The village stretched out behind him like a charnel ground of mud and thorns.
Tempest limped along forgotten paths, every breath a knife plunged into his lungs, every step a challenge to his ravaged body.
His skin was traced with dry cuts, like cursed scriptures carved by force. Dried blood had hardened into black crusts that scraped against his tattered clothes.
No one looked at him.
No one searched for him.
And so, like a shadow too thin to deserve the sun, he slipped toward the farthest edge — where even the insects hesitated to rest their wings.
The Ruins of Veylan.
Ancient stones, shattered by time and oblivion, rose like the broken teeth of a giant dead for centuries.
The wind raced among the fallen columns, moaning like a thousand imprisoned souls.
The sky itself seemed lower, darker, weighed down by an invisible burden.
Tempest let himself collapse to the ground, bones creaking like dry branches.
He had no plans.
He had no strength.
All he had left was that sickly flame that refused to die: the hunger for something he didn’t even know how to name.
And when the pain became too great to separate from consciousness, Tempest rose again.
He began to train.
At first, it was pure survival:
awkward punches against the air,
desperate kicks against stones harder than his will.
He bent, fell, spat blood... and stood back up.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Every movement was a whispered prayer to a god who never listened.
Every strike a blasphemy against fate.
Then, something happened.
Not a flash.
Not an explosion.
But a crack.
A thin, invisible rift opened inside him.
It happened during a punch, thrown with more despair than skill.
The wind, which until then had barely obeyed his commands, changed.
It didn’t just follow.
It responded.
Tempest felt the pressure of the air thicken around his arm, as if the sky itself had bent down to assist him.
The blow, instead of dispersing into the air, surged forward.
A silent, yet devastating blast.
Light stones began to tremble.
Some lifted off the ground, quivering like insects caught in a dream.
The dust at his feet rose in a gentle whirlwind, and the trees—those gnarled, cruel trunks—bent in a ghostly bow.
Tempest had stopped commanding mere breezes.
Now he was shaping atmospheric pressure.
The boy stood still, chest heaving.
He felt his heart pound against his ribs like a war drum.
But it wasn’t fear.
It was something older.
Something wilder.
It was power.
And with it came a realization heavier than any chain:
In this world, abilities didn’t change.
Not on their own.
Not without rituals.
Not without sacrifices.
It was forbidden.
It was impossible.
And yet, there he was, watching the dust dance around his feet like devoted handmaidens.
The wind sang for him now.
Not a lament, but a promise.
And Tempest, for the first time he could remember, smiled.
A raw smile, jagged, primitive.
He was no longer a rat.
Not yet a wolf.
But something was being born.
And the world, which until then had ignored him, would soon learn to tremble.
The village reeked of blood and rain.
Tempest returned from the Ruins when the sky had already turned to lead, heavy with unborn lightning.
He expected the usual indifferent silence.
Instead, he found... movement.
A circle had formed in the central square, around the large dry well no one used anymore.
Men and women with hollow faces, boys too young to be men, children too old to be innocent — all crammed together, all wearing the same dull expression of those about to witness something cruel and necessary.
The Ritual Hunt.
An ancient tradition, as old as the mud caked beneath their fingernails.
A brutal form of natural selection: the youngest thrown against wild prey — or worse, each other.
Those who survived earned a less miserable place.
Those who failed... became food for the beasts.
Tempest was shoved forward by two men with gnarled sticks.
They didn’t need to speak: the message was etched into their disgusted sneers.
He hadn’t been chosen.
He’d been thrown.
A sacrifice.
A diversion to entertain the crowd, a living meal to appease superstition.
The village chief, an old man with a beard braided with small animal bones, stood atop a makeshift platform.
His voice roared above the murmur:
"Today, the weak challenges the impossible. Let the earth choose who deserves to walk upon it."
And like a curtain torn away, the crowd parted.
Tempest saw his adversity.
And ice lanced down his spine.
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It wasn’t an animal.
Not even a boy like him.
It was Boran.
Second-in-command to Gorr.
A stocky youth with narrow, cruel eyes, known for the pleasure he took in breaking bones.
His skin was marked with dark tattoos, tales of how many times he’d spilled blood — and how many more he intended to.
This wasn’t a trial.
It was an execution wrapped in ritual.
Boran laughed, revealing crooked, yellowing teeth.
"It’ll be quick, rat," he hissed.
"For you, at least."
Tempest didn’t answer.
Didn’t move a muscle.
But inside him, something began to growl quietly.
An echo of the wind he had tamed.
A whisper as old as mountains.
He was no longer the boy who trembled beneath the blows.
