The Fractured World
The world had never been gentle.
Not since the gifts appeared. Not since humans split between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Seventy percent bore a spark, a flicker of power. Thirty percent did not. That ratio rewrote law, war, and bloodlines. Cities were no longer built to withstand armies alone, but the impossible. Buildings were reinforced against forces that could tear steel apart. Streets were redesigned to survive shockwaves and collapsing gravity fields. Schools no longer taught only history and mathematics, but combat theory, restraint, and survival.
Families pledged loyalty not by name alone, but by ability.
And from that imbalance, ideology emerged.
Two names rose from the chaos. Avalon and Saint.
Avalon preached supremacy. The extraordinary deserved dominion. Power was proof of worth. Those without gifts were tools, collateral, necessary losses in a world that demanded strength. Their slogans burned across ruined streets and digital broadcasts alike. Strength is right. Weakness is waste.
The Saints answered with restraint. Power was not a crown, but a responsibility. The gifted existed to protect, not to rule. Defend the weak. Preserve coexistence. Their banners were fewer, their victories quieter, but no less dangerous. They fought with discipline rather than spectacle, with strategy rather than arrogance.
Between these factions, the world trembled.
Entire cities rose and fell. Armies clashed beneath skies split by lightning, fire, shadow, and sound. Kinetic barriers fractured under sustained assault. Sonic waves turned buildings into rubble. The battlefield became a living thing, responding violently to every gift unleashed upon it.
High above one such battlefield, the Kane estate loomed like an omen.
Black marble towers pierced a gray sky, their surfaces etched with the family sigil, a serpent devouring its own tail. The symbol appeared everywhere. On walls. On gates. On banners that did not flutter so much as hang with deliberate stillness. Even the wind seemed disciplined here, bending around towers and courtyards as if it feared reprisal.
Every stone whispered history. Every shadow carried memory.
Here, the Kane family prepared.
Not for victory, but for inevitability.
The patriarch, Alistair Kane, stood on a terrace overlooking the valley below. His arms were folded, his posture relaxed, but his gaze was sharp enough to cut steel. Below him, Avalon forces advanced like living storms. Saints responded with layered kinetic shields. Sound waves tore through the air. Shadows moved like predators, slipping beneath defenses and swallowing men whole.
The air pulsed with unspent power. Tension thickened until it felt almost solid.
"This is not war," Alistair murmured, his voice low and measured. The words were not meant for anyone else. "This is survival. And survival demands more than instinct."
Behind him, generations of Kane heirs trained across the estate grounds. Some moved with open confidence. Others lurked in silence. All obeyed unspoken rules written into their blood. Each carried a spark, a gift, a potential capable of tipping the scales of history.
Alistair's hand brushed the sigil carved into the terrace railing. The serpent devouring its own tail.
Eternity. Legacy. Power.
"Prepare them," he whispered. "The world will need its heirs. And when the storm comes, it must find us ready."
The wind rose, carrying echoes of distant battle. Lightning split the sky. Barriers shattered like glass. Screams echoed, both gifted and ordinary alike. The storm of power rolled through the valley like a living force.
Somewhere beyond the estate, beyond the mountains and rivers, a fate waited.
A Kane whose name was not yet spoken. A power not yet ignited. One who would one day stand at the crossroads of gods, Titans, and men. One who would challenge the very definition of energy and reshape the world itself.
Alistair turned from the terrace and descended the obsidian stairs into the main hall.
Shadows clung to his coat, stretching and coiling like smoke. He passed through corridors lined with history. Portraits of Kane ancestors stared down from black marble walls. Banners marked victories that had altered nations. Runic glass cast red and gold light across the floor, staining the stone like old blood.
Every step reinforced the truth.
This was no ordinary family.
Most gifted bloodlines carried a single signature ability. Fire passed from parent to child. Strength. Water. Shadow. Predictable. Contained.
The Kanes were different.
Their blood carried multiplicity. One Kane might awaken with control over light. Another might bend gravity or command living flora. Strength was greater. Precision sharper. Adaptation faster. Every generation refined what came before.
And in that multiplicity lay leverage.
In leverage lay danger.
Generals took notes. Kings watched carefully. Nations bent when the Kanes chose to act.
Alistair stopped before a vault door deep within the estate. Its surface was etched with sigils that pulsed faintly, resonating with the energy in the air. Within lay the family records. Every battle. Every experiment. Every Kane born and every Kane lost.
He traced a finger over a single faded name.
Max Kane.
The first Kane. The first Godslayer.
A shadow even the gods had feared.
"The world will need its heirs," Alistair whispered again.
The words sank into the estate. Into the stone. Into the blood of those yet to come.
Outside, night fell fully upon the battlefield. The clash intensified. Soldiers fell. Powers erupted in violent bursts of color and force. Lightning scorched the sky. Shadows devoured flesh. Kinetic fields collapsed inward with crushing finality.
The war lived. It breathed. It tested everything that dared exist within it.
And above it all, Alistair Kane remained.
Calm.
Immovable.
Watching.
Waiting.