The sky was not merely dark; it was violent.
Thunder rolled with the deafening fury of ancient gods, and a relentless, howling wind screamed as if the world itself was protesting what was about to occur.
Through this absolute chaos, three figures pushed forward.
A woman walked with agonizing difficulty, leaning heavily on the man beside her. Her husband stayed anchored to her side, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist. A few paces behind them followed her disciple, her head bowed against the torrential rain.
These three were not ordinary travelers. Wherever they walked, nations held their breath and legends were whispered in their wake. They had traversed hidden continents, explored ruins older than recorded history, and even crossed the boundaries into other worlds.
But tonight, their immense strength meant nothing.
The woman was pregnant, and she was out of time.
At first, the pain had come slowly a tightening of her breath, a faint tremor in her hands. But then, a sharp, brutal agony struck her core. She gasped, her legs buckling as she clutched her swollen belly.
"No- My stomach its starting to hurt" saying this took her entire strength she nearly fall.
Her husband caught her instantly, bearing her weight before she could fall into the mud.
"Not now…" he whispered, his low voice trembling with a worry that no enemy had ever managed to draw from him.
He knew the baby was coming.
Under normal circumstances, distance was an illusion to them. They could fly, crossing the sky to reach a grand city with elite healers in minutes. But the storm made flight a suicide mission. The wind violently tore at the air, and the environmental mana moved in chaotic, dangerous crosscurrents. One miscalculation, one slip in concentration, and they would be dragged into the void.
The disciple stepped closer, her voice shaking as she fought to be heard over the gale. "Master… if we try to push forward in this storm, the strain of the labor and traveling through this wilderness could cause severe internal injuries. There is a high risk of a miscarriage."
Hearing this husband tightened his jaw until his teeth grind together. He had fought beasts that could shatter mountains and stood unmoved before massive armies, but right now, looking at his wife's pale face, a cold, unfamiliar fear took root inside him.
"Find the nearest village," he ordered, his voice cutting through the thunder. "Right now."
Without hesitation she vanished into the storm like a streak of blurred light.
Two minutes later, she materialized back into the physical realm, rain dripping heavily from her cloak. Her face was pale, but her eyes held a sliver of hope.
"There is a village nearby called Drona," she reported quickly. "It has a small hospital."
Hearing this Husband decided they had no other choice and started their journey toward the village
Drona Village
They reached the outskirts of Drona Village when the storm was at its absolute peak.
Rain poured down like a falling ocean. Ancient trees bent dangerously under the wind's assault. The ground had turned into a thick, clinging mud, making every step a grueling battle.
The hospital was a small, fragile-looking structure with weathered stone walls and weak, due to storm flickering lights bleeding through the windows. It looked insignificant against the wrath of the storm, but to them, it was their only hope.
The husband lifted his wife into his arms and carried her inside. He ignored the thick mud ruining his grand clothes, the biting cold, and the stunned, fearful looks of the patients and staff.
Seeing the strangers who are not from this village but seeing the women with swollen belly, nurses immediately began shouting orders, their lethargy shattered by the urgency of the situation. They scrambled into motion, declaring that the birth had to begin immediately.
Nurse guided them to a nearby empty room there husband laid his wife gently on the sterile white bed, his hand lingering over hers for a fraction of a second, squeezing tight. Then, the nurses physically pushed him toward the exit.
The door clicked shut.
Soon, the screams started.
They were not normal screams. They were loud, agonizing, and full of a soul-rending pain that somehow cut through the deafening noise of the storm outside. Each cry felt like a jagged blade carving directly into the husband's heart.
His hands shook as he stood in the empty, flickering hallway.
"Please… survive," he whispered into the empty air.
He slowly raised his trembling hand. The trembling stopped. His face changed, the desperate fear vanishing behind a mask of absolute, unyielding authority. He looked calm, ancient, and terrifyingly strong.
"Aku."
Everything stopped for a fraction of a second. Even the raging storm outside seemed to falter, intimidated by the word.
Something emerged from the empty space behind him.
Aku appeared.