No longer the prey hoping for mercy.
He was something new.
And Boran didn’t know it yet.
The ritual horn blew.
The duel had begun.
Boran charged forward, furious like a landslide.
Tempest didn’t meet him.
Didn’t try to stop him.
Didn’t fight by the rules.
He slipped.
Ducked at the last second, his body fluid like a ribbon of smoke.
Boran staggered, striking empty air.
The crowd snickered, thinking it was just a stroke of luck.
Tempest didn’t waste time.
He used the air.
Not as a blade.
Not as a shield.
As a silent traitor.
He concentrated atmospheric pressure in front of Boran’s feet, just as he had learned in the ruins.
A subtle rise in density, invisible to the eye, but enough to tip the balance.
Boran stumbled.
Fell to the ground with a clumsy thud, raising a puff of dust.
Tempest didn’t hesitate.
He leapt upon him like a miniature fury, and struck.
He didn’t aim for power.
He aimed for weaknesses:
the joints,
the throat,
the eyes.
Boran screamed, caught off guard.
He tried to fight back, but every move felt heavy, as if the very air betrayed him.
The crowd began to murmur.
This wasn’t fun.
This wasn’t the slaughter they had craved.
This was something else.
This was a hunt.
When Tempest rose, panting, Boran’s body lay still in the dust.
Not dead, but humiliated in defeat.
Silence fell like a suffocating blanket.
No one clapped.
No one dared to laugh.
Only the wind, weaving through the shacks, chuckled softly.
And from that moment, something in the village cracked.
Tempest, the rat, hadn’t died.
He had won.
And the gods — or whatever monsters listened from beyond the stars — had just whispered a venomous promise into the world’s ear:
“Beware. A predator has been born.”
Blood pounded in Tempest’s ears, pulsing like war drums.
The world around him felt muffled, as if he stood inside a thick bell of air.
Every breath, every slightest motion — his and everyone else’s — echoed inside this newborn sensitivity.
The Hunt wasn’t over.
Boran was only the first.
In the ritual, survival meant facing whoever remained.
And now the others — the ones who had laughed at him, hurled stones and spit — stood frozen.
Tempest was still standing.
And they were not.
One of them, a thin boy with rotting teeth, screamed to shatter the spell of fear.
He lunged at Tempest with a crude spear.
Tempest didn’t meet him.
Didn’t block.
Didn’t scream.
He vanished.
Like a wisp of mist scattered by the wind, he sidestepped, bending his body in an elastic, inhuman arc.
His ability surfaced — for the first time, against a man.
A ripple in the air, imperceptible but deadly, nudged the spear off course at the last instant.
The boy staggered, unbalanced.
Tempest used his own momentum against him:
a shove to the ribs,
a sharp strike to the knee,
a gust of focused air underfoot that swept away his balance.
The boy collapsed like an empty sack.
Tempest didn’t finish him.
He didn’t need to.
The message was already clear.
The other two hesitated.
Tempest watched them, breath slow and steady — like a predator that had just tasted its first drop of blood.
There was no hatred in his eyes.
No anger.
Only... patience.
The same patience storms have on the horizon, forming in the quiet before catastrophe.
The stockier one made his choice.
He shouted an insult — maybe to stir courage — and charged.
Tempest waited.
He didn’t move at first.
He let the boy believe.
Let him commit.
Then, in the final breath before impact, he acted.
He compressed the air in front of his attacker — not enough to stop him, but just enough to twist the ground beneath him into betrayal.
A misstep.
A flicker of imbalance.
And it was enough.
Tempest struck in a blur of motion:
-
A shattered knee.
-
A shove to the sternum.
-
A sharp gust of wind to the face — blinding, momentary, decisive.
The boy crumpled, gasping.
Silence fell again.
But this time, it was heavier.
Stickier.
The survivors no longer saw a "rat."
No longer the human punching bag.
They saw a shadow cloaked in their fear.
Tempest slowly turned toward the last boy.
He said nothing.
Didn’t lift a finger.
He didn’t need to.
The boy dropped his weapon and ran, stumbling over his own feet, vanishing between the shacks like a hounded dog.
The Hunt was over.
And for the first time since the village had clawed its way out of mud and misery,
a Hunted had become the Hunter.
Tempest stood still at the center of the empty circle.
Hands open.
Eyes locked on no one in particular.
Around him, the leaves trembled from a wind no one else could feel.
Dust danced, as if celebrating a dark king.
And above it all, at the broken heart of the square, a new legend carved itself into the stone of silence:
“The rat bit the lion.
And did not fear.”
