak. Neither did the others. Mercs weren't friendly. They didn't shake hands or swap names. You proved yourself by staying alive.
The crash site looked like a severed artery in the sand. The wreckage pulsed. Literally pulsed. Like a thing half-alive.
Lucien stirred in my head.
"This tech... it predates the kingdom," he said, his tone distant, wary.
"How the hell do you know that?" I asked.
"Because I helped bury it," Lucien answered.
My breath caught in my throat.
"Keep moving," one of the mercs snapped.
---
Inside the ship, walls twisted. The architecture wasn't just broken. It was wrong. Like it had been grown, not built. Living metal. Bio-reactive.
Our observer, a silent man in gray with too-clean boots, muttered into his comm:
"Anomaly Type Zeta. Confirmed active. Preparing seal protocol."
"Zeta? That wasn't in the briefing," a merc grunted.
That's when the wall opened.
Or maybe it was never a wall.
It screeched. A sound that dug into my teeth. Something stepped out of the ship's heart. Featureless. Limbs too long. Skin like liquid stone.
It moved too fast.
The lead merc didn't scream. He just vanished in a blur of limbs and blood.
"Scatter!" someone shouted.
I didn't move. I couldn't.
Because Lucien whispered, "That's a Shard. A guardian construct. You're not supposed to see this."
The Shard lunged.
I raised my blade.
It caught the blow. My arms shattered with pain.
Flash Cut.
I didn't summon it.
Lucien did.
It cleaved through the Shard's arm. Not cleanly. But enough. Enough to stagger it.
"MOVE!" another merc yelled.
I rolled. Sparks danced across my back. The second merc was down. Not dead—paralyzed. Shock venom.
"We need to run!" someone screamed.
"No time," I replied through gritted teeth.
Lucien surged forward. Not just voice. Movement. Control.
"Let me in. Just for a second," he said.
I let go.
The world changed.
Gravity curved. Air folded. My body wasn't mine. It was more. Faster. Older. Burned in purpose.
Lucien fought like a secret. No wasted steps. No mercy.
The Shard fell.
When I came back, the wreck pulsed louder. And at its core? A glow.
A starcore fragment.
Lucien didn't speak.
He didn't have to.
Because I felt it.
The thing he stole. The thing that broke the sky.
It was here.
And it was calling me.
---
When we regrouped outside the wreckage, only three of us remained.
The observer looked at me. Not impressed. Not surprised. Just cold calculation.
"Report submitted. You survive intake. Next phase begins," he stated.
I turned inward, speaking to Lucien.
"What the hell was that?"
"A memory. And a warning," Lucien answered.
"You said I'm at Form 5 now?"
"Barely," he replied.
"Then what's next?"
Lucien's voice was steady, serious. "Train until you reach Form 6. The jump from here is logarithmic. Each level, ten times harder than the last. Ten times more power. Ten times more precision."
I felt the weight of that.
And still, I nodded.
Because whatever was coming next…
I would be ready.
---