The House of Vahanastra was alive with light and color. Silk banners fluttered in the breeze. Golden ribbons were wrapped around marble columns. Perfumes drifted through the air. Servants rushed about in preparation for the grand meeting. Guests from distant regions arrived, cloaked in honor and vanity, their laughter echoing across the halls.
No one remembered the boy they had thrown away.
In the cave beneath the mountain, the darkness pulsed.
Rotting bodies of monstrous beasts surrounded Kael. Their flesh was decayed, but their essence—hatred, violence, hunger—still lingered. It waited for something to absorb, to live again. When they sensed the half-living boy tossed into their pit, their cursed remnants slithered toward him.
Demon essences, once defeated in battle, now crept into his wounds.
But the moment they entered Kael, they found not a fragile boy, but a void. A bottomless black that devoured without end. One by one, the demons were sucked into him—screaming in rage as their minds were shattered. All of their strength, their cursed knowledge, their fury—merged inside Kael's body.
He did not resist.
He remembered his mother's broken smile. The sound of her skull cracking. The laughter of the woman who killed her. The apathy of his uncle. The way his body was left to rot.
He remembered.
And then, he opened his eyes.
Back at the main house, no one knew what was being born beneath their feet.
The third day of the gathering arrived. A traditional Blade Dance was scheduled. Young warriors from various houses gathered in the courtyard, eager to showcase their talent. Music played. Weapons flashed. People cheered. Lords and nobles clapped at every elegant move.
No one noticed the storm rising.
That night, the final meeting was held in the Grand Hall. They spoke of alliances. Of expansion. Of strategies. They drank wine and congratulated themselves on their vision.
No one sensed the tremor in the earth below.
By dawn, guests began to depart. The festivities ended. Laughter faded.
Then… the screams began.
It started at the outer gate.
Two guards noticed a lone figure approaching—barefoot, blood-crusted, his skin torn and reformed with strange marks glowing faintly. They drew their weapons and shouted.
He looked at them.
Their eyes exploded in their sockets.
They collapsed without a sound.
The emergency bells rang. Dozens of guards came pouring out, forming a wall with shields and spears. But as Kael stepped forward, his presence alone crushed the air around him. Bones snapped. Weapons shattered in trembling hands.
He didn't swing a sword. He didn't chant a spell.
He walked.
And every step left corpses behind.
By the time he reached the inner gate, blood coated the walls. Those who once humiliated his mother—guards who spit on her, officers who laughed as she was dragged through the halls—faced him.
He didn't speak.
He crushed throats with his fingers. Ripped out spines. Drove his hands into chests and squeezed until hearts burst like grapes. Some he flung against walls with such force their bones pierced through skin. Others he burned from the inside.
They begged. Cried. Screamed.
He showed no mercy.
In the upper chambers, the head of the house stepped onto his balcony, sipping wine. Beside him stood his wife—the woman who had once lifted a wooden table and shattered it across Kael's mother's back.
Kael looked up at them.
He smiled.
A slow, horrifying smile. Not of joy. Not of rage.
A promise.
The head of the house froze.
Then, the scream of the emergency horn rang again—three times. The entire household stirred. More guards were summoned. The courtyard flooded with soldiers and commanders, all standing shoulder to shoulder. Over a hundred elite men waited behind steel gates, ready to kill whoever had broken through.
Kael stood in front of them—still unarmed.
He raised his hand.
They charged.
He raised his eyes.
They died.
Some burst into flames. Others screamed as their skin dissolved. The ground split beneath some, swallowing them whole. Some clawed at their faces, seeing visions too horrible to describe. Blood soaked the courtyard.
Their commander tried to flee. Kael caught him by the throat and whispered, "You laughed when she screamed."
Then crushed his skull with a single squeeze.
Kael reached the main tower.
He burst through the double doors of the master bedroom. His uncle turned—terrified. His wife dropped to her knees, trembling. "Please! Mercy, mercy! I was young—I didn't know!"
Kael tilted his head.
"You knew."
He grabbed her. She screamed, struggling. Kael bound her in chains of black flame, and before his uncle's eyes, began to exact his revenge. He didn't kill her quickly.
He tortured her.
For seven days.
Her screams echoed through the halls. No one came to help. Her husband—Kael's uncle—watched, bound by a mantra carved into his flesh. Unable to move. Unable to die.
On the seventh day, she died.
And Kael turned to the rest of the house.
He walked through every corridor.
Room by room. Chamber by chamber.
He set fire to the nursery. He burned the library. He set ablaze the training halls. Elders, servants, cooks, maids—everyone screamed as the fire devoured them. Mothers clutched their babies. Fathers shielded their sons. Old men wept. Young girls cried. Children wailed.
Kael did not stop.
Not even once.
The entire estate burned in crimson fire, a pillar of black smoke rising into the sky.
The screams lasted until nightfall.
When the fire finally died, nothing remained but ashes.
Except for one man.
Kael's uncle, the head of the family, still sat bound in a circle of ash—alive. Cursed to live with the memory.
As the sun rose, Kael stood on the smoldering ruins.
A boy born to be a hero had become something else.
A reckoning.