It was late evening by the time Logan finally made his way home.
He had wandered aimlessly through the outer districts of Youlan, eyes glazed, heart hollow. The noise of the city had faded into a dull haze—just cobbled streets and silent thoughts.
He hated magic.
He always had. Hated how people treated each other because of it—how civilians were cast aside, left to fend for themselves in a world where power decided worth. He never wanted to be a mage. So why did it ache this much?
Why did the thing he claimed to loathe leave him feeling so... broken?
When he reached home, his mother, Julie, pulled him into a hug the second she saw him. "It's not the end of the world," she whispered into his shoulder.
His father, Harold, sat silently at the dinner table, shoulders hunched as if the air itself were too heavy. He tried to offer something—a few words of comfort, a weak smile—but Logan saw the truth behind his eyes.
Disappointment.
Harold had always hoped. Had always believed his only child might succeed where he hadn't. Now, they were the same. Father and son. Both powerless.
"Thanks," Logan said softly, stepping away. "I'm going to my room."
Julie tried to convince him to eat, even just a bite, but he shook his head.
He wasn't hungry.
The door clicked shut behind him. And almost immediately, the shouting began.
His mother's voice rose in frustration—furious at Harold's coldness, his silence. Harold shouted back, saying he was worried about bigger things—about taxes, about reputation, about the family shop collapsing under pressure. Their voices clashed, loud and bitter.
Logan lay on his bed, motionless, helpless, listening to the sound of everything he loved tearing at the seams. They used to be happy. They used to laugh. His father used to smile, even after magic had stolen everything from him.
But now...
Now there was only anger. Only silence.
And then the thought hit him.
Her.
The source of this.
"The so-called Goddess Essentia," he muttered aloud.
His chest tightened. His vision blurred.
"What goddess? She's just a bored bitch who toys with people's lives."
His voice cracked as the words fell from his lips—sharp, wet with pain.
"She calls it a gift? What kind of gift builds a world where the unchosen suffer in silence?"
His fists clenched.
"It's a classist system designed to sideline the people she doesn't deem worthy. What gods? What benevolence?"
His voice trembled now, brittle and breaking.
"My ancestors worked night after night, forging weapons and armor for this ungrateful kingdom... and where was she then?"
Tears fell freely now, dragging streaks down his cheeks. He sat hunched over, weeping openly, the words a venom he couldn't stop spilling.
Across distant planes unseen by mortals, his voice echoed.
A woman's illusory form, flowing in kaleidoscopic colors, shuddered. Her lips curled. "Blasphemy," she spat, her divine form trembling with fury.
Elsewhere, in a realm of darkness and bone, a hulking shadow-beast coiled in laughter. "Hah! A bored bitch," the monster echoed, grinning wide. "What a brave lad."
And further still, in a plane folded between time and gravity, a figure sat cross-legged, woven from silence and stars.
Kael'Thorne.
He barely moved, his expression unreadable.
"A classist system, hmm... to toy with people's lives," he murmured. "What an interesting lad."
He turned his gaze outward, eyes narrowing. "Ungrateful kingdom, he said... but power always corrupts. Even the noblest tyrants say it's for the good of the weak."
He raised a single hand and closed his eyes. "So show me, boy. Show me the free and unfettered path. What does a good man do with power?"
And with that, he slammed his palm into the fabric of space itself.
The void split.
A crack tore through reality, an endless rift of pure blackness. He smiled faintly and summoned a smooth drop of liquid—small, glowing with impossible depth. He let it hover in his hand a moment... then tossed it into the rift.
"Don't disappoint me, young lad."
Back in the realm of colored light, the illusory goddess jolted. "What is he doing?!"
In the dark realm, the shadow-beast stopped laughing. "Him? He never interferes... why now?"
In a vast celestial chamber, larger than any world, two ancient men sat across a chessboard made of stars.
The one with a white beard moved his knight forward. "Check. It seems the stalemate is broken. But who holds advantage?"
The bald man opposite him smiled faintly. "No one. Kael has promoted a pawn. Perhaps a rogue queen will emerge—unclaimed, unaffiliated, free."
The bearded man raised an eyebrow. "Or perhaps the pawn will be removed before it finds its place."
The bald man shifted his king, avoiding check. "Kael doesn't care for placement. But it seems this boy has... resonated. Even with me."
He let out a soft sigh. "Still, we are not players. We are balance."
The white-bearded man tapped a rook and whispered, "The free and unfettered, huh... Let's see."
Back in the Youlan Kingdom, within the high halls of the royal palace, Queen Altheria Veyne sat at a banquet table, her family gathered around her.
Her king-consort—the legendary Lord of the Shadows—sat at her side. Their daughter, Aleshia, a stunning young woman with a gold support core, toasted alongside her brothers, Brian and Peter, each recently tested and revealed to wield gold elemental cores.
Laughter filled the chamber—warm, rare, real.
"Dear husband," the queen said, raising her glass, "It seems your Myrren bloodline once again receives the favor of our divine goddess."
The king-consort smiled. "Not just the Myrrens. Our family has produced three gold cores. If that isn't the goddess's blessing, I don't know what is. And the Vellorins? A gold construct core—imagine the beast weapons he'll craft."
He paused. Then, his gaze darkened.
"But... such blessings often precede calamity."
The room stilled.
And then it began.
The air changed. Light dimmed. The sky outside shimmered.
The queen stood, her chair scraping back. Her pupils dilated.
"What is that?" she whispered. "That... presence?"
Guards stepped forward instantly, hands on hilts.
"Is it an incursion from Julio?" the king-consort asked, placing himself protectively before his children. "A bestial surge?"
"No," Altheria said softly. "It's not the Bestial God's magic... It's other. It's not wild. It's... ancient. Ethereal."
Back in the artisan district of Youlan, Logan was still muttering, still cursing—words raw from screaming, voice thick with grief. His thoughts tumbled out in broken fragments of anger and sorrow.
And then it happened.
A drop of liquid slid into his mouth—cool, alien, invisible.
And fire erupted in his chest.
He doubled over, gasping, claws of agony tearing through his insides.
He screamed.
Down the hall, his parents froze, their argument silenced in an instant. They burst into his room and found Logan vomiting blood—thick, tar-like, pulsing with something... wrong.
Julie screamed. Harold raced outside, shouting for a healer, for anyone.
Logan collapsed, breath shallow, vision fading, ears ringing.
And then—
A screen blinked to life in front of his eyes. Smooth, silent, unfurling from nothing.
A voice—not divine, not human, but cold, efficient—echoed in his skull:
[System Alert: "You have been untethered from fate. Welcome to the Protocol."]