Consciousness returned in fragments.
Not light, not sound—pressure. Weight. The sense of being pressed into shape by forces that did not care whether he fit.
Gale did not wake as a god.
He woke as a body.
Air scraped down a throat that felt too narrow. Lungs expanded reluctantly, each breath dragging pain along the ribs like serrated wire. The stone beneath him was cold, uneven, biting through fabric and skin alike.
Pain registered everywhere at once.
Gale did not react.
Instead, he observed.
This body was supine, angled slightly to the left. Cervical strain evident. Bruising across the lower ribs—four impacts minimum, likely delivered with controlled force to avoid rupture. Internal organs compressed, displaced, but intact.
Heart rate irregular but sustaining.
Blood loss present, external only.
Conclusion: the vessel should not be functional.
Yet it was.
Gale focused inward—not with divine perception, but with attention refined by eternity. He traced sensation as a system, followed the pain to its source.
The reinforcement was active.
Foundational Reinforcement did not repair. It refused collapse.
Muscle fibers held cohesion beyond safe thresholds. Microtears existed, but they did not propagate. Capillaries leaked, but circulation adapted. Neural pathways fired despite overload, signal integrity preserved through brute persistence.
Existence-stability.
The magic was not strengthening flesh. It was insisting that the concept of "Aren Valen" continue occupying space.
Gale tested a finger.
It moved.
Agony flared—raw, unfiltered, immediate. No divine dampening. No transcendence buffer. The pain was absolute.
Interesting.
Gods felt pain only when they chose to. Mortals had no such luxury.
He rolled onto his side.
The motion sent a cascade of signals through the body, some of them wrong. Something in the lower spine had shifted out of optimal alignment. Not broken. Merely… compromised.
Gale cataloged it and moved anyway.
He pushed himself upright against the wall.
The world swam. Vision dimmed at the edges. Blood pressure lagged. The body threatened syncope.
Reinforcement surged.
Not a command. A reflex.
Reality bent, infinitesimally, to keep Aren Valen conscious.
Gale exhaled slowly.
This was not regeneration. This was defiance.
He understood now why this lineage had survived without ever rising.
A body that refused to end—but never learned to win.
Footsteps approached again. Not the bullies this time—lighter, more erratic.
"—swear I heard something."
Gale adjusted his posture, slumping deliberately. He let his head fall forward, hair obscuring his face. Blood remained visible. Bruising bloomed vividly beneath pale skin.
Convincing weakness mattered.
Two junior students appeared at the corridor entrance. They stopped when they saw him.
"Oh. It's Valen."
"Is he… dead?"
One nudged his foot with a shoe.
Gale did not react.
They hesitated, then retreated. Fear, not concern.
Minutes later, the academy's response arrived.
Healers wore neutral gray mantles, sigils of medical authority stitched along their sleeves. They approached with professional detachment, already accustomed to what this place produced.
One knelt beside Gale, fingers glowing faintly as diagnostic magic unfolded.
Then paused.
"…That's odd."
Another healer frowned. "He's alive?"
"Yes," the first said slowly. "Barely. But—his internals aren't failing."
"That's impossible. Look at him."
They applied restorative magic.
Gale felt it immediately—foreign mana pressing against his systems, attempting to knit flesh, accelerate recovery.
He did not resist.
He also did not cooperate.
The reinforcement reacted first.
Restorative magic repaired superficial damage where permitted—skin sealed partially, bleeding slowed. But deeper injuries did not resolve. The reinforcement refused alteration. Not out of hostility, but inertia.
This is how the body is, it seemed to say.
You may not redefine it.
The healers exchanged looks.
"I don't understand," one muttered. "His ribs should be fractured."
"They aren't," the other replied. "But they should be."
They stabilized him and transported him to the infirmary.
Gale endured the movement in silence.
Each jolt sent pain screaming through his nervous system. Each time, the reinforcement compensated—not by numbing, but by preventing shutdown.
He experienced all of it.
He chose to.
In the infirmary, white light and antiseptic air replaced stone and dust. Gale was laid onto a bed. More diagnostics followed. More confusion.
"He should be in shock."
"He isn't."
"Mana levels?"
"Low. Normal. No surge activity."
"This makes no sense."
Gale listened, eyes half-lidded, breathing shallow. He learned.
This academy relied on expectations. On patterns. On the belief that power announced itself.
He would not.
Hours passed.
The healers left, unsettled. Gale was deemed stable enough to survive the night, unstable enough to warrant observation.
Eventually, the infirmary quieted.
That was when he noticed her.
Elara Veyne stood near the doorway.
She had not approached. She did not speak. She simply watched.
Her presence was… wrong.
Not intrusive. Not hostile. Reactive.
Gale felt it immediately—a faint tension along the reinforcement's edges, like pressure encountering resistance. Something in her vicinity caused the magic to tighten, to become more deliberate.
She was a variable.
Elara's eyes were a pale, clear gray, focused not on his injuries but on his face. Not curiosity. Assessment.
Godslayer blessing, dormant but present.
Gale did not reach for power. He did not test her.
He merely met her gaze.
For a fraction of a second, something flickered in her expression.
Not recognition.
Concern.
Then confusion.
She turned and left without a word.
Gale lay back against the pillow, pain pulsing steadily through his body, unrelenting.
He smiled, faintly.
This body would not end.
And the world was already beginning to notice.