Morning shimmered across Valenforge, the city where souls became weapons.
Above its marble spires, threads of light weaved in the air—countless Flow Codex screens flickering as students checked their levels, honed skills, and compared stats before the ceremony began.
Each person's Codex was different: some looked like cascading script, others like hovering runes, some even like mechanical projections of their Veyra's nature.
Kael Ardyn had never seen one.
He stood near the edge of the crowd, staring at his empty hands. Around him, laughter, light, and glowing displays filled the plaza. Numbers danced before his classmates' eyes, updating with each pulse of their Histinak.
> [Flow Codex - Active]
Name: Reisa Varn
Veyra: Ember Bloom (Fire Manifestation)
Level: 19 → 20
Skill Unlocked: Burning Step
Reisa grinned, her hair literally flickering at the tips. "Third advancement before the ceremony even starts! What about you, Kael?"
Kael smiled tightly. "Still breathing. That's a stat, right?"
They laughed, not unkindly, but with the condescension of people who had long since outgrown sympathy. Kael had no Codex, no Veyra, no way to level up. His Flow was silent.
The awakening platform loomed ahead, glowing with intricate runes. It was said that when the Flow recognized a person's soul, the Codex would appear, and their Veyra Identification would bind forever.
The Grand Seer called, "Kael Ardyn, step forward."
He obeyed, hands trembling only slightly.
He stepped onto the circle. Runes ignited beneath his feet, light spiraling upward as the Seer's staff touched the platform.
"Open your heart to the Flow," she intoned. "Let your Codex reveal itself."
Kael exhaled. He reached inward, like he had a thousand times before—toward the nothing inside.
A long pause.
Then—
> [Flow Codex - Searching… Searching…]
Error: Undefined Soul Pattern.
The runes flickered. Gasps rose from the crowd.
"Undefined?" someone whispered. "That's not possible—"
The Seer's eyes widened. "There is no record… the Flow cannot read him."
Kael's throat closed. The light around him dimmed until only the silence of failure remained.
"Step down," the Seer said softly. "You carry no Veyra."
No Veyra. No level. No Codex. Nothing.
Kael bowed stiffly and walked off the stage. The whispers followed him like insects.
He wandered the streets afterward, aimless, passing guild halls filled with glowing Codex symbols, forges where weapon-conduits drank from the Flow, and training plazas alive with combatants syncing with their stats in real time.
He passed a boy practicing blade resonance—his sword leaving trails of numbers in the air with each swing.
Everywhere, life measured itself. Except him.
By dusk, Kael found himself standing before a crumbling shrine beneath the city—a forgotten ruin known as the Sunken Vein. It was said that before the Codex existed, people sought power here through prayer and blood.
Kael touched the weathered stone and muttered, "If you're real… why not me?"
Something answered.
The air warped. A pulse of dark light rippled from the ground, pulling him into the earth as the stones collapsed. He fell through dust and time, landing deep within the shrine's heart.
When he opened his eyes, he was kneeling before a fractured black mirror that pulsed like a dying heart.
Symbols unlike any Flow Codex glowed across its surface—ancient, fluid, wrong.
It spoke:
—Unshaped. You were not rejected. You were sealed.
Kael gasped as the mirror surged toward him. The darkness crawled under his skin, through his blood, tearing at something unseen.
> [Flow Codex - Critical Update Detected]
Rebuilding Soul Pattern...
Error… Error… Override accepted.
Designation: The Hollow Veyra.
Level: ???
Veyra Trait: The Devouring Flow
Warning: System unable to quantify subject.
Kael screamed as black light erupted around him. The shrine trembled.
The Flow Codex screen before his eyes shattered, symbols bleeding into the air and reforming into something entirely new—an inverse Codex, colorless, silent.
He could feel the world now: every heartbeat, every thread of Histinak, every nearby living Codex like a whisper waiting to be consumed.
The silence thickened. Then his new Codex pulsed once.
> [Skill Unlocked: Flow Reversal]
You can absorb the resonance of others. Use with caution.
Kael collapsed to his knees, gasping, the glowing sigil over his chest still pulsing like a second heart.
For the first time, his Codex existed.
For the first time, he could see his level.
And yet, beneath the faint, flickering text, one more message appeared:
> [System Notice: You were never meant to awaken.]