Chapter 14- The One Chosen by Judgment

The stone was silent now.

No echoes. No humming.

Just breath — broken, ragged, shallow.

His ribs burned. His leg barely lifted. His left arm was pulp.

And yet—he moved.

Then—

"Seren Vael..."

The voice returned.

Not gentle. Not warm.

It descended like a shadow stretching across stars.

Solmir.

"Still standing."

"You are Intriguing."

It wasn't praise.

It wasn't awe.

It was observation —

By all accounts, he should've died three times over. But somehow… he didn't. He bled, he staggered, he collapsed — but he didn't die.

Seren stumbled again. Almost collapsed.

One knee touched the earth, trembling.

His good hand braced against a fractured wall.

His eyes, wild with pain, blinked once—

"Y-You're… back…" he rasped, throat dry, the syllables tearing down his lungs.

"...Now...?"

Solmir's presence tightened.

It wasn't in the air.

It was in the stone. In the rhythm of Seren's fractured breath. In the echo of footsteps long erased by time.

"The thing I seek… is near."

"I can feel its pulse beneath the soil. Whispering. Coiled in the marrow of this place."

Seren's boots crunched over old dust, half-smeared in his own blood.

He didn't answer.

He couldn't.

But then—

His foot hit something different.

Stone gave way to iron.

The floor ahead had shape. Purpose.

Even under layers of time, the edges held symmetry — the kind not made by nature.

Then he saw it.

Through the gloom.

Tucked into the ribcage of the ruin — a door. Half-buried. Ancient. Lined with seal-stones and broken glyphs dulled by time.

A pause.

The door wasn't locked.

It hadn't been locked in centuries.

It was just… closed. Covered in old moss and rusted sigils too worn to mean anything now.

Seren leaned on the wall, gasping. His left eye barely opened. Blood trickled down his ribs in slow lines. His fingers twitched, then curled around the stone — and pushed.

The door let out a sound that was not a creak.

It exhaled.

Dust spilled like ancient breath from its frame.

This was older. Organic.

Chiseled walls shaped like ribs. Tables that looked like they were once part of the stone carved from cave itself.

Shelves lined with vials of oil that still glowed faintly — dim reds, sickly blues, molten gold.

A cracked mural ran across the ceiling: a human body flayed into fragments, each piece chained to a star or moon.

Seren moved like a dying ghost through it.

Every breath burned.

Every step felt borrowed.

"…Artekarna," Solmir murmured.

Not one.

Several.

Some were suspended mid-air — still, ancient, preserved in strange vessels.

One appeared to be a discolored nail wrapped in copper roots.

Another — a fragment of translucent bone humming faintly, etched with symbols from a language long extinct.

And the third—

An eye.

"Y-Yeah…" Seren's voice broke as he stood there, swaying.

"People… still think they're just stories. A baby born… with silver bones. A hunter… with an extra eye… after a storm."

Seren mind was sludge. Heavy. Flickering.

He couldn't think straight. Couldn't even breathe right. Every twitch of pain rewrote his thoughts mid-sentence. He felt someone coming — or maybe that was his imagination.

Solmir continued,

"Sometimes they show up at birth,"

"When the body makes a mistake."

"Other times — trauma. A magical shock so deep it changes you."

"And sometimes…" His voice dropped.

"When something not human gets stitched in."

"That one's rare. Hidden. Only done in places no one should find."

Seren didn't speak.

Then Solmir added—

"They don't die when the body dies. Not always."

"You want them gone? You break them. Burn them. Tear them from the bones."

"Artekarna aren't bound to life. They outlive it."

"Body-pieces that defy order. Some grow with you. Some wait to be found. Some… are born from death itself."

"Artekarna don't care if you're flame or frost. They're not bound to nature's leash. You could be born with fire in your bones and still get a hand that can freeze things in single touch" "They said only four had ever been recorded in Velrenmar's In past five year. That most are never seen twice." And two of those were false.

The chamber didn't feel like a ruin anymore.

it was filled with world class treasure

Seren couldn't move.

Not from fear.

From collapse.

Blood soaked his side.

His body shook with each shallow breath.

Only one eye — pale, faintly lit — tracked the shifting glow.

"Seren Vael…"

"You're more in trouble than I thought."

And that's when they came.

Bootsteps. Precise. Too clean for a ruin.