Tempest returned to the village carrying the spoils of the Hunt:
a bloodstained scrap of fur, torn from the beast’s side,
and silence as his only companion.
He walked barefoot over cracked mud, hands stained with dry blood, his skin etched with cuts and bruises.
Each step echoed like a wrong note in the void growing around him.
No one came close.
Mothers slammed doors shut.
Men lowered their eyes.
The children — the ones who once laughed as they threw stones — now ran in silence, like rats before the fire.
The village square, where survivors’ rites were held, stood deserted.
Only the elders, seated on their stools of rotting wood, watched Tempest's return.
Not with anger.
Not with disgust.
With suspicion.
With fear.
The silence that greeted him wasn’t empty — it was thick, like spoiled honey.
A silence that whispered:
“We don’t know what you’ve become.
And we’re terrified to find out.”
Tempest dropped the Hunt’s trophy at the elders’ feet.
A gesture that tradition dictated should be met with cheering, singing, offerings of food.
But no one sang.
No one spoke.
Even the stones at the edge of the square seemed to hold their breath.
A cold wind blew through the shacks, lifting the dust into wild little whirlwinds.
And in that rustling, in that nearly imperceptible murmur of wind, the first whisper rose.
Not a shout.
Not an accusation.
A whisper.
Almost a thought betrayed by trembling lips:
“Maybe… he’s not a rat.
Maybe he’s a wolf.”
Tempest didn’t smile.
Didn’t bow.
Didn’t seek glory.
He simply looked up, locking eyes with each elder in turn.
He wasn’t looking for approval.
Not for forgiveness.
He wanted recognition.
And he got it.
Not through words.
Not through gestures.
But in clenched muscles.
In eyes that darted away from his.
In the irregular thump of hearts around him.
From that day on, no one called Tempest “rat” aloud.
Only in whispers.
And in those whispers, the rat had already begun to devour the village.
In the shadowed Council Hall, Kael watched.
He didn’t speak.
Didn’t move.
Only his eyes — black as burned coal — followed Tempest’s every motion below, in the square.
While the other elders argued, Kael remained still, like a shadow denser than darkness itself.
“Strange,” he thought, fingers tracing the rim of his iron cup,
“He doesn’t tremble.
He doesn’t crave approval.
He doesn’t fear death.
What have we created?”
Another elder approached.
Short, stocky, his beard reeking of rot.
He whispered, barely turning his head:
“We should eliminate him. Before he realizes how strong he’s become.”
Kael didn’t reply right away.
He inhaled slowly, savoring the sharp stench of fear that clung to the cracked walls.
Then turned, his gaze piercing the other elder.
“Or maybe,” he said, voice barely louder than breath, “we should wait.
Maybe we can use him.”
No decision was made that night.
But a seed had been planted.
From that moment, Kael no longer watched Tempest as a failure… but as a variable.
An unstable one.
Potentially lethal.
Potentially useful.
In the days that followed, little things changed.
A harsher trainer was assigned to Tempest — officially “to improve him.”
His food rations increased slightly.
His missions grew riskier, more specific… more controlled.
It was a subtle game.
They didn’t want to break him.
Not yet.
They wanted to see how far he could go.
And more importantly… how long they could keep him on a leash.
Kael, in the darkness of his quarters, watched the future like a fisherman eyeing a storm on the horizon:
with the thrill of riding it—
and the terror of being swallowed whole.
The night lay over the village like a torn blanket, punctured by a thousand indifferent stars.
Tempest sat alone, away from the fires, among the twisted roots of a dying tree.
Dirty bandages coiled around his arms like snakes.
Blood had dried into invisible maps across his hands.
But the pain…
the pain was far away, like a dream forgotten before dawn.
In its place, something new had taken root.
A hunger.
Not for meat.
Not for water.
An ancient hunger.
A hunger for existence.
Around him, the wind whispered like a choir of ghosts.
Dust rose in spirals around his body.
Light stones trembled, lifted ever so slightly — as if the earth itself breathed to his rhythm.
Tempest looked at his hands.
They were no longer a rat’s.
Not yet a wolf’s.
They were something else.
Something the village, with all its chains and rituals, had not foreseen.
Inside, he felt an unspoken promise.
He would not settle for survival.
He would not settle for servitude.
No.
Tempest would rewrite the rules.
He slowly raised his eyes to the sky.
The moon, pale and high, looked down as if watching only him.
And under that mute judgment, Tempest smiled.
Not with joy.
Not with hope.
With fury.
With a hunger that made the future itself tremble.
“I would not be the son of the mud.
I would be the father of the storm.”
"If you’re going through hell, keep going."
— Winston Churchill