THE AETHERBORN

Thorne ran.

The forest blurred around him, streaks of color and motion. Trees became silhouettes, light smeared into ribbons. He wasn't moving through the world anymore. The world was moving around him.

Every step was a detonation of light. The ground cracked and reformed in his wake; roots split, then healed as if the forest itself refused to acknowledge his passage. Aether followed him in a screaming current, flooding into his body and out again with every heartbeat.

He barely noticed the pain.

The two remaining Kings roared somewhere behind him, their calls rolling across the night like thunder. He didn't care. Their presence was nothing compared to the single signal that pulsed in his mind, that faint, fragile human heartbeat in the middle of the storm.

Too faint.

He pushed harder.

His body wasn't built for this much power. The veins beneath his skin burned, glowing bright enough to shine through his armor. His muscles quivered under the weight of energy trying to escape. Every breath he took came with sparks of blue-white light.

The forest kept up a constant whisper in his head, data, endless, automatic.

Terrain: fluctuating aether field. Density rising.
Wind direction: south. Oxygen ratio unstable.
Presence ahead: human, unconscious, vital signs weakening.

He didn't need the information. He felt it. The threads of the world bent toward the same point, guiding him like a compass.

He leapt a ravine in a single bound, the aether condensing under his feet in a platform of light. The air screamed past him, then shattered as he landed on the other side, rolling through ash and broken roots.

His right hand pulsed again, veins glowing, fingertips dripping motes of aether. The energy inside him was no longer calm. It pressed outward, desperate for release. He ignored it, teeth clenched.

Hold together. Just a little longer.

Through the haze of motion and noise, the faint awareness sharpened: a single thread glowing crimson amid the tapestry of blue. Human. Injured. Familiar.

"Hang on," he muttered. "Don't..."

The ground buckled.

A shockwave rolled through the trees ahead, followed by a roar that made his bones vibrate. Birds exploded from the canopy in bursts of light. The fourth presence, the one he'd sensed earlier, had finally revealed itself.

The forest tilted. Roots snapped, trees fell, and from the heart of the destruction rose something enormous.

It stepped from the crater like a mountain dragging itself upright.

The Fourth King.

Its body was half-stone, half-shadow. Its surface crawled with glowing fissures that pulsed like molten veins, each exhale releasing smoke that glittered with crystal dust. Horns like curved blades swept backward from its head, glowing faintly red at the tips. Its eyes burned with layered pupils, each rotating independently like the lenses of a machine.

Level ???.

His Veil Sense couldn't read it fully. The number broke apart the moment he tried to focus, replaced by a sensation that wasn't sight or sound but pressure, an awareness that this thing was something beyond what should exist here.

And crouched in the ruins beneath its feet… was the human presence.

Thorne's heart stopped.

Even from here, even through the haze of smoke and radiant heat, he recognized the outline.

Light hair. Slim figure. Torn robes bearing Aetherhold insignia.

"No…"

The Fourth King tilted its head, massive and curious. Its gaze turned toward him, and the air between them twisted, bending light.

The aether around Thorne surged, reacting to his emotion, his fear, his rage. The threads screamed through him, begging for release.

His right arm blazed, every vein visible, light spilling from his skin. His eyes flared white-blue as the forest itself seemed to recoil.

He took a step forward. The ground turned molten.

The aether whispered again, soft, melodic, almost kind.

He is dying.
And you are the only one who can reach him.

Thorne's voice came out low, almost a growl. "Then I'll reach him."

He launched forward, a comet of light tearing through the dark forest toward the beast and the dying figure beneath it.

The Fourth King turned its head slowly, like an avalanche considering whether to fall. Its molten eyes fixed on Thorne, and the air between them rippled under the weight of its presence. The forest itself dimmed.

Every creature for miles went silent. Even the lesser aether beasts that had lingered at the edges of his power fled deeper into the woods, keening in instinctive terror.