Two figures stepped from the passage, framed in torchlight.

Not scavengers. Not explorers.

Two shadows, their boots clicking over the splintered tiles like they owned the ruin. And maybe they believed they did.

The man — Drem Holt, the Stonehelm representative — was tall, wearing a sleeveless coat lined with dull stoneplate armor. His jaw was square. His eyes cold. A commander's posture in a scavenger's shadow.

Beside him, Syra Velmire, the Silverquill representative, stepped quietly. Her robes were thin, iridescent, marked with inked insignias. Her gloves — white, unwrinkled — tugged tight at her wrists.

She looked at Seren like he was a cracked scroll on a rotting table.

"We heard quite the noise," she said smoothly. "I told you the boy might still be alive."

Drem Holt's eyes swept the room.

Then — his expression changed.

He saw them.

The Artekarna.

"...Holy Saints," he muttered.

He took a step forward, voice suddenly reverent.

"Those are real."

Syra's lips parted. Slowly. Like a smile trying not to seem too eager.

"And untouched."

"You and Rhael Moren nearly killed each other over power neither of you deserved." They actually didn't knew what happened there, but they came to assumptions.

Seren didn't answer.

Couldn't.

Drem gave a low hum as he examined the glowing pedestal.

"Relax," he said, amused.

"If Rhael found this place, he'd have kept it for himself. Those northcrest bastards are always like that."

Syra moved in a slow circle around Seren.

Not cautious — calculating, she had confirmed that there was no backing him.

"You Did the hard part for us."

Drem hovered near a floating shard.

"Artekarna… Pure anatomical anomalies. Each one sovereign."

Syra smiled sweetly.

"Tragic. If only someone from a real academy found them first."

Drem added,

"We'll quarantine the ruin. For safety, of course."

They turned their backs. They didn't even cared about what's going to happen to Seren.

Spoke in hushes.

Planned their theft.

Seren's breath caught.

He crawled.

Barely.

One hand dragged across stone.

His vision blurred.

His head spun.

Then—

CRACK.

His skull hit the floor.

White. Then dark.

But his fingers… felt something.

Small. Round. Cold.

A button.

──────── ◆ ────────

Three weeks ago — Velrenmar Courtyard

Headmaster Verrian handed it to him without looking.

A passing gesture.

"If things go south, press it."

"If they go really south…"

"Hold it."

No explanation.

Just trust.

──────── ◆ ────────

Back in the ruin, Abondoned lab—

"Guess you… did know…"

His hand barely moved.

Just enough to press.

Seren's thumb pressed the button.

Click.

Invisible pulse.

Drem turned, hearing the sound

"What the hell—?"

Syra reached for her blade.

"Kill him."

"He's already dying."

"Then make it certain—"

Then—

Thummm.

Silence.

And then—

Thummm.

A ripple.

The world… bent.

The stone tiles rippled — faint, but definite.

They all turned.

And then—

They turned again.

A sound followed — not an explosion, but a reversal. Like silence devouring itself.

And then, a voice.

Low. Weightless. Like snow falling into a void.

"You held together longer than I expected."

A ripple of air pulsed outward — and within a figure appeared.

His robes were layered in shades of bone-grey and cloud-white, etched with long silver cords that trailed behind him — not dragging, but hovering slightly above the surface like silk judging whether it deserved to touch the floor.

But it was his aura that made time slow.

Syra Velmire's brow furrowed. Her hand lifted, uncertain, toward the archway.

"Who—?"

He didn't rush.

Didn't glance around.

Didn't even acknowledge them.

He walked as if he already knew the outcome.

Drem Holt's grip on his blade faltered.

His lips parted — but no sound came.

Syra stepped back.

Then another step.

And another — until her spine touched the lab wall, and still she tried to retreat, as if her shadow could fold back into her own skin.

Sweat rolled down her neck like a broken leak in her spine.

He didn't move quickly.

He didn't need to.

Each step landed like it carried the momentum of ancient laws. His feet landed. Certain. Like the stone had waited to be walked on by him and him alone.

The light dimmed, not because of darkness — but reverence.

Syra choked on her breath.

Drem dropped his blade without even realizing.

Their bodies had reacted before their minds.

"T-That's…" Syra began to whisper.

