The snake's corpse sprawled in the flickering firelight, all shredded meat and bone. The stench of it was so thick I nearly gagged, bile clawing up my throat.
Then the pain came.
My right hand—or what was left of it—burned with sharp, throbbing agony. I stared at the ragged stump. This wasn't a nightmare I could wake from. It was real. And it wasn't going away.
Leaving the cave immediately would've been suicide. If there was another monster like that snake nearby, I wouldn't survive. So I stayed—nursing my injury, forcing down stringy chunks of half-burned meat over a fire of damp wood. Every bite was bitter smoke and rot, but it kept me alive.
I stayed for three days, long enough for the bleeding to slow and the fever to fade. When I finally stepped out of the cave, the sun stabbed at my eyes. As I had no idea where I was, I decided to head east in the hope that I could find human beings.
The journey east took nearly twenty days. The wilderness was endless—rolling hills of silver grass, jagged stone ridges like the spines of buried beasts, forests so dense the light could barely slip through. Every night I kept a fire burning, not for warmth, but to warn whatever lurked out there that I wasn't easy prey.
I passed through small villages where people eyed my missing hand, whispered, and offered scraps of information for scraps of coin. It was in one such village that I first heard about the gods.
Fifteen of them. Each with an apostle—chosen mortals granted a single, unique power. The kind of power that could topple kings or save nations. People spoke of apostles the way you'd speak of storms: dangerous, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore.
I didn't tell anyone about the visions I'd had in the cave. About the futures that had clawed into my mind. I didn't need more whispers following me.
Eventually, the spires of Alden appeared—a bustling trade city framed by high walls and crowded streets.
The first days blurred together. The air smelled of spice and coal smoke; the streets rang with wagon wheels and haggling merchants. I slept in the cheapest inns, worked odd jobs—hauling crates, delivering messages—to scrape together enough for food.
In those days, I also began to understand magic. Not everyone could use it; it required something they called a "mana core," a reservoir within the soul. And while most learned basic spells through study and practice, apostles didn't need to— their powers were innate, unreplicable.
I tried my visions once, to see if they'd answer to my will.
It was just a card game in a smoky tavern. I reached for that strange thread in my mind, the one that tugged me toward what might happen next.
The futures came in flashes—me winning, me losing, the man across from me cheating, the bar erupting into a brawl.
The backlash was instant. My skull throbbed like it had been split with an axe, and my vision swam. I guessed the right move, but I left the table half-blind with pain. Lesson learned: even small uses came with a cost.
One night, while returning from a delivery, I overheard two merchants talking about Tenshiro Academy—a prestigious school of magic that gave out ten free scholarships each year through a public tournament. It was the kind of opportunity I couldn't ignore.
But the thought chilled me. If the thing in the cave—took over in front of a crowd, I'd kill someone. And it wouldn't be a monster this time.
Still… hesitation wouldn't make me stronger.
The night before I signed up, the void swallowed me again. Solmerra stood there, her gaze sharper than before.
"You're going to Tenshiro," she said flatly. "Not wise. In a place full of skilled magic users, some may sense me in you. Enough to get you executed."
She offered me a silver necklace, warm against my palm. "Wear this, and it will hide my presence. Never take it off around those who can sense mana."
When I woke, dawn was breaking.
The tournament grounds were alive with noise—banners fluttering, mages in robes weaving between chalked rings. In the waiting room, competitors sat on benches, sharpening weapons or murmuring over spellbooks. One man near the wall stared at me with pale, unnatural blue eyes.
"You smell wrong," he said when I got too close. "Like you've touched something you shouldn't." His gaze flicked to my necklace. "Careful. Wrong smells draw the wrong kind of attention."
Before I could respond, a robed official stepped in. "First match—Garell versus Yuki Aoba."
The arena loomed, stone walls humming with wards to protect the crowd. Garell crossed to his side with the calm confidence of someone who'd fought here before. I stepped into the ring, my heart hammering. The necklace pulsed hot against my chest.
The chime rang.
The match began.
Arena Match — Yuki vs. Garell
The chime rang, sharp as a blade.
Garell moved first. A spike of stone erupted from the ground where I'd been standing a heartbeat before. I threw myself aside, rolling awkwardly—my missing hand made catching myself impossible, and the scrape along my arm stung hot.
The crowd roared. They weren't cheering for me.
Another spike shot up. Then another. He wasn't aiming to kill—yet—but to box me in, force me into a corner. The stone rose in jagged walls, each one sealing off another escape route.
"You don't belong here, newcomer," Garell called, his voice carrying easily over the noise.
My breathing quickened. I tried to reach for the flicker of mana I'd felt during my days in Alden, but it was slippery, like trying to catch smoke.
The darkness stirred.
Let me handle this.
No. Not yet.
A wall slammed up in front of me, close enough to throw stone dust into my eyes. I coughed, blinded for a moment—and that's when the spike came.
Instinct screamed. Futures blurred in my vision: me leaping, me bleeding, me crumpled on the floor. I chose one, lunged right, and barely avoided losing a leg.
The backlash hit instantly. My skull throbbed as if something inside it had cracked. Warm blood ran from my nose.
"You're not going to last," Garell said, raising both hands. The ground under me buckled.
I reached deeper, the way Solmerra had shown me. Mana flared in my chest, hot and urgent. I thrust out my remaining hand.
"Flame Pistol!"
A burst of fire tore from my palm, slamming into Garell's shoulder. His barrier flared, cracked, then shattered under the impact. The crowd gasped.
Pain bloomed in my head, worse than before—sharp, splitting, relentless. I staggered, half-blind, while Garell steadied himself, his smirk gone.
The darkness pulsed again, hungrier now.
You can't win without me.
Stone spikes shot toward me in a deadly fan. My legs moved before my mind caught up, guided by flashes of fractured futures. One showed me ducking, another rolling left, another taking the hit and going down. My body threaded through the possibilities, scraping past each attack by inches.
I closed the distance, slammed my palm into his chest, and pushed—hard. Mana exploded outward, raw and uncontrolled, hurling us both backward.
We hit the ground. The formations of stone dissolved into dust.
The match bell rang.
For a moment, I didn't know if I'd won. My vision swam. My breath came in ragged gasps.
The medics were already running toward me, their magic warm against my skin, but it didn't reach the cold pit in my chest.
Because just before the futures faded, I'd seen something else—
Not Garell. Not the arena.
A face.
Smiling at me from the shadows.
And whispering my name.