Mist drifted from the forest below in slow, deliberate veils, pulled by a gravity that wasn't wind. The branches no longer stirred. The trees stood as if listening. Even the birds had vanished.
At the center of the glade, the land had been wounded—cut clean in a spiral of scorched stone, vast and deliberate, as if drawn by something ancient and precise. And at its heart hovered a jagged shard of crystal, translucent and pulsing with an unrelenting rhythm. It didn't hum. It didn't glow. It simply was, suspended in the air with a presence that refused to be ignored.
No one knew what it was.
But every expert present could feel it: energy, refined and pressurized, radiated from the shard in silent waves. It wasn't just powerful—it was compatible. Whatever it was, it could be used.
And the world had come to claim it.
Members from the ten great families surrounded the spiral in layered formations—elite cultivators drawn from each house's most dangerous bloodlines stood at the ready. Robes glinted with clan sigils. Pressure folded the air like armor. No words passed between them, but every breath trembled with threat.
To the west stood the Hewitt's. Elder Benson's aura shimmered with compressed wind pressure—heat braided into motion, barely leashed. Beside him, Munro seemed hewn from quarry stone, unmoving but not inert—his presence like a wind wall, silent until it breaks. Behind them paced Byron, energy flickering with anticipation—sharp gusts coiling at his heels like blades waiting to be drawn.
South, Gareth Wester floated above ground, his Mid Diamond realm aura limned with cutting wind that etched faint grooves into the stone. Beside him stood Elmira Wester, early Diamond Realm, her breath coiled like a storm held in check. Behind them, Elder Thorne Wester—Peak Gold Realm—watched in silence, his presence like a blade sheathed in wind.
East, Cassian Leopold stood at the center, sword slung across his back, expression unreadable but eyes sharp. Mid Diamond Realm. To his right, Elder Vani Leopold—Peak Gold Realm—stood with arms folded, heat shimmering faintly around his heels. On his left, Mira Leopold, Low Diamond Realm, traced silent sigils in the air.
In the north, Lyssa Sylvester stood perfectly still. Frost clung to her steps as if the ground itself bent to her discipline. Mid Diamond Realm. Beside her, Elder Cael Sylvester—Peak Gold Realm—breathed in a slow, glacial rhythm. Behind them, Nereis Sylvester—Peak Peak Gold Realm, held a staff of pale ice, her gaze locked on the shard.
Opposite the basin's lip, Elder Veen Ainsworth's Mid Diamond Realm energy folded close like silk—quiet, but coiled for precision. At his side stood Jorah Ainsworth—Peak Gold Realm, his aura sharp as a drawn thread. Behind them, Selene Ainsworth—Low Diamond Realm—watched with narrowed eyes, fingers twitching toward her blade.
Elder Roth Crowne stood draped in patient stillness. Mid Diamond Realm—his presence pulsed beneath his skin like a half-heard drumbeat. Beside him, Vey Crowne, early Diamond Realm, exhaled slowly, as if measuring the weight of the air. Behind them, Dalen Crowne—early Diamond Core—shifted his stance with quiet precision.
Near the ridge, Dema Illume crouched low, one hand on the earth. Her early Diamond Realm aura shimmered faintly with mirrored light—reflective and unreadable. To her left, Elder Willis Illume ghosted forward in muted gray, aura steady as a mountain at dusk. His strength pulsed at the threshold of Peak Gold Realm—poised, but not flaunted. Between them stood Kael Illume, Peak Gold Realm, his mirrored aura folding light around his form like a cloak.
To the southeast, Veera Danvers, Mid Diamond Realm, stood cloaked in smoke-touched green. Beside her, Elder Riven Danvers—Mid Diamond Realm—let his spirit mist drift like coiling ink. Behind them, Lira Danvers, early Diamond Core, stood silent, her gaze fixed on the shard.
Atop a mossy outcrop on the far north side, Talen Santrell stood barefoot, fingers quietly sketching unseen threads into the air. Low Diamond, but threaded deep, like sound through water. To his right, Elder Myra Santrell—Peak Gold Realm—watched with closed eyes, listening to the wind. Behind them, Coran Santrell, Peak Gold Realm, leaned on a staff of carved bone, unmoving.
