The streets of Gravewood felt like they were closing in on him.
Every step Kael took was heavy, not because of the dust-caked road beneath his boots, but because of the weight coiling in his chest. The burden of a legacy crushed beneath ash and bone. The ghosts of his ancestors seemed to breathe in the shadows—his father's voice, always commanding; his mother's smile, hopeful and fragile; his brother's sneer, the one Kael had never been able to erase.
They pressed on him, whispering without words: Do not falter.
But the city whispered too.
Gravewood was alive in its own broken way—a carcass riddled with maggots. Buildings leaned like old drunks, their walls sagging under years of neglect. The stench of rot mixed with sweat and smoke, a heavy fog that clung to Kael's skin. Cries rang out—merchants haggling over scraps, a child wailing in some alley, the slap of flesh from a fight hidden by cracked walls.
Eyes watched him from every crack and crevice.
Kael could feel them—Tier 1 Low cultivators, brittle and thin, auras stretched like threadbare cloth. A few flickered at Tier 1 Mid, but even they seemed hollow, like they had been chewed up by the city and left half-alive.
And deeper, somewhere unseen…
The pressure.
A weight in the air, heavy as a storm cloud, coiling tight and waiting.
Kael knew what it was.
The Tier 2 predator.
Watching.
Waiting.
His fingers curled into fists. The burden pressed into him harder, grinding into his ribs, twisting with the ache of exhaustion and the hollow pang of weakness.
He wasn't ready.
Not for a Tier 2.
Not with a body still trembling from the scars of his family's massacre, his own power barely an ember flickering in the dark.
But the name Xelvor wasn't built on waiting.
It was built on blood.
And if it had to be his, then so be it.
A shout cracked the air, sharp and angry.
Kael's head snapped up.
A group had gathered in the street ahead, forming a loose, ragged circle. In the center, a man lay on the ground, clutching his ribs, blood seeping through his fingers.
Standing over him was another—a brute of a man, thick-necked, scarred, arms bulging beneath patched armor. His aura burned Tier 1 Mid, stronger than the guards Kael had left broken at the gate.
He sneered down at the wounded man, voice loud enough to carry.
"You steal from me, you die."
He kicked the man hard, sending him rolling into the dirt.
The crowd murmured, shifting uneasily, but no one moved to stop him.
Kael's breath slowed. The weight in his chest grew heavier.
This was the rot.
The sickness that had festered in this place.
He felt the eyes on him—fearful, curious, hungry for spectacle.
And the burden tightened, twisting like a blade in his gut.
His clan had been strong once. Feared. Respected.
But power wasn't just about strength. It was about presence. About showing the world that when you walked into a room, you owned it.
Kael took a step forward.
The woman followed, silent, her gaze flickering between him and the crowd.
The brute turned, his eyes narrowing as they locked onto Kael.
"Well, well," he drawled. "Another rat crawled out of the gutters."
His aura flared, a heat pressing against Kael's skin like a brand. Tier 1 Mid—stronger, heavier, more refined.
Kael's own power felt small in comparison, a thin ember barely keeping the cold at bay.
But something stirred.
A pulse in his blood.
A hum in his bones.
The weight of his ancestors, whispering—not in words, but in pressure, in expectation, in the crushing, silent demand that he rise.
Kael's gaze sharpened, locking onto the man.
And in that moment, the world… shifted.
The air seemed to bend, the colors sharpening, the edges of reality etched in painful clarity. Kael's vision tunneled, narrowing onto the brute's face.
And then it happened.
A pulse of heat surged behind his eyes, a burning pressure that seared through his skull like a blade of molten iron. His breath hitched, and for a heartbeat, he thought he would collapse—thought his body would shatter under the strain.
But then…
His vision changed.
The man's aura blazed before him, no longer a vague shimmer but a vivid structure of light and dark threads—fractured in places, thin in others, a tangled web barely holding together.
He saw the flaws.
The cracks in the man's stance, the instability in his breathing, the way his left knee trembled slightly under the weight of his own bulk.
Kael's eyes burned white-hot, the black emblem of the Xelvor flaring in their depths like a brand seared into his soul.
He felt it—power.
Not raw strength, not overwhelming force… but clarity.
The ability to see. To dissect. To predict.
The brute sneered, stepping forward, his voice a growl.
"Got something to say, boy?"
Kael did.
But he didn't speak it.
He moved.
Faster than thought, Kael stepped into the man's guard, his body moving as if guided by the pulse of the Ashen Eye.
The brute's fist lashed out, heavy and fast—but Kael was already there, tilting to the side, twisting beneath the arc.
His own hand shot forward, fingers curling into a spear.
He drove it into the man's ribs—the exact point where the aura had thinned, the fracture he had seen with the eye that wasn't just his anymore.
The brute choked, his breath catching in his throat.
Kael's other hand snapped up, catching the man's wrist as it swung down. He twisted, the joint popping with a wet crack, the man's scream tearing through the air.
Kael moved again, a step forward, a pivot—each movement fluid, precise, guided by the threads of light and weakness he could now see.
His knee slammed into the brute's gut. The man folded, gasping.
Kael's hand rose—fingers glowing faintly white, the black emblem flickering in his pupils—and drove his palm into the man's chest.
A burst of pressure.
Not a shockwave, not an explosion… but a ripple that tore through the brute's aura, shattering it like glass.
The man crumpled, coughing blood, eyes wide with shock.
Kael stood over him, breath sharp, the weight in his chest heavier than ever.
The crowd was silent.
The woman stared, wide-eyed, her lips parted in something close to awe.
Kael's hands trembled—but not from exhaustion.
From the power.
From the knowledge that he had seen.
And he could do it again.
Above, the predator stirred.
The Tier 2 presence sharpened, no longer just watching, but focused.
Kael felt it—an icy weight settling on his shoulders, the sense of something ancient and hungry turning its gaze fully onto him.
His breath slowed.
Let it come.
Let the storm break.
Gravewood would fall.
The Xelvor name would rise.
And the multiverse would remember.