Dreadwolf, Lord of Runes

A dark, empty void loomed ominously over an even darker sea, its surface a mass of strange, gently swirling liquid.

At the heart of this enigmatic sea, a solitary, naked figure—Kane—floated aimlessly. His striking amber eyes pierced the surrounding darkness.

Breaking the silence, Kane voiced a thought with a curious, casual tone that belied his situation. "Well, this is new. The last thing I remember was going to sleep, but I don't normally dream much."

He scanned the darkness, but when nothing revealed itself, he leaned back, legs crossed and fingers entwined, drifting again in the void. He looked like the very symbol of calm and nonchalance.

He was now eighteen years old, and he had become even more of an expert in remaining calm under the most stressful of situations. That was the only way for him to survive Father's constant games.

Kane chuckled while he looked up at the dark void overhead, "I guess it could be my soul. It certainly has the right... ambiance. Still, I've never heard of anyone experiencing anything like this after bringing their soul core to the fifth rank."

As he floated in the eerie silence, his fingers absently tapped his chest, a small frown creasing his forehead as his thoughts wandered. "Should have reached the fifth rank in my other cores by now too," he muttered, frustration flickering across his face.

Becoming a Mystic involved awakening three cores—blood, soul, and spirit. This was the Core Awakening stage Kane was currently in. At the same time, they awakened one or more elements, like fire, water, or in Kane's case, shadow. These determined what techniques would be most compatible with a Mystic.

In this stage, soul and spirit essentially filled the same role of simply enhancing the power of their associated elements. Their real importance would come in later stages. Blood, on the other hand, was far more important right now, as it was directly linked to the power of one's body.

After the awakening, the cores could be nurtured with natural energy to increase in rank and power.

Kane's soul core had reached the fifth rank, but his other cores lagged behind. This imbalance happened because every element is closely related to one of the cores, and in the case of Kane's shadow, that would be the soul core.

"Unfortunately, I still haven't found a better technique. We were lucky to get something decent for Luna from old man Cedric, but with Father's suppression…" He trailed off, his gaze hardening. "No. I just need to work harder. Father is only an obstacle I will remove eventually."

When he returned home with Luna four years ago, Father had simply smirked and congratulated Kane on winning this time, but he did allow his son to keep Luna.

He didn't give an explanation at the time, but Kane could guess: Luna was a rabbit. A cute little pet that he could raise until such a time where Father could use her somehow.

Such was the nature of the games Father forced on him.

After a moment, Kane shook his head and softened his gaze. "Whatever. Just remember: one step at a time. Assuming whatever this is won't kill me first; I do have a meeting tomorrow that might finally get us some decent techniques."

A good technique could offset the natural imbalance created by elements by nurturing the other cores as well, even if the technique's main element wasn't related to those cores.

Unfortunately, Kane had only been able to get his hands on a single, low-level shadow technique that didn't do so. Fortunately, he had a second element related to the spirit core, allowing him to rank it up slowly even without a proper technique.

The sad thing was that not many people had more than one element, but Kane couldn't even make proper use of his, because he didn't have the right technique.

It wasn't all bad, though. For yet unknown reasons, Kane had an unnaturally powerful body, allowing him to offset some of what he lacked due to his blood core remaining at rank one.

Overall, Kane's current power, compared to others of his rank, was in the lower echelons of the top ten percent, although his cloak of shadows technique did allow him to assassinate almost any unaware Core Awakening Mystics and equivalent Cybers.

Silence fell as he finished talking to himself and continued to float on the black liquid. It felt like a more viscous kind of water, lapping at his naked body.

He broke the silence again: "Well, whatever is going on, this is kind of nice. It's peaceful. Been a while since I had any peace."

As if to challenge those words, the peace chose that moment to break. The swirling sea beneath him began churning wilder and the dark void overhead shifted from static to chaotic. Strange clouds of a slightly different shade of black appeared, moving rapidly in absolute chaos.

Kane sighed in resignation and rolled his eyes. "Of course. Silly me. I shouldn't have said anything."

Still, despite the changes around him, he remained a stoic observer. He didn't consider himself apathetic, just pragmatic. There was no point in panicking, and with darkness in every direction, swimming around randomly might bring as much harm as good.

Besides, the current situation wasn't so bad. Yet. And despite his casual attitude, his eyes were always alert, searching for anything that might be a danger to him.

The newly chaotic darkness overhead began to show more changes. The clouds, previously moving in seemingly random patterns, now swirled around a single focal point, forming a reverse whirlpool.

Amidst this dark maelstrom, a single strand of pink emerged from the focal point and descended the whirlpool of dark clouds in a graceful spiral, marking a stark contrast against the void.

This time, Kane raised an eyebrow and blinked. "Huh. Wouldn't have expected my soul to have the colour pink. I'm guessing you're why I'm here?"

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the strand of pink didn't answer him.

His eyes lazily followed the strand as it slowly wound its way down to the end of the whirlpool. Expecting it to stop, Kane blinked again when the strand continued, its spirals shrinking as it descended further.

After a few moments, the pink light stopped right above his slowly floating body. The man looked at it with interest but refrained from attempting to interact with it for now.

Then, as abruptly as it appeared, the light vanished, leaving behind a peculiar stone. It had a few jagged edges, as if broken off from a larger whole, and a strangely glowing pink rune in the middle.

Kane stared at the symbol, searching his memory for anything similar but coming up short. "How mysterious you are," he mumbled.

The stone shard floated there a little while longer as the man stared at it, wondering what it would do next. When still nothing new happened after five long minutes, he realized that perhaps it was his turn to make a move.

"What's the worst that could happen?" he mumbled before chuckling softly. "Famous last words, indeed."

Despite his scepticism, he lifted his right arm from the viscous, black water and grasped towards the stone.

Surprisingly, as he closed his fist around it, the stone suddenly vanished.

Not for long, however. An intense burning pain erupted in his right hand. He had suffered far worse before, so he barely reacted outside of a cautious frown, but quickly noticed something had appeared on the back of his hand.

It was a kind of tattoo, consisting of a thick black circle, interrupted by three smaller circles placed at regular intervals like the corners of a triangle. Two of these circles were empty, but the first was filled with the strange pink rune from the stone.

He blinked and inspected his hand from various angles, his curiosity piqued.

But before he could examine it more deeply, a melodious voice echoed through the void. It didn't sound kind or malicious, but he did feel a strange connection to it. "Enjoy the gift, my future king. Just remember… nothing is ever truly free, and I 'will' come to collect."

Kane frowned, but before he could respond, a primal instinct screamed. His eyes flew open just in time to see a gleaming knife hurtling towards his left eye.