The race to Origin had begun. The days blurred into one another as Kael pushed his body and Essence beyond all former thresholds. Elandor had changed around him—voices silenced when he entered, heads bowed, and younger adventurers whispered his name like a myth. He was now Eclipse rank, but that wasn't enough. Not when the skies were beginning to darken with a dread far beyond the city's walls.
Origin-class Varnok. The phrase alone chilled the soul.
Kael trained in isolation more often now, deep within the Guild's upper sanctum, a chamber built for testing the limits of high-tier Essence users. Runic pillars pulsed with containment wards while the floor bore charred cracks and storm-scorched etchings from his violent sessions.
His moves weren't just refined—they were evolving.
"Again," Kael muttered.
He blurred forward, vanishing into pure voltage—
Volt Requiem Execution.
Ten afterimages slashed through the air. Essence detonated outward in bursts of raw electricity, searing the chamber wall with forked burns. Kael landed hard, panting, his body sparking uncontrollably.
Still unstable.
He took a knee. "Not good enough... it has to be faster. Smoother."
The door to the training hall creaked. Leiya stepped in with a flask of cooling water. "You'll burn out before you even see that Origin-class Varnok."
He took the water silently, gulping it down. "Better I burn now than fall later."
She stared at him. "Kael... you're already at the edge. Just because you can keep climbing doesn't mean you should without rest."
He didn't reply. Instead, he extended his hand toward the pillar.
Infernal Maelstrom Rupture.
Flames swirled around him, igniting into a tempest before slamming forward. The entire warded platform shook, groaning under the pressure. Leiya winced.
He stood in the aftermath, scorched and sweating.
"I'm getting closer. I can feel it. Origin isn't some far-off miracle anymore."
Kael didn't isolate himself completely. Missions still came in—urgent calls for Eclipse-ranked intervention. Packs of Radiant-class Varnok were tearing through borderlands. Kael volunteered for every one.
He didn't need to prove anything. But every battle sharpened him further.
On a ridge above the charred forest of Ironshade, Kael dropped into a pack of snarling Pyre-ranked beasts.
Cyclone Ruin Driver.
He spun into a compressed vortex, crashing down with storm-wrapped kinetic force. The ground fractured, enemies obliterated in a shockwave. No hesitation. No wasted movement.
Yet as he looked out over the ruined clearing, he felt no triumph.
"This is just the surface," he muttered.
Back in Elandor, the High Council held private strategy sessions. The Origin-class Varnok still hadn't moved—but that was what frightened them. Kael only knew fragments of what was discussed. But every time the name Riven was spoken in his dreams, and every time he remembered the terror of that vision, he knew:
It's coming.
So he kept training.
Blazepulse Cataclysm.
Gravemarch Bastion.
Thunderalc Riftstorm.
Each technique honed under Arkzen's old guidance, now filtered through Kael's own brutal perfectionism. And in the silence between explosions, Leiya remained by his side—watching, guarding, and whispering reminders of the person he still was beneath the weight of what he was becoming.