Xioner
The corridor stretched on like a vein beneath the skin of a dying world.
Walls made of ash-stone flickered with dim light, like memories trying to forget themselves.
Each step deeper into the hidden cave was a breath taken on behalf of someone forgotten.
Ryen Sylvan walked first, his twin blades humming faintly at his side.
Yumi followed, her cloak swaying, hands ready near her gear ring.
The woman they'd rescued—silent, trembling—walked behind them barefoot.
But she was no ghost.
She was something else.
Ryen had given her a name.
> "Xioner," he'd said, gently, as they left the ruined lab.
"It means one who has endured."
She had not argued.
She had only whispered back,
> "Then… I'll try to live up to it."
Now, in the bowels of the cave, they found it.
A sealed door made of obsidian and iron.
Old runes, nearly eroded by time, lined its edge—half-buried in dust, half-burning with faint red glow.
A breath of cold air whispered from underneath, as if the cave itself begged them not to open it.
Yumi stepped forward, scanned the symbols, and placed her palm against the center rune.
A pulse responded.
Boom.
The door cracked open like a splitting scar.
And what lay beyond…
Was not death.
It was something worse.
---
A chamber—vast, circular, and carved by minds obsessed with symmetry.
Shelves of vials. Scrolls of formulas. Glass tanks filled with swirling, unnatural fluids.
The scent of burnt chemicals mingled with the coppery tinge of old blood.
And above them, tubes laced with threads of flickering flame energy curved along the ceiling like veins in the body of a god.
> "This wasn't just a lab," Yumi whispered.
"This was a womb. For monsters."
Ryen didn't speak.
He was already moving, scanning papers, inspecting broken terminals and shattered syringes.
His eyes burned with that quiet fire he carried only when the past came too close.
Yumi stopped at a half-sealed locker.
Inside: a scroll.
Old. Worn. But humming with… wrongness.
She unrolled it with cautious fingers, eyes scanning fast—until they stopped.
Widened.
> "Wait… no… this can't be right…" she whispered.
Ryen walked over.
> "What is it?"
She read aloud, voice shaking with each word:
> "Only two types of EB exist: Normal and Dark.
But if something does not exist… does not mean it cannot be created.
With the correct formula, the right vessel, and forbidden transmutation—
Blood EB.
Soul EB.
Elemental EB.
And perhaps even more…"
The final line was scrawled, almost clawed into the parchment.
> "But to stabilize such creation… we need Qangkai."
Silence.
Ryen's voice cut through it:
> "Qangkai… what is it?"
Yumi stared at the scroll.
> "No records exist. It's like a forgotten code. Something—"
> "—or someone," Ryen interrupted.
His voice lowered as he gestured toward another workstation.
> "Come look at this."
Yumi stepped over. What she saw made her stomach twist.
A preserved embryo.
But not human. Not beast.
The skeletal structure was coiled, layered, almost serpentine—yet shaped in the exact symmetry of a human spine.
Its energy signature still flickered faintly, even though it was long dead.
Ryen spoke softly:
> "They were trying to recreate something ancient. Something… older than EB."
> "A creature?" Yumi asked.
> "Or a source."
She looked back at the scroll.
> "If this Qangkai is real… what if it's not just a power source?"
Her voice dropped.
> "What if it's a soul that can channel all forms of EB—and merge them with FE? What if this wasn't about experiments… but evolution?"
A long pause.
Then—
A voice, soft and cracking, rose behind them:
> "I… I… am… Qangkai."
They turned.
Xioner stood there, clutching the edge of a worktable for support.
Her body trembled, veins faintly glowing beneath her pale skin—gold, silver, and black light spiraling together like unstable orbits.
Her breath misted like steam.
> "I don't know what that name means," she whispered.
"But I've heard it. Every time they hurt me.
Every time they bled me dry."
She raised her arm, revealed a branded mark etched into her wrist:
Q4-NKX-1
The symbol glowed faintly.
Almost… alive.
> "They didn't call me Xioner. They called me that.
Qangkai. Their vessel."
Ryen's hands clenched.