Thorne barely noticed. His gaze had already locked on the small, motionless figure at the monster's feet.

Elias.

His robes were torn, his skin pale beneath the silver glow of the forest. His staff lay snapped in half beside him. Blood pooled faintly where the roots cradled him, shimmering from aether contamination.

For a moment, Thorne's mind refused to accept it. Then everything inside him ignited.

The aether roared.

He vanished.

One heartbeat he was standing still, the next he was already there, between Elias and the towering King, light trailing from his body like the tail of a comet. He dropped to one knee, sliding across the scorched soil, aether coiling around him in spirals of blue and silver.

"Stay down," he whispered, though Elias couldn't hear him.

The Fourth King's massive claws lifted, molten stone dripping from the edges. The air condensed around the movement, pressure building until Thorne's teeth ached.

He threw both arms forward, and the aether obeyed.

A barrier erupted into existence, pure, translucent light condensed into a wall of shimmering distortion. The King's strike hit it like a meteor.

Impact.

The world detonated.

Thorne was thrown backward, his barrier shattering into a storm of fragments that dissolved mid-air. He hit the ground hard, sliding through molten dirt. His vision went white-blue from the shock.

The King didn't pause. It drew in a breath, a deep, rumbling inhale that pulled the ambient aether out of the air itself. The threads twisted visibly toward its mouth, vanishing into its body.

Thorne's eyes widened. "It's absorbing it?"

The answer came a second later, when the creature exhaled.

A beam of compressed aether erupted from its maw, wide enough to swallow a house. Thorne leapt sideways, the blast missing him by inches and carving a trench hundreds of meters long through the forest. Trees disintegrated. The ground fused to glass.

He landed in a crouch, already countering. He slashed a hand through the air, releasing an Aether Lance, then another, and another, hundreds of razor-thin lines of light streaking toward the beast.

They hit and vanished.

The King's armor pulsed. Each lance was swallowed, consumed, its glow fading into the creature's molten veins. Then the light gathered again in its throat.

"Right," Thorne muttered, voice hoarse. "You eat aether."

He reached outward, pulling on the currents around them. The forest obeyed; its natural wards strained under the clash of two forces that were never meant to coexist. The air crackled, static forming halos around every leaf. Ancient runes hidden beneath the soil flared to life, protective seals, ancient as the forest itself. They trembled under the weight of his and the beast's combined power.

Thorne lifted his right arm. The veins beneath his skin shone bright, his flesh flickering translucent from within. Power surged upward, endless and painful. He fired again, a burst, not a beam this time, but a wide shockwave meant to crush instead of cut.

It struck. The King staggered. The earth cratered beneath its feet, molten cracks racing outward. For a moment, he thought he'd done it, then the glow along the creature's body intensified.

It had drunk it in again.

The counter came instantly. Aether beams rained down like divine punishment, each impact shaking the ground. Thorne barely dodged one before another struck beside him, the shockwave hurling him through the air. He hit a broken tree trunk, rolled, and forced himself back up. His skin steamed. His HP flickered red in the corner of his vision.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He could barely breathe. The aether inside him was a storm now, every movement drawing more of it, every thought stoking it hotter. His veins glowed like liquid lightning.

He looked up and saw the King gathering another charge, its throat glowing white-hot.

"Not again," he snarled.

He extended both hands, and the aether screamed through him. The pressure was too much, tearing muscle, bursting vessels. Blood turned to light, dripping from his fingertips in incandescent drops.

He shaped the flow anyway. The air distorted around him, gravity bending.

A beam met a beam.

The two torrents collided mid-air, merging, exploding outward in a dome of white-blue fire. The shockwave tore through the forest, ripping branches from trees, turning the ground into waves of molten rock. The ancient wards screamed in protest, their glyphs sparking and flickering like dying stars.

When the light faded, Thorne was still standing, but barely. His cloak was gone, burned away. His clothes were torn, smoking. The world rang in his ears.

