The forest was no longer quiet.
The moment Billionzaruto stepped into the clearing, the air itself shifted—thin at first, then trembling, as if the world remembered something ancient. Leaves lifted from the ground and began swirling in a slow spiral around him, pulled by an invisible force.
His heartbeat thudded like thunder in his chest.
He could feel it again…
The energy.
The storm.
The thing he had spent years trying to understand.
A crack of lightning flashed across his fingertips—small, flickering, almost shy—but enough to light up the shadows around him.
"Easy," he breathed, tightening his fists as the sparks crawled up his arms. "Not now… not yet."
But his body refused to listen.
The lightning surged again—stronger, brighter—leaping from his skin and striking a nearby tree. The trunk exploded in splinters, shaking the entire forest.
Billionzaruto staggered back.
This wasn't normal.
This wasn't controlled.
Something was awakening inside him.
He steadied his breathing, planting one foot into the dirt as the storm calmed—just a little. His eyes flickered with faint embers, not fire yet, but a fiery glow as if they were remembering their own power.
Then he heard it.
A soft crunch of branches.
A presence.
He snapped his head up.
A figure in a dark hood stepped from behind the trees, their movements slow—but deliberate. Their entire body seemed to pulse with a faint golden aura.
"You've grown," the stranger said, their voice deep and echoing. "Just like the prophecy warned."
Billionzaruto's lightning flared instinctively.
"Who are you?"
The figure lifted their hood slightly, revealing eyes like polished obsidian.
"I am Sentinel Kaigos," the stranger replied. "Watcher of the Storm Lineage. And I have come because your power is no longer dormant…"
Billionzaruto's heart slammed.
Storm Lineage.
His mother's stories.
The forgotten blood.
The warriors who could command both lightning and fire.
"You're saying I'm one of them?" he asked, voice low.
Kaigos nodded.
"You are more than one of them. You are the last. And something is coming that only you can face."
Lightning crawled across Billionzaruto's shoulders again.
"And what exactly is coming?" he demanded.
Kaigos's expression darkened.
"The creature that hunts your power. The one that destroyed the others. The one that felt your awakening a moment ago."
As if summoned by his words, the sky above them rumbled.
Darkness thickened.
A cold wind slashed through the trees.
Billionzaruto's eyes burst fully into flames—bright, blinding, unstoppable.
"Then let it come," he said, sparks roaring from his palms.
"I'm done running."
Kaigos stepped back, watching the young warrior stand firm as thunder cracked overhead.
The storm had chosen its master.
And the world was about to feel it.
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