The construct's massive frame crumpled under the force of Klaus's blow. The Crucible trembled as the wind settled, crackling in the aftermath.
Klaus staggered back, chest heaving, fists still raised.
The construct didn't move.
For a moment, it seemed over.
But then—
A deep, metallic sound rumbled from within the construct's chest. Its head tilted back, and from its broken form came a guttural chant:
"Vorn'kai Vel'thar"
The air froze.
Klaus's heart jolted violently in his chest.
He didn't know the meaning of those words—but instinct screamed at him: Stop it. Now.
The wind itself recoiled around the construct, condensing unnaturally into a sharp, violent spiral. The sky above the Crucible blackened, the platform cracking under unseen pressure.
Without hesitation, Klaus launched himself forward, a roar tearing from his throat.
He swung his fist in a thunderous arc—
—but the construct caught it mid-strike.
Its broken fingers locked around his wrist with crushing strength. Hollow, burning eyes locked onto his.
The construct's body twisted unnaturally, bones and armor snapping into grotesque new forms. Shadows gushed from its wounds, merging with the Forbidden Chant.
With an inhuman howl, it hurled Klaus across the Crucible like a ragdoll.
He slammed into the stone hard enough to crater it, the impact rattling his teeth. He rolled, coughing violently, blood flecking his lips.
Get up.
Klaus forced himself upright, muscles screaming.
The construct lumbered forward — now less a soldier, more a beast. Its movements jerky, wrong. Its very presence ripped at the fabric of the arena.
Pressure mounted.
Klaus staggered forward, weaving the wind around his fists. He dashed low, driving a brutal punch into the creature's knee.
Metal groaned and bent, but the construct retaliated instantly, slamming an elbow down on Klaus's shoulder.
Crunch.
Klaus gasped as the bone nearly shattered, dropping to one knee.
The Forbidden Chant deepened.
"Vorn'kai Vel'thar…!"
The sky split with black lightning. Winds howled in agony.
Klaus's body was failing.
His breaths came shallow and ragged. His limbs felt like lead. Blood dripped steadily from his mouth and brow, staining his vision red.
Still he rose.
The wind curled desperately around him, sensing its master's collapse.
The construct charged, faster now—
Klaus barely managed to weave to the side, scraping his arm along the ground for balance.
He gritted his teeth and sent a compressed gale into the construct's flank, flipping it sideways — but it rolled with it, immediately rebounding toward him.
The two collided again.
A brutal ballet of fists and elemental strikes.
The platform shattered beneath them. Stone exploded into shards. The air itself warped from the clashing forces.
Klaus ducked a massive swing, driving an elbow into the creature's core.
He spun, kicking off the ground—
—and for a fleeting instant, violet lightning flickered across his battered body.
Klaus felt it — a foreign pulse, violent and terrifying — but it was gone before he could grasp it.
The Echo, high above, watching—
staggered.
It was not supposed to be possible.
But the boy had brushed the edge of something forbidden even to the First Winds.
Klaus didn't stop to think.
He had no choice.
Move. Move. MOVE.
He fought like a dying star, each strike a last burst of desperate fury.
Another glancing blow to his ribs sent Klaus sprawling. He tried to stand — collapsed to a knee — then forced himself upright again, screaming at his own body to obey.
The construct was nearly finished.
But the chant—
The chant was reaching its final verse.
The void above the Crucible spiraled, hungry, a black hole clawing at reality.
Klaus stared up at it, sweat and blood blinding him.
I can't let it finish, he thought wildly.
No more hesitation.
He surged upward, riding a cyclone of raw wind, spinning faster and faster until he became a spear of sheer force.
His arm crackled, the wind condensing into a jagged blade, vibrating with lethal pressure.
At the peak of his arc, he twisted—
—and dived.
Everything blurred.
The world screamed.
Klaus slammed into the construct's core, wind detonating outward in a colossal shockwave.
The core—twisted, black, pulsing—cracked—
—and Klaus roared, pouring his last drop of life into the strike.
The core exploded.
The void in the sky shattered into brilliant blue.
The Forbidden Chant ripped itself apart with an unholy shriek.
The Crucible itself buckled but held, ancient stones glowing faintly.
The construct gasped, gave a hollow death rattle—and collapsed.
Pieces of its shattered body skidded across the platform.
Klaus hit the ground and stayed down.
He was too broken to move.
Every bone, every tendon screamed in ruin.
He barely stayed conscious, breath rattling in his chest.
The world swam in and out of focus.
A soft voice cut through the ringing in his ears.
The Echo materialized above him, swirling like a storm made flesh.For once, the ancient spirit sounded horrified.
