Kai stared at the girl.
The beautiful girl.
The girl who had just stepped between him and three heirs from rival kingdoms heirs who would have happily used House Valeria's decline as an excuse to humiliate him again.
A Vantis.
A Vantis helped him.
Really?
He felt something unpleasant twist inside him.
A bitter thought he didn't enjoy hearing, but couldn't silence.
Am I really that helpless…?
Reduced to being defended by a Vantis of all people?
How low have I fallen…?
He rubbed the back of his neck, unable to meet her gaze. She was fifteen, which by all technicality made her a girl, not a woman—but that didn't help his embarrassment. Nothing did.
Kate Vantis walked ahead with calm steps until she rejoined the group gathered in the park. The place was beautiful frustratingly beautiful. A stone fountain in the shape of a sleeping dragon rested at the center, water flowing from its coiled tail in a spiral that glimmered in the afternoon sun.
She turned to the three heirs and smiled.
Not warmly.
Not sweetly.
A smile made of ice and etiquette a warning wrapped in courtesy.
"Do you know," she said lightly, "that insulting one of the five powerful clans… means insulting all five? I advise you to choose your words carefully."
The effect was instantaneous.
Their arrogance crumbled. Color drained from their faces.
They bowed. Mumbled apologies.
Then bolted like frightened animals.
Silence settled.
Kate exhaled softly before turning toward Kai.
"I didn't help you," she said, expression even. "I just can't stand those three looking down on your clan, even if House Valeria is on the verge of collapse."
And with that—
she stabbed him deeper than the three heirs ever could.
Kai's expression flushed red. So red it nearly matched the bloodline glow of his future eyes.
In the next second, without a single word, he turned around and walked away.
Fast.
Very fast.
Kate blinked. His retreating figure grew smaller as he sped off with stiff, embarrassed strides.
The princess stared for a long moment… then released a breath she had been holding.
"…Wow. That was close."
She pressed a hand to her chest, steadying her heartbeat.
"Kai still looks so cute," she whispered, cheeks warming. "I can't face him like this… I nearly froze."
This was Kate Vantis—prodigy of the Vantis Clan, heir to a kingdom, feared by her peers, respected by elders… and completely helpless in front of one specific boy.
Two years ago, at a grand banquet, she had seen him for the first time.
Kai was eleven then.
Too young to make an impression in politics.
Too young to be noticed.
Yet he had walked into the banquet hall in simple clothes, standing beside his sister like a quiet shadow… and Kate had forgotten how to speak.
He was handsome in a way that felt almost unfair soft features hiding a stubborn spark. A presence that drew the eye without trying.
Since that day, she couldn't talk to him properly.
Every attempt ended with her acting cold or turning away.
Now she had nearly cracked that mask.
And she knew it.
***
Three Days Later
The day of the Pillar of Creation ceremony arrived.
Kai stood in his room as servants hurried around him, adjusting the ceremonial robe he had to wear. The fabric was silver-white, embroidered with patterns from House Valeria's ancient crest patterns most people today mocked as symbols of a fallen house.
"Your Highness," a servant murmured, fastening the last clasp. "You look perfect."
Kai gave a nod, though he hardly felt perfect. His mind was elsewhere. On the trial. On the consequences. On the unknown.
Being chosen to participate this year wasn't a tradition it was a political sacrifice. House Valeria was weakened. Sending a prince to the trial was a gesture of good faith toward the Continental Alliance.
A necessary gesture.
A cruel one.
He was escorted to the banquet hall for the pre-trial ceremony a long, exhausting lecture that repeated the same warnings everyone already knew.
Be wary of illusions.
Be wary of temptations.
Be wary of your own mind.
The trial is unknown. The trial is unpredictable.
The trial consumes the unprepared.
Kai listened.
He understood.
Then he was moved—along with other children—into an underground passage beneath the palace. Guards lined the walls, silent. The torches flickered cold blue flames as the group advanced through winding stone corridors.
Minutes passed.
They reached a chamber.
Ancient.
Massive.
Carved from stone that felt older than the kingdoms themselves.
In the center stood pillars towering monoliths covered in glowing symbols. They rose high, and opposite them, another set rose to meet them.
Together, they formed a gate.
A gate that was not a gate.
The attendant guiding them stepped forward, placing his hands on the pillars.
A hum filled the air.
The symbols ignited.
The pillars shuddered—
BOOM—
A tear ripped open in reality.
A vertical wound, glowing with impossible light.
A rift that neither fire nor wind, neither beast nor sword could have made.
A voice emerged.
It did not echo.
It did not vibrate.
It existed.
Everywhere and nowhere.
"Welcome, vile Humans…"
The children froze.
Some trembled.
Some tried to hide behind others.
Kai simply stared.
This voice was not mortal.
Not conjured.
Not anything bound by the world he knew.
"Welcome to your first trial against Creation."
The rift grew.
A breath of cold wind swept through the chamber.
"You desire power… yet all power demands sacrifice."
"You seek affinity… yet affinity is a chain."
"You step here as vile being …"
"…but only the ones who return shall be recognized."
The tear widened further, becoming an open passage of swirling darkness.
The attendant took a slow step back.
"Good luck," he said softly, though his eyes avoided theirs.
Then he raised his hands wind swirling below him and with a single push,
he hurled them all into the gate.
All at once.
Like seeds tossed into the void.
The First Trial
Kai fell.
Or floated.
Or drifted.
He couldn't tell.
When he opened his eyes, the world was gone.
Nothing existed.
Only… shadow.
A vast expanse of darkness stretching in all directions empty, silent, hollow. There was no sky, no ground, no horizon. Only the endless abyss.
He looked down.
Beneath his feet, a surface appeared—
black flame, rippling like liquid.
Not burning.
Not warm.
A flame that moved like water.
And standing in front of him—
A figure.
A silhouette.
A statue carved from shadow, shaped like him yet somehow taller, older, distorted. Its face was his and not his. Its presence familiar and alien.
Kai swallowed once.
Then the voice returned.
Older than gods.
Heavier than mountains.
A sound that scraped reality raw—like the world itself was too fragile to hold it.
THE VOICE OF CREATION:
"Vile being…"
The darkness trembled.
"I sense it in you—
a spark of the Broken One."
Black flames flickered.
The very shadows froze.
"A shard of the outlawed divinity…
the one who once defied the laws I birthed."
Kai's heart clenched.
The world around him stopped breathing.
"Do you still wish to proceed…?"
The question slithered around his soul, ancient and testing.
"Do you wish to challenge the First Trial…"
"…against Creation itself?"
A pulse of power shook the abyss.
The statue's eyes flared.
The black flame beneath him surged upward like rising tides.
The world held its breath.
The trial waited.