NOVEL WEB Chapter 1: Dustborn
In June of a certain year, everything changed.
The people of Aderfel who had learned to live with fear, disguise, and hollow bravery now faced a darker reality. It began with the great attack, an invasion by creatures from realms no one could name. Since then, birth rates surged, but so did the fear of the unknown.
Behind sealed council doors and silent government courts, Aderfel shifted in ways most never saw. A secret facility was built, not only to protect the people but to quietly exile those labeled as outsiders.
In the city of Elaria, one such response took shape: Wilson Castalis Academy. Prestigious, untouchable, and veiled in whispers, the academy raised a generation of elite Hunters and Exo-hunters. Students enrolled only after completing secondary education, whether standard or intermediate.
Hunters trained to master their abilities, refine their swordsmanship, and face the horrors lurking in dungeons.
Exo-hunters, however, specialized in banishing spirits, ghosts, and demons. Many forged pacts with spirits to enhance their shards, amplifying their strength.
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And then there's me.
I'm called a Dustborn, a name spat like dirt, a label meant for those with no shard.
Empty. Powerless.
Yet they fear me.
They whisper I carry something worse than any shard.
Maybe they're right. Maybe that's exactly what they want the world to believe.
The truth? Even I don't know what I am. Unlike everyone else, I have a single, massive mark carved into my back, a mark that burns like it remembers something I've forgotten.
The government claims my existence is tied to the arrival of those unknown creatures. They say I disrupt the balance. That wherever I go, the creatures follow. Some call me cursed. Others… a demon.
I barely know the truth myself.
But I remember the day I was cast out.
The day I was thirteen.
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Memory
When I first went to live with my Grandma, I hated school.
The stares.
The names.
The teachers who looked at me like I was something wrong.
I started skipping classes altogether.
One day, during break time, I left school and wandered into the woods with my hands shoved in my pockets. No fear. No plan.
And yet, no creature dared approach me.
I felt their eyes, though watching from the shadows like I was something they couldn't understand.
That's when I saw them, five Hunters.
They froze when they saw me, staring as if I were some strange puzzle.
I stared back, wide-eyed but angry.
Because I noticed something.
One of them wasn't human.
He was a Vyrak, disguised.
My stare made him nervous. He panicked.
A Hunter asked if I had come alone, but I didn't answer.
I couldn't look away from that false human.
Then, out of fear that I might expose him, he pulled an axe from his back and swung for my head.
The blade struck.
Not deep, but enough to send blood streaming down my face.
The others stared in horror
a Hunter attacking a child.
And worse, that child was still standing.
Silent.
Bleeding.
But standing.
I raised my head slowly, my eyes burning with fury
and then it happened.
A blast shattered the silence.
A shockwave rolled through the forest, powerful enough to be felt underground.
Then came the scream.
A monstrous, bone-shaking roar, but not mine.
It came from within me, tearing through the air like a curse.
The scream wasn't just sound it left scars.
Trees bent away as if recoiling in fear.
The sky dimmed.
The mark on my back seared, glowing white-hot as it burned through half my shirt.
The fury behind that scream glared through my eyes.
The forest went wild.
Creatures fled.
Hunters dropped to their knees, torn between watching me… and watching the woods.
And I just stood there.
An axe still lodged in my head.
Silent.
Burning.
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Since that day, nothing has been the same.
The government claimed I was connected to the creatures that first appeared sixteen years ago. They said killing me was impossible. So they cast me out instead.
But the truth is, I know nothing about their coming.
From that day on, the world feared me
but I feared what had awakened inside me even more.