"How—?"
It drifted closer, almost afraid.
"How in the name of the First Winds did you stop a Forbidden Chant?"
Klaus, broken and bleeding, cracked a faint, bloody smile.
"...I didn't think," he whispered hoarsely. "I just... listened to the wind."
The Echo stared.
It wasn't possible.
The boy had not merely survived.
He had ended a Forbidden Chant mid-manifestation.
He had flickered with a power no living being should touch.
It stared down at him, at the battered figure lying in the dust.
And it whispered, as if daring to believe its own words:
"You really are... a storm incarnate.High King Kaelith blood truly runs in your veins.."
The winds stirred around Klaus's broken form.
But it was different now.
The winds no longer moved with power or anger.
They moved with fear.
And for the first time since the Crucible was forged, the arena itself bowed — not in obedience —
but in submission.
---
The shattered construct crumbled around Klaus, the Forbidden Chant broken. The Crucible of Gales had gone silent, the wind hanging in the air like held breath.
Klaus stood.
Barely.
His body screamed in protest with every movement. His vision swam, every heartbeat hammering agony through his ribs. Blood poured from a dozen wounds. His right arm hung limp at his side.
But he stayed on his feet.
Chest heaving. Fists clenched.
Unmoving.
The wind curled around him, slow and reverent. Not wild, not chaotic—but loyal. As if it knew.
Klaus slowly lifted his head, staring at the ruined battlefield. His brown eyes, bloodshot and fierce, burned with something ancient. Something unstoppable.
The Echo materialized a few feet away, silent.
It stared at him like it was seeing something impossible.
No words came.
No congratulations. No warnings.
Just... silence.
The seconds dragged on, heavy with meaning.
Finally, Klaus took a slow step forward. Then another. His legs felt like lead. His muscles tore with every movement. But he didn't fall.
Not now.
Not ever.
He stood at the center of the Crucible, broken—but unbowed. His presence alone seemed to bend the world around him, like a black hole pulling everything into its orbit.
The Echo finally spoke, its voice hoarse.
"...You won."
Klaus said nothing.
He simply exhaled through his teeth, the breath rattling in his battered chest.
"You..." the Echo tried again, voice cracking. "You've defeated the construct... in less than ten minutes."
It wasn't asking a question.
It was trying to understand.
"You should have died," the Echo muttered, drifting closer. "You should have shattered under the Forbidden Chant. You should have been torn apart."
Still, Klaus didn't answer.
Instead, he raised his head, blood dripping down his jawline. His battered body straightened fully. He planted his feet against the broken platform, the winds curling in a slow, spiraling dance around him.
He smiled.
Not a wide smile.
Not even a kind one.
It was a cold, feral, unstoppable smirk.
"I wont fall no matter the trial or fight," Klaus rasped, voice like gravel dragged across stone.
The Echo just... stared.
Then, slowly, it extended a hand—woven from currents of silver and gold—and placed it against Klaus's forehead.
A surge of warmth rushed through him.
Klaus staggered, gritting his teeth as the healing wind ripped through his broken body. Bones snapped back into place. Torn muscles stitched together. Blood reversed its flow, wounds sealing in golden light.
It hurt almost as bad as the fight.
But he endured.
When it ended, Klaus was left gasping, his body whole, his soul still burning.
The Echo withdrew, its form trembling slightly.
And then—
It bowed.
Low.
Deep.
As if in the presence of something it did not—and could not—control.
"The storm..." the Echo whispered, voice thick with something close to awe, "...does not ask for permission to be born."
"It simply is."
The Crucible around them stirred again, the winds keening in wordless reverence. The air itself seemed to kneel.
Klaus slowly flexed his fingers, staring at the faint golden light still sparking across his skin.
"So," he said, voice low, "this was just the Wind Crucible."
The Echo nodded, silent.
"And the others?" Klaus asked, tilting his head. "The other elements? They have Crucibles too?"
A shudder ran through the spirit's form.
"Yes," the Echo breathed. "Each element bears its own Crucible... each a monument to death, to power, to legacy."
It began to list them off:
"Earth. Fire. Water. Lightning. Light. Darkness."
Each word struck the air like a thunderclap.
"Each awaiting a challenger. Each eager to destroy the unworthy."
Klaus's lips twisted into a slow, dangerous grin.
"Good," he said.
He raised one battered hand to the empty sky, letting the broken light fall across his knuckles.
"Then I'll crush them all."
The Echo didn't answer.
It simply stared at him.
And then, in a voice barely louder than the wind itself, it whispered:
> "The world... does not yet understand...
what it has awakened."
The Crucible of Gales bowed once more to its new master.