The King was still there. Its right shoulder hung half-melted, its armor cracked, but its eyes blazed even brighter now, drunk on his power, on the feast he'd provided.

Thorne's chest rose and fell unevenly. His thoughts came slow, distorted by exhaustion and the constant hum of the aether. Elias was still behind him, barely breathing.

He couldn't let that thing get close again.

He lifted one shaking hand. The aether responded instantly, flooding in, far too fast, filling every space within him until it hurt to exist. His vision dimmed at the edges.

The forest's wards began to collapse entirely now, ancient symbols unraveling one by one as if burned out from within. The very air flickered, the boundaries between planes thinning.

Aether whirled around him in a spiral, drawn to him like a star about to go nova. The pressure made his teeth ache.

"Come on," he whispered through gritted teeth. "Just a little more..."

The King roared, slamming forward in a quake of thunder and smoke.

Thorne met it head-on, a storm made flesh, light spilling from every inch of his body.

The impact shattered the clearing.

For an instant, the entire forest was white.

Then silence, again. Not peace, but the held breath before everything collapses.

The world hadn't stopped moving after the impact. It breathed, deep, ragged, furious.

Thorne lay half-buried in molten soil, ribs screaming, ears ringing from the explosion. His body was more light than flesh now, skin fractured with radiance. Every heartbeat pushed ripples of aether outward.

The Fourth King loomed through the haze, molten armor cracked, one arm half-missing. It shouldn't have been standing, but it was. Its flesh regenerated in seconds, drinking the ambient aether like oxygen. The ground beneath it glowed as its colossal claws drew power from the forest itself.

An infinite pool. That was its advantage. Every wound fed it. Every attack made it stronger.

Thorne staggered upright, coughing blood and light in equal measure. His right arm trembled, his hand still half-formed of aether threads.

"Alright," he rasped. "Let's see if you can keep up."

He forced his breathing steady. Out, gone. In, here. Marian's voice, crisp as memory.

He reached for the flow, not to call it, but to thin it. To let it slip between states. His next volley wasn't force or pressure. It was phasing.

Three slivers of light formed between his fingers, barely visible, almost transparent, whisper-thin constructs hovering in the air. They pulsed once with his heartbeat, then vanished.

A heartbeat later, the King jerked.

A bloom of molten light burst from its flank. Another from its shoulder. One more along its jaw. The phase-shifted blades had re-materialized inside its armor, cutting from within before dissipating back into nothing.

The King roared, stumbling, black ichor boiling out.

"Got you," Thorne hissed.

He drove his other hand forward, threads twisting around his arm like serpents. The ground ruptured as his will compressed the ambient aether tighter, tighter, past resistance, past safety.

The pressure was insane. The light around his hand distorted, bending space like heat over metal. He forced it down, crushing the aether into an impossibly dense sphere.

The King sensed the threat and raised its arms to shield itself, armor plates closing over its torso.

Thorne's lips curled in a grim smile. "Try absorbing this."

He released it.

The blast didn't sound like anything mortal. The air turned solid; color vanished. The aether detonated in a sphere of white light that swallowed the clearing. For a split second, the world ceased to exist, only the afterimage of power remained.

When it cleared, half the forest was gone.

The Fourth King was still standing, but barely. Entire sections of its body had liquefied, glowing fissures spidering down its legs and arms. Its roar this time was pain.

The beast absorbed a part of the explosion, but not all. The remainder had burned through, carving deep wounds that refused to heal.

Thorne collapsed to one knee, his body shaking violently. He could feel the aether still flooding through him, relentless, uncontrollable. His veins glowed so brightly he could see the threads moving inside them. His fingertips dripped light that hissed when it hit the ground.

Behind him came a weak groan.

"Thorne…?"

He turned.

Elias was awake, barely. The elf's hair was matted with dirt and blood, his eyes unfocused at first, then widening in shock.

He saw it all.