He was an ancient dragon, a being not born of this world. His mere presence made the air unbearably heavy. The hallway smelled suddenly of ozone and the dust of dead stars. The stone floor cracked faintly under his unseen, suppressed weight, even though he remained hidden in the fold of shadows.
Aku was impossibly old, older than human cities, older than the worlds they had explored. His power was so vast that simply keeping it contained within this small building was a struggle even for him. Golden, abyssal eyes looked down at the man, waiting in absolute silence.
"Aku," the husband said, his voice steady. "Protect the portal. And protect my child."
He turned his gaze back toward the closed wooden door.
"The one who is about to be born," he continued, the weight of destiny in his words. "This child will be your future master."
Aku slowly lowered his massive, scaled head to show he understood the pact.
"But do not show yourself," the husband added strictly. "Stay hidden. Watch from the shadows. Only appear when he is strong enough to bear it."
Aku did not answer with words. He didn't need to. He simply faded away, melting quietly back into the nothingness to fulfill his timeless order.
The screams from the room continued for what felt like an eternity.
Then, they stopped.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the outside of room, far heavier than the storm outside.
The door opened with a soft creak. A nurse stepped out, wiping her brow, looking exhausted but calm.
"You can go in now, and congratulation Both wife and baby is safe" she said.
The husband rushed inside, his heart in his throat.
On the bed, wrapped in white cloth, lay a baby boy. Small, fragile, breathing lightly, but undeniably alive.
Tears finally broke through the man's stoic eyes. He turned to his wife, who looked impossibly tired but gave him a weak smile, and he held her close, drowning in a wave of profound relief.
But at that exact moment, a single drop of golden blood slipped from the edge of the bed.
When it touched the stone floor space broke open.
A dimensional gate tore itself into existence right in the middle of the small room. Reality twisted violently, the air screeching as the laws of physics collapsed. A terrifying, crushing gravitational pull erupted, dragging everything toward the gate.
The husband and wife were pulled immediately, their bodies lifted off the floor.
"No! He knew this would happen." the man roared, his voice echoing with raw power.
He flared his mana, trying desperately to hold on, to fight the abyssal pull of the void.
It was not enough. The tear in space was absolute.
In the last ticking second, he looked at his fragile child resting on the edge of the collapsing bed. He made the only choice a father could make.
With every ounce of his remaining strength, he hurled the baby away from the gate, tossing the bundle safely into the far corner of the room.
"LIVE!" he shouted.
The gate slammed shut with a concussive boom.
They were gone.
The room became unnaturally still, the only sound the faint, confused cries of the newborn.
The disciple ran into the room a second later, her weapon drawn and blazing with energy. "MASTER—!"
But nothing was left. No sign of them. No trace of mana. Only the strange, distorted air where the two greatest beings she knew had stood moments ago.
She dropped her weapon, falling to her knees as a broken sob tore from her throat. She cried until her lungs burned.
Then, she heard the whimpering. She looked up and saw the baby.
He had suffered a small injury from the force of being thrown. His tiny heart beat frantically, and his fragile body shook from the sudden, biting cold of the room.
She crawled over, picking him up with trembling, careful hands, holding him close to her chest to share her warmth. She looked around the empty room through her tears.
Only three things remained of her masters: A black pendant. A ring. And a small leather wallet.
"I will protect him," the disciple whispered into the silence, rocking the child. "No matter what it takes."
Outside, thunder sounded again, mourning the loss.
And far away, in a place untouched by the storm, an ancient dragon opened his golden eyes. He watched. And he waited for the day his master would rise.
13 Years Later
Evening came to Drona Village, the sun setting slowly and casting long, distorted shadows across the dirt. The air felt heavy and suffocatingly quiet.
In a forgotten corner of the training grounds, where few people ever ventured, a boy lay motionless on the dirt.
His name was Rudra Dev.
Dust coated his skin, mixing with sweat and dried blood. His clothes were torn from some places, and only the shallow, uneven rise of his chest showed that he was still alive.
Six boys stood around him in a loose circle. Their faces looked calm, almost bored, as if beating a boy half to death was a mundane chore.
