The world returned not with a roar, but with a deathly, unnatural cold.
The first thing Kaelen felt was the air itself biting into his skin, a sinister, windless chill that seemed to emanate from his own body. He was still standing, but his legs trembled violently, threatening to buckle. His entire being was a conduit for something vast and alien. He looked down at his hands, and a jolt of terror shot through him. Beneath his skin, his veins stood out in stark relief, no longer the faint green of life, but a luminous, cold blue. They snaked up his arms, tracing patterns that were hauntingly familiar—the same spiraling, non-repeating glyphs he had seen etched into the cover of the Godclimb.
Across the room, the two intruders had frozen. Their predatory confidence had shattered into pure, unadulterated fear. The one who had spoken, its blade-like limb still extended, stared not at Kaelen, but at its companion who lay twitching on the floor, halfway between the door and the desk. The man who had rushed for the book.
The would-be thief's body was… unmaking. It started with his outstretched hand, the skin flaking away like ancient parchment, revealing the muscle and bone beneath, which themselves dissolved into a fine, grey ash. The horrifying process accelerated, racing up his arm and consuming his torso and legs in a matter of seconds. There was no blood, no scream—just a silent, efficient erasure from existence. A final, faint shimmer hung in the air where he had been, and then there was nothing. The Godclimb lay on the desk, utterly untouched, a passive, malevolent god that demanded a sacrifice for the mere act of approach.
The remaining intruder let out a sound that was half-hiss, half-whimper. It looked from the empty space on the floor to Kaelen, whose blue-traced body hummed with a power that warped the very light around him. The mission was forgotten. Survival was all. It scrambled backward out the shattered door, its unnatural grace gone, fleeing into the darkness of the inn.
But Kaelen didn't see it leave. The world was collapsing inwards.
A pressure was building inside his skull, a tidal wave of energy and memory threatening to crack his mind open. His vision tunneled, the physical room dissolving into a vortex of light and shadow. He was no longer in the inn; he was tumbling through the corridors of his own past.
He was a boy, his small hands struggling to grip a wooden practice sword as his father, a man with a kind smile and weary eyes, patiently corrected his stance in the sun-dappled courtyard of their home.
A young man, laughing, arm in arm with Lucius and the rest of his squad around a campfire, sharing a skin of cheap wine, the future a bright, unbroken road before them.
His mother's voice, soft and clear, singing an old Aethelian lullaby as she tucked him into bed, the scent of baking bread still warm in the air.
The last time. Lucius, clinking his mug against Kaelen's, a reckless grin on his face. "To the Republic, to the Legion, and to us, brother! Whatever comes next!"
The memories were so vivid, so real, he could smell the campfire smoke, feel the warmth of the sun. And as each one played out, he saw them manifested in the swirling chaos around him as pages torn from his own journal, the ink stark and clear against the parchment.
Then, they began to burn.
One by one, the pages containing these cherished moments were touched by an invisible flame. The edges blackened and curled, the words dissolving into embers that floated away into nothingness. He tried to clutch at them, to scream, but he had no voice. He was a spectator to the systematic annihilation of his own soul. The memory of his mother's song was the last to go, the gentle melody fading into a silent, cold emptiness.
As the final ember vanished, the turbulent energy surrounding him calmed. The wind died. The pressure in his head receded, leaving behind a profound, echoing silence.
He swayed on his feet, blinking as the familiar, shabby room swam back into focus. He was himself again. And yet, he wasn't.
He stumbled to the small washbasin, his reflection staring back from a cracked piece of polished bronze. The changes were subtle but undeniable. His hair, once a dark brown, was now shot through with strands of a much lighter, ash-blonde colour. And when he turned his hands over, he saw that the blue tracery was gone, but in its place, the veins on his wrists and the backs of his hands pulsed with a faint, silvery sheen, like quicksilver flowing just beneath the skin.
He felt… strange. A foreign vitality thrummed in his muscles. He felt stronger, the weariness of moments before replaced by a coiled, ready energy. And with this physical sensation came a flood of knowledge, pouring into his mind as if it had always been there.
A single word surfaced, in a language he had never learned but now understood perfectly: Thalassian.
And with it, the understanding of what he had done. He had taken the first step. Vorr'Ghaia. The Defiance of Flesh. His body was no longer entirely his own; it had been reforged into something more durable, something that scoffed at mortal limits.
The knowledge was intoxicating. His speed, stamina, and strength had been amplified far beyond his prime as a legionary. He pressed his thumb against the edge of his gladius and felt his skin resist the blade; it would take a powerful, direct thrust from a spear or a heavy blow from an axe to break it now. Thrown daggers and arrows would be little more than annoyances. He instinctively knew that his aim with a pilum or a sling would be unerring, and the forms and techniques of the gladius that had taken him years to master were now as natural as breathing, elevating him to the skill of a Legion Weapons Master.
Finally, his mind itself felt sharper, clearer. Concepts of geometry, leverage, and the workings of the natural world that had once been abstract now arranged themselves in his head with crystalline logic.
But beneath this wave of power, a deep, unsettling sense of loss anchored him. It was a hollow ache in his chest. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that something was gone. The memories he had seen burn… they were faded now, like portraits viewed through a thick fog. The feeling of his father's hand on his, the sound of his mother's voice… they were facts now, not experiences. The price had been exacted.
Shaking his head to clear the grim thoughts, he knew he couldn't stay in this room. The ambush, the transformation, the ash on the floor—it was all too much. He needed to move, to test this new body, to feel something other than the chilling void where his past used to be.
He gathered his things, his movements now preternaturally quiet and efficient. Slinging his pack over his shoulder, he slipped out the broken door and down the back stairs, avoiding the main inn. Behind the building, he found a small, deserted training ground meant for the city watch—a dusty yard with a straw-stuffed dummy and a wooden post for striking.
Under the cold light of the moons, Kaelen began to move, the gladius in his hand feeling less like a tool and more like an extension of his own defiant will. Each swing, each thrust, was a desperate attempt to outrun the silence that now lived inside him.