Yumi stepped back, heart pounding.
> "no....This… this changes everything."
---
For a long moment, no one spoke.
The scroll fluttered in Yumi's hand, as if responding to the woman before them.
And beneath their feet…
The lab hummed louder.
Like the veins of flame in the earth itself had begun to wake.
Like Qangkai's true story was only just beginning.
---
Lines of the Unwritten
The fire had settled,
but Yuji's breath still came like the last wind before a storm.
He sat cross-legged,
still as stone,
as if any sudden movement might fracture the ring of power blooming inside him.
His chest pulsed with a quiet, violent light.
It wasn't the glow of normal energy.
It was the heartbeat of something newly born—something not meant to exist.
The Eternal Ring.
Half forged from EB, the world's lifeblood.
Half fused from FE, the soul's raw essence.
The ring spun inside him—silent, perfect, endless.
> "It's done," he whispered, opening his eyes.
The chamber greeted him with silence.
Aika was gone.
He didn't know how long it had taken—minutes or hours.
But in the end, she hadn't stayed to see the final moment.
Yuji stood slowly, hands trembling—not from weakness, but from power unused.
His ring gear lay on the table.
Useless now.
> "I don't need this anymore," he said, and without hesitation— he snapped it in half.
The ADM gear cracked, releasing a final whine before dying.
> "I don't need tools," he muttered. "I am the tool now."
Yet his mind was not satisfied.
Something within still clawed for more.
More control. More mastery. More unknowns.
He looked at the far wall, drew a deep breath,
and raised his right hand.
The shadows pulsed.
Dark energy surged—Shadow Arrow formed on his fingertips.
But this time, he didn't release it.
This time…
He experimented.
> "The Three Lines," he whispered.
"Spark. Foundation. Strike."
> "But what if… I break the third?"
He focused.
The instant he reached the third line—The Strike—he fractured it, dividing the release point into five smaller channels.
The arrow—once a single bolt—suddenly burst into five miniature arrows, each guided by a sliver of intention.
They struck the wall like a swarm—
and detonated in a ripple of controlled chaos.
Yuji stared, eyes wide.
> "This means…"
"We can shape the third line."
He stepped back, heart pounding.
> "This means we're not bound to one outcome.
We can create a thousand."
He smiled.
> "The 1000 Lines…"
But before he could test again,
the door opened with a creak.
Aika entered, followed by Kraël—the one who had taught them the Three Line technique.
> "Yuji?" Aika asked, her voice unsure.
"What was that sound?"
Yuji stood calmly, hiding the burnt groove on the wall behind his shoulder.
> "Ah, nothing," he laughed, rubbing his neck.
"Just messed up my aim. Lost control of the flames. Again."
Kraël raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, but said nothing.
Aika tilted her head slightly.
Her gaze lingered too long.
Yuji turned away quickly.
He couldn't tell her—not yet.
Not about the Eternal Ring.
Not about the 1000 Lines.
He had to understand it first.
---
Far from Flame Land Academy—
deep within the Whisperroot Forest where light slept and truths wandered—
Eylzion stood beneath a curved tree of violet bark and frozen roots.
Across from him stood Hyun Woo, a scientist draped in twilight-colored robes, with goggles pushed high on her forehead and a book in her hands no one else had permission to open.
She was a wanderer of logic.
And tonight, logic had been broken.
> "You asked about the Time Element," she said, not looking up from her pages.
> "Yes," Eylzion replied, voice even. "I need to know what Mina is."
Hyun Woo closed the book.
> "Time isn't an element. That's the first lie."
She stepped forward, her voice calm but laced with awe.
> "It's not a flame. Not a ring. Not even a force."
"It's an art. A rhythm. A relationship."
> "A relationship?" Eylzion asked, brow furrowed.
She smiled faintly.
> "Time isn't something you use. It's something you enter into."
"And the more you learn about time…"
She looked up, eyes reflecting starlight.
> "…the more time learns about you."
Eylzion fell silent.
The forest seemed to lean closer.
> "Then tell me," he said, voice low, "how do we follow its rhythm?"