And above them, in the endless sky, the coming storm laughed.
"…What happens to you now?" Klaus asked, voice sharp, low.
The Echo's form flickered, its presence heavier, almost solemn.
"My purpose was never survival. It was to forge something worthy," it said. "I taught you not just to wield the wind — but to become the force that bends it."
Klaus said nothing. But the air around him pulsed with life, reacting to his very heartbeat.
"The wind bows only to the relentless," the Echo continued, voice deep, fading like a storm rolling into the distance. "It doesn't serve the cautious or the weak. It answers to those who endure. Those who conquer."
A cold current twisted around Klaus's feet, an unseen crown settling onto him.
"You have conquered the Crucible of Gales," the Echo said, its form fracturing into streams of light. "You need no master now. Wherever you walk… the wind itself will kneel."
Then, as the last remnants of its form began to dissolve into the swirling air, the Echo's voice rose one final time, a whisper that seemed to shake the very Crucible:
"Rise, stormborn...
...and bring the Aetherions back to glory."
With that, the Echo of the First Wind vanished — leaving behind only the quiet, stirring breath of the wind, and the endless sky above.
Klaus stood there for a long moment, head bowed slightly, the words echoing in his heart.
---
The Virellion gardens were alive with color.
Gold-veined vines curled around marble pillars. White and blue blossoms bowed lazily in the breeze, their fragrance heavy and sweet. Somewhere nearby, a fountain gurgled in lazy conversation with the afternoon sun.
Sofie sat on a velvet bench between her cousin,who was busy flipping through a thick, battered photo album.
"And this one—!" Aelina burst into giggles, holding up a page.
It was Sofie—tiny, chubby-cheeked, wearing a lopsided flower crown, caught mid-pout like a furious kitten.
Sofie's face instantly turned scarlet.
"W-Where did you even find that?!" she cried, reaching in vain for the album.
Aelina dodged her grasp easily, flashing a wicked grin. "Aunt Sera sent it years ago. Honestly, you were a walking ball of chaos!"
"I was not!" Sofie protested, mortified, burying her burning face in her hands.
The teasing continued—pictures of her chasing ducks, dozing in piles of books, stubbornly trying to lift a sword twice her size. Normally, she would've tackled Aelina by now.Normally, she would've laughed and shouted and wrestled the album away.
But today...
Her mind wasn't in this garden.
It was somewhere far beyond the walls of the estate.Out where the wind howled wild and fierce.Out where he was.
She barely heard the laughter anymore, her gaze drifting upward to the endless sky.
How far ahead was he now? How much time was she wasting, trapped in comfort while the world turned without her?
Her hands tightened into fists in her lap, knuckles whitening.
"Sofie?"
Her mother's voice broke through the haze.
Sofie blinked, realizing the others had gone quiet. Lady Sera watched her from across the garden table, brows knitted in concern.
"Is something wrong, dear?"
The cousins shifted uneasily. Even the fountain seemed to hush.
Sofie stood slowly. The air seemed to thicken around her.
Her voice, when she spoke, was steady—but there was a tremor just beneath the surface.
"I evolved not long ago," she said quietly. "I'm... an Archeon now."
The words were soft.
But they hit the garden like a thunderclap.
Aelina froze, wide-eyed. Lady Sera's teacup clinked softly against its saucer.
Sofie drew in a deep breath, feeling the fire building inside her.
"I can't stay here anymore," she said, her voice gaining strength with every word. "Every moment I sit here pretending everything is fine... I'm falling behind. I can feel it in my bones."
She looked at them—her family, her home—and for a fleeting second, pain flickered across her face.
"I won't let myself be left behind," she whispered. "Not again."
Silence.
The garden, once so full of life, now felt breathless.
Lady Sera stood slowly, crossing to her daughter. She cupped Sofie's face in her hands, lifting her chin gently.
Her voice was soft, but firm:
"You have more time than you think, my little blossom. You don't need to race to meet the storm."
Tears burned behind Sofie's eyes—but she blinked them away.
"I have to," she said stubbornly. "I don't want to watch from the sidelines anymore. I can't."
Her body trembled with barely contained urgency—raw, unshaped power humming in her very bones.
Lady Sera hesitated for a moment longer... then let her go, hands dropping to her sides.
"...If you must go," she said, voice tight with emotion, "then go knowing you are loved."
Sofie gave a single, fierce nod.
She turned without hesitation, her white cloak snapping in the breeze like a war banner.
Without another word, she sprinted across the garden—
past the polished statues,
past the laughing fountains,
past the memories of a childhood she could no longer afford to cling to.
Toward the future.
Toward the fight.
Toward destiny itself.