The wind howled over Elandor's southern gates, clouds gathering above like thickened ash, but Kael barely noticed the brewing storm. His boots were already coated in blood and frost. His cloak snapped behind him as he descended the slope, another field of Varnok corpses left broken and charred in his wake.
Two missions in a single day. Four this week. None had lasted more than a few minutes.
Kael moved like a blade unsheathed, fury sharpened by helplessness. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it—that towering silhouette in the shadows of Dravhallow, the Varnok that hadn't noticed him… yet had nearly crushed the air from his lungs just by standing there. And now, the expedition team meant to investigate it was gone. No sign. No return. Silence.
He couldn't wait anymore. Couldn't sit in training halls or scroll-stuffed war rooms while the world burned in slow, quiet ways.
So he moved.
Mission requests flooded Emberlight's board. He picked them all—solo sorties, defense runs, escort paths through corrupted terrain. Wherever Dregspawn, Mawbeasts, or Shriekers appeared, Kael answered. Not as a soldier, not even as an adventurer. Something closer to a force of nature.
The latest target was a ruined outpost overrun by Mawbeasts. Three minutes after arrival, the first strike of lightning had torn through the lead creature's skull. The second hadn't even had time to react before Kael surged through its chest, essence burning through flesh like molten sunfire.
No wasted movement. No hesitation.
In the aftermath, Kael crouched in the mud, his breathing steady but his aura spiking in waves. Maelstrom Overburn still pulsed along his spine, the aftermath of using it in his last two fights still lingering in the numbness of his limbs.
He stood, flexing sore fingers.
"Still too slow…"
Back in Elandor, Emberlight had begun to notice. Arlan watched him from afar with quiet concern. Guild handlers whispered about his pace, his increasingly reckless streak. Some called it passion. Others, burnout.
But Kael didn't care what they said.
On the fourth day, he intercepted a pack of Shriekers mid-raid on a merchant convoy. Before they could even dive from the tree line, Kael was already among them, each step snapping with thunder. One screeched—a disruption wave meant to disorient casters.
Kael didn't falter.
He weaved past its claw swipe and drove his fist into its ribs. Storm-wrapped fingers exploded out its back. Flame coursed in the second strike—a sweeping kick that left molten arcs across the clearing. Every movement now wasn't just speed or elemental might; it was fire, storm, and warform combined.
A refined style.
Balanced.
Maelstrom Overburn was no longer a technique Kael feared to invoke. It had become his edge—the devastating culmination of months of hardship, awakening, and mastery.
The convoy survivors barely had time to see his face before he vanished again.
That night, while wiping the grime from his armor in silence, Kael sat outside the city walls, watching the moon flicker behind a veil of clouds. His muscles ached, his essence was low, but the storm inside him refused to quiet.
He clenched his fist and pressed it to his chest, feeling the hum of Storm, Lightning, and now Flame coursing together—vivid, volatile, and somehow still incomplete.
"I couldn't help them," he murmured, thinking of the Ignis-ranked squad. "But I'll be ready next time."
As if in response, a low rumble cracked the sky—distant thunder rolling across the horizon.
Kael's eyes narrowed. His next mission was already loaded into his satchel. A region south of the Myrrhfen Wastes had gone dark. Signs of Essence corruption. Faint traces of that same sigil reported by outliers.
His hands trembled—not from fear, but from anticipation.
The hunt wasn't over.
It had just begun.