To the southwest, two figures stood shoulder to shoulder—Elder Harlin Talien and Elder Naima Talien, both early Diamond Realm cultivators. Harlin's aura was taut and angular, like a blade held in reserve. Naima's presence was quieter, but no less sharp—her breath moved with the rhythm of someone who had studied not just technique, but timing. Neither spoke. Neither needed to. The Talien's had always believed in precision over posturing.
And behind this outer ring, a dozen mid-tier families observed from the shadows.
They knew better than to step forward.
Just above the basin's ledge, behind a curtain of twisted root, Jalen crouched. Breath tight. Body hidden.
"Since we all seem to be circling this foreign shard of energy like a bunch of hungry vultures," Cassian said at last, voice edged with mirth and challenge, "how about we agree on how ownership will be decided?"
Lyssa didn't blink. "Oh? And what do you propose?"
Cassian's grin sharpened. "First to touch it keeps it. No debates. No negotiations. Just reach it—own it."
Elder Roth Crowne let out a low scoff. "And after that? We all just step aside?"
"No interference from the rest," said Vey Crowne. "No second claims. One chance."
Elder Munro's voice rolled in like a coming storm. "And if someone dies in the rush?"
Cassian spread his arms, unconcerned. "Then their family accepts the risk—and the outcome. No revenge. No repercussions. Just fate."
Silence passed like a shadow through the basin.
Then, one by one, heads nodded.
Agreement sealed—not in ink, but in silence and stares.
And with that, the talking died.
Techniques flashed like lightning woven with breath. A Leopold strike split the wind in a line of roaring fire. The Wester trio blinked into movement, appearing midair above the shard's edge. The Illumes met them mid-dash, reflective force dragging behind like mirror ghosts.
The air fractured beneath power too vast to contain. No one held back.
And while they surged—
Jalen moved.
He slid from root to ledge, breath held, aura pressed into nothing. While titans clashed, he slipped between their echoes, footsteps threading through the chaos like ink through water.
The shard loomed ahead.
He stepped into its light.
And it reacted.
No delay. No discretion.
It launched itself toward him—a spear of white light, impossibly fast, impossibly precise, driving straight into his dantian behind his heart.
Jalen collapsed. Pain tore through him.
It wasn't violence.
It was access.
The shard didn't enter his body. It claimed it. The light poured into his meridians, lighting up his dantian like a star trapped inside bone. His spirit sea cracked, flooded, and filled.
He screamed—and the world went white.
At the spiral's heart stood a lone figure cloaked in black. His aura—newly torn open and still burning—radiated the unmistakable weight of Peak Diamond Realm cultivation. But something was off. The pressure lacked the tempered cadence of age. It didn't carry the slow-burn depth of someone a century and a half old.
It was fresh.
Too fresh.
Murmurs erupted along the perimeter, even among the mid-tier clans clinging to the shadows.
"Who is he?"
"Which family does he belong to?"
"Could it be some rogue element from the shattered sects? Or a cultivator from another continent?"
None of them had answers. Just questions echoing louder with every heartbeat.
But one truth had already settled between their feet like ash:
He had the Spirit Shard.
Cassian stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "Take him down."
The order rippled like a whipcrack.
Jalen staggered as the shard pulsed again, deeper now, syncing to him from the inside out.
The first strike hit his shoulder. The second he dodged, barely. He twisted between the incoming attacks, clutching his ribs, trying to breathe.
A few tried to glimpse his face through the blaze—but the shard's light still clung to him, warping every outline.
Flashes lit the air. Dozens descended. He couldn't win this battle, not while this thing was leeching off him, and so he turned and flew off.
The Spirit Shard writhed in his core, still consuming, still reshaping—but he pushed it down—not now, not now—and leapt from the spiral's base into the trees.
Energy chased him, but not all the way.
Because ahead lay the Spiritwild Verge—untamed, unmapped, and feared.
No family dared cross that threshold lightly. And as Jalen vanished into that darkness, battered but alive, the basin fell still behind him. No victor stood on the spiral.
Only dust.
Only loss.
And the members of the ten Great Families were left standing in the shadow of a boy they hadn't seen coming.