Shadows in the Basement

  Eight and a half hours later, Kai walked out of the school building feeling like a ghost. He had done almost nothing on the test—his mind was too full of blood and betrayal to care about equations—but he found that the failure didn't even bother him. His brain had processed so much trauma in such a short window that a failing grade felt irrelevant. Yet, as he walked away, a heavy realization sat in his stomach. During those hours in the classroom, he had felt exactly like he did before he ever became a Void Watcher: like a small, powerless child, shivering in the dark, terrified of a world he no longer understood.

  The next day, Kai could barely drag himself out of bed, but for the first time in his life, it wasn't the physical agony holding him back. It was a hollow weight in his chest. He simply didn't want to get up; he didn't want to face the mundane hallways of his school. He stared at the ceiling, wondering who he had become. He felt like a stranger in his own skin, unable to recognize the person staring back from the depths of his own mind.

  He stumbled toward the bedroom mirror, needing to see the damage for himself. He pulled off his shirt and unwound the bandages, his eyes scanning the carnage on his torso. Mara's healing was incredible—most of the minor wounds had vanished, leaving nothing but faint pink lines. But where Kaelen’s blade had pierced him, the wound remained jagged and only partially closed. It was a raw, ugly reminder that would undoubtedly leave a permanent scar.

  Just as he was tracing the edge of the wound, his door rattled.

  "Sweetheart, are you okay? I just wanted to see if you were awake before I headed to work!" It was his mother.

  Kai froze, his heart hammering against his ribs. "Yeah, I'm up! Thanks for checking," he called back, trying to keep his voice steady. As he heard her footsteps fade, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. If I hadn't locked that door, she would have seen it. Everything would have gone to hell. It was a sharp wake-up call: this wasn't a game. One slip-up, one moment of vulnerability, and his secret life would shatter the world around him.

  He tightly re-wrapped the bandages around his chest and abdomen, pulling his uniform over the bulky layers, and set off for school. He expected to run into Han on the way or at the gates, but the sidewalk remained empty.

  Once inside, Kai approached a classmate near the lockers. "Hey, do you know if Han’s coming in today?"

  The boy turned, shrugging. "Nah, Han’s out. He’s got a bad cold. Nothing serious, I think, but he’ll be out for two or three days."

  The bell rang, cutting through the conversation. Kai walked to his desk and sank into his seat. The class was a wash; the teacher had arrived late and looked even more exhausted than Kai felt, leaving the students to chatter amongst themselves. Kai ignored the noise, his mind drifting back to the hierarchy of the Void. I’m not even in the top 10,000 of the organization, he thought. There are hundreds of thousands of recruits. I'm above average, sure, but what kind of power lies beyond that? What makes a Rank 10,000 different from me?

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  His thoughts shifted to John. The image of John's Kaijiu awakening flashed before his eyes—the sheer speed, the crushing pressure, the primal fear that radiated from him. Just thinking about it made Kai feel like he was back in the middle of the slaughter.

  Suddenly, a sensation cut through his reverie. His body was still in a deep healing state, meaning he shouldn't have been able to sense Jonk unless it was incredibly close. But for a split second, he felt it—the cold, oily signature of a monster. And it was right here, in the school.

  Kai turned to stone. Can I even fight right now? Will other Watchers show up? Panic flared. He scrambled for an excuse—Should I say I’m sick? Tell the teacher I need the bathroom? Fortunately, the bell saved him. As the students flooded the halls, Kai followed the faint trace of energy down to the school’s basement—a sprawling, labyrinthine area of concrete and pipes. The further he progressed, the more that strange sensation intensified. Kai kept walking, moving slowly and slipping between the pipes of the basement until he finally saw it.

  Deep in the shadows of the basement, he saw it. A standard monster, nothing special, was locked in a clumsy struggle with what looked like a brand-new recruit on his first mission. Kai stayed hidden in the darkness, observing. The recruit had a decent amount of Jonk, but he had zero technique. He was just swinging wildly, hoping to land a hit, while the monster easily dodged and lashed out with shadowy tentacles. The recruit was taking every hit, the damage slowly piling up. The recruit gripped his sword tightly and launched an attack—a slow, telegraphed strike that the monster dodged by a hair, managing to land a counter-punch that sent the recruit reeling, completely destabilized.

  Kai hesitated. Am I allowed to help? Can I even help without my Jonk? His energy was locked, but his body—honed by months of 15% Jonk usage—was still far beyond that of a normal human. Before he could decide, the recruit collapsed, overwhelmed by a dozen small strikes. As the monster lunged for the kill, Kai’s instincts took over.

  He leaped from the shadows, throwing a lightning-fast punch. It didn't kill the beast, but the sheer physical force sent it reeling back. However, that only bought him one to three seconds—barely enough time to find a way to actually hurt the monster. Since he couldn't summon his own blade, Kai stepped over the unconscious recruit and snatched up the fallen sword. "I'm borrowing this for a second," he muttered.

  The monster hissed and retaliated. Kai raised the sword, his muscle memory ready to parry, but a sudden, agonizing flare erupted from his scar. The pain blinded him for a fraction of a second, leaving him wide open. The monster’s claw swung toward his chest—right toward the wound. Through pure, blind luck or perhaps some twisted fate, Kai twisted his body at the last possible microsecond, the claw whistling past his ribs.

  He didn't waste the opening. Using the monster's momentum against it, Kai drove the blade upward, cleaving the creature's head in two. The monster dissolved into black ash almost instantly.

  Kai tossed the sword back next to the unconscious recruit and started walking back toward the stairs, clutching his side. "Am I late for class?" he whispered to himself, checking the time. "I hope not... if I'm late for math again, my reputation is officially trashed."