"Kick him," one of them said without a shred of feeling.
A heavy, brutal kick slammed into Rudra's stomach. His breath stopped entirely for a agonizing moment, his body curling inward instinctively.
"You filthy gutter insect," another boy sneered with pure disgust, looking down at him. "Do you even know what level you are?"
A heavy punch followed, cracking against Rudra's cheekbone.
Rudra stayed quiet, his eyes squeezed shut, gritting his teeth against the metallic taste of blood. He had learned years ago that begging only made the beating last longer.
In this world, Level decided everything. It was the absolute measure of how well someone could sense and channel mana. Those who could use mana held power, respect, and authority. Those who could not were treated like dirt beneath their boots.
Rudra had no mana.
He was poor, abandoned as an infant, and grew up in the local orphanage with no memory of his parents. The one of few people who had ever truly cared for him was Naina, the nurse who had raised him like her own flesh and blood. She had given him the only thing he actually owned, a black pendant etched with faint golden marks.
He wore it every single day. Whenever he got beaten and left broken on the ground, the pendant would grow faintly warm against his bruised chest. It almost felt as though something inside it was awake, watching him.
Before the next hit could land, the sound of rapid, heavy footsteps echoed across the dirt.
"Stop."
One word. Cold, furious, and firm.
The six boys turned and froze in their tracks.
A boy had arrived at the edge of the clearing. Aarav. His face was twisted with pure anger.
Rudra looked up through a swollen eye and felt a wave of relief wash over the pain. Aarav was his best friend one of the few he had in this cruel place.
Aarav was exceptionally strong. Even before he took another step toward them, the six bullies exchanged terrified glances and scrambled backward, fleeing like cowards into the evening shadows.
Aarav's fists trembled. He wanted to chase them down, to make them bleed, but when he looked back and saw the extent of Rudra's injuries, he stopped. His heart felt tight, squeezing with guilt.
Without waiting for Rudra to speak, he knelt down, gently lifted his friend onto his back, and ran straight toward the hospital wing.
Like Rudra, Aarav had grown up in the orphanage. But unlike Rudra, Aarav could use mana remarkably well. At only nine years old, he had already reached Fighter Level: Stage 8. It was an impressive feat that made even the older, more experienced students stay careful around him.
Many children in the orphanage could use mana. But there were about twenty children who were left there specifically because they could not control it properly. They had dormant mana inside their bodies, but to connect the physical body with the mana channels required expensive, specialized medicines that their impoverished families could not afford. So, they were discarded.
Rudra was one of those discarded children. Aarav was not.
The Hospital
When Naina saw Aarav carry Rudra through the hospital doors, the color drained completely from her face.
"Why is he hurt so badly?" she asked, her voice shaking as she rushed forward.
She took a deep breath, forcing the panic down, and immediately started treatment. Her hands moved fast, applying salves and bandages, even though her fingers trembled slightly. As Rudra was laid out on the white bed, the black pendant around his neck grew warmer than it ever had before, pulsing against his skin.
Later that night, the hospital corridor stayed unnaturally quiet. The medical machines hummed with soft, rhythmic sounds. Rudra lay unconscious, bruises painting his skin purple and black. But beneath the surface, his breathing became heavier and more even, as if his body was silently fighting back as if something was happening inside him.
Naina stood next to his bed, her eyes full of sorrow. Aarav waited near the door, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.
'If only I had come sooner,' Aarav thought bitterly, staring at the floor. He hated his own strength for the first time in his life. What good was being Fighter Stage 8 if he couldn't protect his only brother?
Naina saw the dark look on his face and spoke softly, breaking the silence. "Calm down, Aarav. This is not your fault. The world is cruel. Here, only the powerful get respect. You cannot be everywhere at once."
Having tried to soothe Aarav's doubts, Naina turned her gaze toward the ceiling. Her mind drifted away from the hospital room, reminiscing about a weathered piece of paper hidden away in her room.
It was the letter from her Master's husband, the one she had found tucked inside the small leather wallet thirteen years ago. The words were burned into her memory.