"Don't speak," Drem hissed, his voice tight, panic swelling in his chest. "Don't even—don't even breathe wrong."

Because they knew.

They knew who this was.

╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════╗

║ ◈ IDENTIFICATION ◈ ║

╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════╣

║ NAME ▸ Asteran Elisar Vaile

║ ROLE ▸ Chancellor of the Council of Accordance

║ AFFILIATION ▸ Senvaar — Apex of all knowledge

║ ▸ The World's most Supreme Institute of learning

║

║ KNOWN TITLES

║ ▸ Bearer of the Silent Scales

║ ▸ The Pale Hand of Accord

║ ▸ Voice of Final Weighing

║ ▸ Warden of Unbound Law

╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════╝

Asteran Vaile. 

He was not a noble. Not a commander. The man's name did not echo through court halls or military ranks.

It rang in councils, in oaths, and in judgments that ended wars.

Asteran Elisar Vaile — Chancellor of the Council of Accordance. A man whose authority could not be challenged by crown or coin. The only figure in the world empowered to judge even those who rule it.

His title was not feared. It was recognized. Revered. Obeyed.

And now, he stood here.

In the ruin.

Beside a dying boy.

His steps echoed like truths too long buried.

Not fast.

Not loud.

Each one landed like the world agreed.

He didn't look at Drem Holt.

Didn't glance at Syra Velmire.

He simply approached.

Syra backed up — one step, two — until her back hit the far wall.

Sweat gathered under her collar.

"That's…"

"Don't speak," Drem muttered, pale.

His hand hovered at his side.

"Don't even breathe wrong."

Asteran reached the center of the room.

One gloved hand lifted.

And between his fingers, something shimmered — scales.

Not metal. Not glass.

Something... else.

Each side tilted softly, pulsing to unseen truths.

Then—he spoke.

"You shouldn't have made it here, Seren Vael."

His voice didn't echo.

Syra found her voice.

Barely.

"Th-this isn't… sanctioned. We didn't—he—this site wasn't even registered—"

Drem's voice joined hers, frantic:

"We didn't know! We just followed a trail! The boy was bleeding out, we didn't—"

Asteran tilted his head. Slowly.

Then, bored:

"Loud."

He raised one finger.

The scales appear and reacted.

The left side crashed down.

Syra Velmire choked — blood spilling from her nose.

Her body hit the floor with a limp thud.

Unconscious.

Drem Holt didn't move.

Asteran stepped once toward him.

Drem's voice cracked:

"W-we didn't try to kill him—"

"Don't lie," Asteran said flatly.

"You're not clever enough to do it well."

Drem's knees gave in.

He slumped back against a pillar.

Silent.

Asteran turned.

Walked toward Seren — still collapsed, bleeding.

He knelt beside him.

Not out of pity.

But precision.

Two fingers pressed against Seren's ruined shoulder.

A twist. A click.

The bone slid back into place — not healed, but stabilized.

"Still breathing," Asteran muttered.

"Stubborn."

His hand moved next to the boy's throat. Gentle.

He shifted Seren's collar to ease airflow.

"You didn't bond with the Artekarna, did you?"

No answer.

Just a ragged breath.

Seren's eye opened — barely.

Then he whispered, raw:

"…Why…?"

Asteran paused.

Then looked down at him.

"You remind me of someone."

He adjusted Seren's arm, letting it rest flat beside his chest.

Then stood.

"Your body is broken. But your will…."

Pause.

"I don't accept just talented"

"That's why I came."

"Not for the Artekarna."

"For you."

Silence returned.

Then—

"I don't offer this often," Asteran said.

His voice did not rise. But it filled the ruin.

"And I don't offer it twice."

He turned, robe flicking softly through the dust.

Then glanced back, completely unexpected—

"Seren Vael."

"Would you like to become my student?"

Seren didn't answer right away.

He couldn't.

His body was broken. His vision flickered. His breath was shallow.

But his fingers curled — not in pain.

In choice and instinct.

"...Yes."

The word bled from his throat.

Not loud.

But true.

The chamber no longer felt cold.

Not after that.

It felt… unreal.

Like a story had just rewritten its ending — and no one knew what came next.

❖═════≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫═════❖

End of Arc: The Fractured Flame and the Echoed Soul

══════⊳ Arc II begins: The Games of Power ⊲══════