The training grounds of the Sect of Shattered Veins were built into the hollow of a mountain. Sunlight seeped only faintly through jagged cracks in the ceiling, making the air heavy with shadows. Torches lined the walls, their flames tinted with unnatural colors blue, green, sometimes violet shimmering against stone scarred by centuries of trials.
Kael stood among the newest initiates, his arms still bandaged from the ritual of Vein Engraving. The flesh beneath throbbed with every heartbeat, silver lines glowing faintly through his skin. He had endured the first trial, but survival was no shield against what came next.
Across the chamber, the gatekeeper from yesterday now introduced as Master Daran surveyed them with an expression that blended disinterest and cruelty. His eyes burned faintly, like embers refusing to die.
"You have carved your veins," Daran said, voice carrying like a hammer against stone. "Now you must test whether they can carry the residue. The fragments do not forgive weakness. If you cannot endure the flow, you will unravel before us."
He gestured, and disciples dragged forward a chest bound in chains. They opened it with a grinding clank, revealing shards of crystal that pulsed with sickly radiance. Each shard was small, no larger than a clenched fist, yet the air itself seemed to warp around them. Kael felt his scar pulse sharply, as though recognizing the shards' essence.
Divine Residues.
The same poison that had devoured his village.
Daran's lips curled into something like a smile. "Choose a shard. Place it against your skin. Let it flow through your conduits. If you live, you may call yourself an initiate. If you die, the mountain will eat your remains."
One by one, initiates stepped forward. Some hesitated, trembling as they reached for the shards. Others grasped them with desperate greed, eyes wide with hunger for strength.
The first to try was a broad-shouldered youth. He pressed the shard to his chest. For a moment, nothing happened. Then his veins flared, light surging through him like wildfire. He screamed, falling to his knees, as his flesh bubbled and split. His body twisted unnaturally, bones cracking, skin peeling away in sheets.
Kael's stomach clenched, but he forced himself to watch. This was not a clean death. This was corruption made visible the body rejecting divinity. Within moments, what had been a boy was now a hollow husk, his form crumbled into ash that scattered across the stone floor.
Daran did not flinch. "Weak veins," he said flatly. "Next."
Another disciple stepped forward, this one a girl with cold eyes. She pressed the shard to her arm, her face tightening as light burned through her conduits. She shook violently, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood. But she remained standing. When the shard dimmed and the light settled within her, her silver veins pulsed steady.
Daran gave the faintest nod. "Endured. Step aside."
Kael's turn came sooner than he expected. His heart pounded, but his face remained calm as he stepped forward. The shards pulsed in the chest, whispering silently. One of them, faintly cracked and darker than the others, seemed to hum in resonance with his scar. Without hesitation, he reached for it.
The moment it touched his palm, the world convulsed.
Energy surged through his engraved veins like a flood of molten fire. He staggered, every nerve screaming. His body felt as though it were tearing apart, each cell screaming under the burden of divine poison. The whispers roared louder voices not his own, speaking in languages his mind could not grasp.
Break… consume… ascend…
He gritted his teeth, forcing the energy into the paths carved by the engraving ritual. The conduits buckled, strained, but did not shatter. His vision blurred, flashes of colossal figures bleeding into sight the gods of old, their cracked forms dripping light like blood. One of them turned its gaze toward him, hollow eyes burning with recognition.
Pain lanced his skull. Kael dropped to one knee, clutching the shard tighter instead of releasing it. His instinct screamed at him to let go, but another voice whispered within his own this time, clear amidst the madness:
If you drop it, you die powerless. If you endure, you live.
He forced the energy deeper, guiding it through every conduit, forcing it to flow into his marrow. His scar burned like fire, but something strange happened it absorbed part of the residue's chaos, dimming the worst of its poison.
And then, silence.
The shard dimmed, crumbling into dust. Kael gasped, slamming his palm against the floor to steady himself. His silver veins blazed brighter now, pulsing with a rhythm that felt both alien and alive.
When he raised his head, Daran's expression had shifted not approval, not yet, but curiosity.
"You endured," the master said. His gaze narrowed. "And something within you swallowed more than it should have. Interesting."
Kael said nothing. He could still feel the residue's echo inside him, coiled like a serpent waiting to strike.
Training did not end with the shard. Once the initiates who survived had taken their first infusion, they were thrown into the next trial: martial reinforcement.
"Divine energy without form is poison," Daran explained. "To wield it, you must marry it to your flesh, your strikes, your movements. If you cannot shape it, it will consume you from within."
They were led to the practice hall, where pillars of stone towered like giants. The task was simple: strike until the residue within resonated. The pillars were etched with seals that fed back resistance every strike pushed the energy in their veins harder, threatening to overflow.
Kael struck the first pillar with his bare fist. Pain flared instantly, the residue surging wildly, as if eager to tear him apart. His conduits strained, his vision flickering with afterimages of divine figures. But he did not stop. Again and again, he struck, his body trembling, his breath ragged.
Beside him, another initiate screamed. Kael glanced in time to see the boy's veins rupture, glowing light bursting from his flesh. His body convulsed violently before collapsing into a heap of steaming ash.
The hall filled with the stench of burning flesh. No one moved to help. No one even looked away.
Kael clenched his fist tighter, blood dripping from his knuckles. He struck again, feeling the residue coil tighter inside him. Each strike was a battle not against the pillar, but against himself.
Hours passed. When Daran finally called a halt, half the initiates were gone consumed, shattered, or broken. Kael stood among the survivors, drenched in sweat and blood, his body screaming in protest. But inside him, the residue pulsed steady, alive.
He had endured. For now.
That night, sleep refused him. He sat in silence, bandages soaked, staring at his hands. The faint silver veins pulsed in rhythm with his heart.
But every so often, he felt it the whisper. Not words, but pressure. A presence watching from within.
The gods had fallen. Their poison was in his blood.
And Kael realized with a chill that survival was only the beginning. The deeper he walked this path, the closer he came not just to strength, but to the same corruption that had devoured the heavens.