Hyun Woo raised one finger, then pointed at the moonlight above them.
> "You don't."
"You follow those who already can."
She flipped the book open again. A name glowed faintly on the torn page.
> "Qangkai. And Shin Kenai. If you want to understand time,
you need to understand them."
Eylzion's jaw tensed.
> "I've found Qangkai," he whispered. "She doesn't know what she is yet."
> "Then teach her," Hyun Woo said, her eyes fierce.
"Before someone else does."
---
Back at the academy, Yuji stood by the shattered wall alone once more.
He stared at his fingers—the ones that had broken a line into five arrows.
> "If we can split the line," he whispered,
"then maybe… just maybe…"
He looked to the stars.
> "We can split destiny too."
And deep within him, the Eternal Ring pulsed again.
Slow. Endless. Waiting.
---
The Price of Perfect Waters
In the orignal world
---
Far from the fires of Flame Land,
beyond the broken Veins of Zeyrus and the shattered snowfields of Kaidu,
there flowed a land where everything shimmered.
Sarenya.
A kingdom not forged by steel or flame,
but by the patient, eternal shaping of water.
Rivers didn't just pass through Sarenya—they spoke.
And the people listened.
Mountains were carved into temples of flowing springs.
Bridges sang with the rhythm of tides.
And at the heart of the land,
a silver lake curled like a sleeping dragon, its depths echoing with the songs of old samurai ancestors.
Children were not taught words first.
They were taught stillness.
How to listen to the rain.
How to breathe with the river.
They learned of the Water Dragons, ancient spirits said to have once ruled time itself.
They learned the names of their ancestors, who carried swords not to kill—but to reflect light.
And above all, they learned control.
Mastery. Precision. Perfection.
Even their elemental training was a form of poetry.
The Water Element in Sarenya was revered, not just for battle,
but for its clarity.
Its adaptability.
Its illusion of peace.
---
But beneath that surface… a shadow swam.
Its name was Keyn-ya.
A vast, powerful industry that held Sarenya's economy in a golden cage.
It wore the face of luxury, of symmetry, of divine alignment.
It promised beauty, art, status—
in return for obedience.
Keyen-ya sold perfection in bottles.
Sold it in blood.
Sold it in lives.
Children were tested at age five—ranked by bone symmetry, skin clarity, water-bending fluidity.
Only the best were accepted into the Keyn-ya Perfection Guild,
where they were sculpted into icons of society.
And those who weren't?
They became workers.
Servants to the image they could never match.
Even the Queen of Sarenya, the serene and silver-robed Maria El-Seiran,
could not shut Kenin down.
Because for every drop of tainted water it spilled—
it fed millions of gold coins into the nation's veins.
> "If we cut Keyn-ya," she once whispered to her inner court,
"Sarenya bleeds."
---
And now, in the shadows of Sarenya's eastern district,
something new stirred.
A rumor.
A ripple.
That perfection could be surpassed.
That someone had seen the future not in water—but in blood and time.
A secret archive, long buried beneath the eastern shrine,
spoke of a being named Qangkai.
A name the royal scholars had marked as mythical.
But now, that name was being whispered again.
Not as a prophecy.
But as a threat.
---
Back at the center of the capital, a young instructor finished her morning lecture,
her voice echoing across the marble courtyard.
> "Perfection is not a goal," she said, gesturing to the fountain behind her.
"It is a mirror."
Her students—all dressed in navy robes with water sigils—nodded in silence.
But one boy, quiet in the corner, looked down at his shaking hands.
He had failed the fluid motion exam.
Again.
His breath hitched.
Tears did not fall.
But deep within his chest—
anger began to ripple.
---
Because in Sarenya, beauty was law.
Grace was currency.
And power only belonged to those whose reflections the water did not dare to distort.
But the day was coming—
When the water would refuse to reflect the lies anymore.
And when that day came...
Perfection would break.
And in its place, something far more dangerous would rise.
> People love perfection… until they can't become that.
THE QANGKAI ARC BEGINS
---
END OF CHAPTER 27