The winds howled through the academy's tallest tower as storm clouds gathered unnaturally above the campus. The sky churned with violet lightning, a sign not of weather but of power. Students across the dormitories and classrooms peered through their windows with unease, their hearts pounding with an instinctual dread they couldn't name.
Lyra stood at her window, eyes narrowed, hair whipping behind her as thunder cracked across the heavens. She knew this storm. Not from books, not from trainingbbut from blood. Something ancient was moving through the air. She felt it in her veins.
Meanwhile, deep in the Spellvault, Kairo sat in meditation beneath the faint glow of divine glyphs that now lined his arms. The burning mark on his palm pulsed steadily, a heartbeat he could no longer ignore. It was more than power it was a call. A warning. A key.
Then everything stopped.
No wind. No sound. No motion. The world held its breath.
And from the sky, the Nullorn fell.
It wasn't a person. It was a thing forged in silence a humanoid creature wrapped in black bandages etched with inverted sigils, its face veiled, its steps silent. As it landed in the center of the academy courtyard, the very ground fractured around it. The moment it stood upright, alarms across the entire magical district flared red.
"UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED."
"SIGIL OVERRIDE: CLASS—NULL."
High-Rank instructors burst from their towers, but froze mid-flight. The Nullborn raised a single finger and time around them shattered. They fell from the sky like broken glass, frozen mid-movement.
Only one soul remained unaffected.
Kairo's eyes snapped open.
He ran.
The Nullborn turned slowly as Kairo approached, eaxh step the boy took igniting the symbols on the courtyard tiles. This was no training. No test. This was execution.
"You are not supposed to be," the Nullborn said, its voice layered with a hundred others man, woman, child, beast. "The Breaker Flame was sealed by divine oath. Your existence is an error."
"I didn't ask for it," Kairo said. "But I won't run from it either."
The Nullborn tilted its head. "Then die with honor."
It vanished.
Kairo barely blocked the strike in time. A pulse of flame erupted from his palm, knocking the creature back yet not harming it. The courtyard burned. Glass shattered in nearby towers. Students screamed and scrambled away as spells ricocheted through the air.
From the tower above, Lyra dove.
She landed beside Kairo with a blade of wind forged from four elemental sigils, eyes blazing. "You'll face it alone over my dead body."
Kairo looked at her, then back at the Nullborn. "That can be arranged," it said and attacked.
The battle was unlike anything the academy had seen. Divine flame met nullified existence. Kairo's Breaker Flame burned through layers of reality, warping the courtyard into an arena of color and chaos. Lyra's sigil mastery sliced through space, allowing her to blink between dimensions, but even that couldn't stop the Nullborn's assault.
Every blow it struck unraveled the laws of magic.
Kairo's chest was bleeding. Lyra's right arm hung limp. The world bent around the three of them as the elemental defenses of the academy finally activated glyph walls of ancient sigilcraft rising to shield what was left of the student body.
Still, the Nullborn pressed on.
"You cannot win," it said. "You are merely children playing with stolen flame."
Kairo's knees trembled. He was losing control again the same divine surge that had overtaken him in the duel now bubbled in his spine.
"Lyra," he whispered. "If I lose myself again run."
She slapped him.
"Don't you dare," she growled. "I came here to fight with you, not bury you."
Their hands met. Magic surged.
Together, their powers fused. Wind and flame spiraled in tandem, creating a vortex of radiant firestorm energy that cracked the sky and sent the Nullborn stumbling for the first time.
"Impossible," it whispered.
But Kairo wasn't done.
He screamed his voice becoming a roar of ancient tongues and his body lit from within. The glyph on his palm expanded, reaching across his arm and chest, until his right eye gleamed gold. He raised his hand.
"BREAK—THE—SEAL!"
A single bolt of golden-white fire erupted from his fingers, not toward the Nullborn but upward.
The sky cracked.
From above descended a divine spear.
Forged in rebellion.
Wrapped in memory.
Carved with the names of the fallen gods.
It struck the Nullborn through the chest, pinning it to the shattered ground. The creature writhed but did not scream. Instead, it stared up at Kairo.
"You've drawn their gaze now," it whispered. "They will not ignore you a second time."
Then it vanished in smoke.
Silence returned.
The clouds dispersed. The time-locks broke. Instructors landed, gathering the wounded. The academy buzzed with confusion, terror and awe.
Kairo collapsed to his knees, breathing hard.
Lyra was beside him in a moment.
"You okay?"
He nodded faintly.
And then, a voice echoed from the academy's crystal spires.
"By decree of the Council of Celestial Order," it announced, "Student Kairo Vale is hereby declared Rankless No More."
The sky shimmered.
A new rank appeared.
Rank ∞ — Heaven Breaker.
Far away, beyond the mortal plane, the gods stirred.
A figure in robes of starlight stepped from a celestial throne, his eyes narrowed.
"So," he murmured, "the boy survives. The flame burns again. Then let the game begin."
Behind him, twelve divine thrones shimmered into view.
The War of Heaven had begun.