The Howling Sky

Time passed differently here.

In Kai's parallel realm, the sky burned a constant twilight—neither day nor night—casting long shadows over ancient stone pillars that encircled his meditation grounds. Bare-chested and bruised, Kai stood resolute at the center, sweat mingling with the faint glow of runes etched faintly across his skin. The air was heavy with the scent of scorched earth and ozone, remnants of his battles with forces beyond mortal ken.

One month had passed inside.

But this place hadn't always been his.

He had stumbled into it by accident, born from a night of shattering grief—a wound that still bled in the quiet moments.

It was the night after Aren's death. She had been his anchor, his partner in the Academy's grueling trials, her laughter a light in the shadow of their shared exile as outcast apprentices. They had dreamed of rising together, of proving the Council wrong. But a traitor's blade, wielded in the chaos of the Academy's shadow war, had stolen her from him. Her blood had stained the courtyard stones, her final smile haunting him as she slipped away.

Grief burned like fire in Kai's chest. The Academy's walls, once a sanctuary, felt like a cage. He couldn't stay. He wouldn't break. So he ran—past the dormitories, beyond the training fields—to the Temple of Echoes, a forbidden chamber buried deep in the Archives. Its obsidian walls pulsed with forgotten runes, swallowing his ragged breaths and the echo of his footsteps. The air was cold, thick with the weight of secrets long buried.

He sought answers. Power. Anything to keep Aren's loss from consuming him.

Kneeling amid dust and shadow, he tore through ancient scrolls and shattered relics, his hands trembling with rage and desperation. The Council had warned that the Temple was dangerous, its artifacts unstable, but Kai didn't care. He needed something—anything—to make him strong enough to avenge her, to ensure no one else he loved would fall.

Then he found it.

A broken tablet, half-buried under a pile of cracked clay, its surface etched in a dialect no living scholar could read. The stone hummed like a living heart, its edges warm to the touch. A relic of the First Wyrm-Bonded, it sang to him—not in words, but in fragments of thought, visions of a time when mortals bound dragons to their will. It whispered into his mind: "Open the path within, where time is a servant, not a master."

His fingers brushed the tablet's surface. A pulse of heat seared his palm, and voices—ancient, layered, neither human nor beast—chanted in his skull. Light engulfed him, not soft but sharp, like a blade carving through reality.

But he didn't vanish.

He awakened something that had always been inside him.

The parallel realm was not a place he found. It was a place he forged—a manifestation of his grief, his fury, and his unyielding will, shaped by the cosmic resonance deep within his soul.

When he opened his eyes, he stood on cracked stone in a place between worlds. The sky burned twilight, unchanging. The stars spiraled in alien patterns—too bright, too close. The air thrummed with power, heavy with the promise of creation and destruction. Time bent to his presence, slowing to a crawl.

This was no mere sanctuary. It was a soul-forged domain, born from Kai himself, bound to his existence. A parallel realm where one month inside equaled a single day in the world he'd left behind. But it demanded a price. Each entry required a month's worth of food and water, consumed in moments, leaving him ravenous and spiritually drained. His body grew leaner, his eyes sharper, as if the realm were carving him into something new. It was a test of balance, of discipline—a forge for a warrior who refused to yield.

Here, Kai began his work.

He trained alone, pushing his body and mind beyond their limits. The realm answered his call, its power amplifying his own. He discovered he could summon beings of pure elemental force—dragons, each embodying a primal facet of the universe: Flame, Ice, Storm, Earth, and Void. They were not creatures of flesh but manifestations of cosmic law, their forms shimmering with raw energy.

Taming them was brutal. The Flame Dragon, its scales molten and eyes like suns, scorched half the valley in a single breath, its roar shaking the pillars until they cracked. Kai fought for days, his skin blistered, until it bowed to his will. The Ice Dragon encased him in a prison of frost, its gaze piercing his soul, testing his endurance. The Storm Dragon summoned gales that tore at his flesh, the Earth Dragon buried him under mountains, and the Void Dragon—worst of all—whispered madness for a week, unraveling his sanity strand by strand, forcing him to confront the emptiness Aren's death had left.

Each victory cost him. Each dragon marked him—runes of their essence etching into his skin, glowing faintly when he called their power. But with each taming, he grew stronger, his connection to the realm deeper. He was no longer just a student. He was becoming something else, something the Academy's histories had no name for.

But tonight, the air grew heavy—charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. The sky quaked, its twilight hue fracturing with veins of violet light. The pillars trembled, dust cascading from their ancient carvings.

A shadow stirred beyond the circle.

Something was coming.