Thorne standing in a crater of molten glass, glowing like a fallen star. The forest warped around him, light bending, roots trembling. The air hummed with his pulse.

"By the stars…" Elias whispered. "What are you?"

Thorne didn't answer. His attention was locked on the Fourth King.

The monster shuddered, still alive, still regenerating, but slower now, unsteady. Its infinite well wasn't infinite after all. It was bleeding. The ground around it steamed, the forest itself rebelling against the drain.

"You should've stayed asleep," Thorne muttered to Elias, voice hoarse but steady. "Now you'll have nightmares."

He raised both hands again, the light pulsing brighter, veins crackling like lightning. His every movement left trails of radiance.

The King raised its head and bellowed, its eyes burning with rage. The sound shattered what remained of the natural wards. Sigils that had stood for centuries disintegrated like dust, their light scattering into the void. The forest wailed, ancient magic unraveling.

Thorne pressed forward, step by step, the aether pouring through him. Each motion birthed a shockwave; each breath distorted the air. His body shook under the strain, edges flickering, the human form beneath struggling to contain the storm.

He drove one final, condensed blast forward, a spear of impossible brightness that punched through the King's chest and detonated behind it.

The impact hurled the creature backward, carving another crater into the dying forest.

For a brief moment, the monster didn't move. Its massive body sagged, molten blood pouring out in rivers of gold.

Thorne stood trembling, every nerve on fire. He looked half-ethereal, half-alive, skin cracked with lines of light like shattered porcelain. The glow from within him made the shadows recoil.

Elias watched in stunned silence as the young man, his friend, lowered his hand, chest heaving.

Then the impossible happened.

The King's remaining eye flickered. Its chest rose once more. The molten rivers reversed direction, flowing back into its wounds. The fissures sealed, the light steadied. It was still alive.

An infinite pool indeed.

Thorne's expression twisted from awe to grim amusement. "You just don't know when to die, do you?"

He swayed, exhaustion clawing at him. The ground pulsed underfoot, responding to his instability. Elias crawled toward him, voice shaking. "Thorne, stop. You'll..."

"I can't," he rasped, cutting him off. "If I stop now, it'll come for you."

His body flared again, brighter, wild and unstable. The aether refused to calm.

The Fourth King stirred, slow but certain, its gaze finding them both.

And in that moment, as Thorne drew in the air, his power trembling on the edge of collapse, Elias finally saw the truth, not a mage, not a student.

A force.

A conduit the world itself could barely contain.

He could barely stand. His body was cracked marble, bleeding light through every fracture. His right hand pulsed brighter than the rest, the glow deepening into white-blue flame. It wasn't heat, it was density, the aether folding so tightly it was burning through matter and thought alike.

He raised it, trembling, and pulled.

The forest screamed as the ambient energy answered. Threads bent inward, rivers of light converging from every direction. Every mote of aether, every particle in the air, turned toward his call.

It condensed in his palm, shrinking, brightening. beyond solid, beyond liquid, beyond even light. The air shuddered as reality itself strained.

A flash of recognition bloomed inside him.

New Ability Acquired: Ascendant's Touch
You have condensed aether beyond elemental boundaries.
Effect: Your touch disrupts the fundamental weave of creation. Anything you contact is erased from existence, its aetheric structure unbound.
Warning: The process consumes your body as conduit. Prolonged use risks permanent dissolution.

Thorne's lips curved into something like a smile. "Finally."

He crouched low, threads solidifying beneath his feet, aether made solid, rippling with each breath. The air hummed. Then he launched himself forward, the world snapping apart in his wake.

The ground shattered under the recoil. He shot upward, cutting through the beams of the creature's rage like a spear of light.

The Fourth King roared and unleashed its fury. Aetheric beams streaked across the sky, tearing clouds apart. Thorne twisted through them, threadwalking on platforms of condensed energy, the blasts searing past his face. Each explosion left an afterimage across his vision, each dodge timed to the whisper of aether before the strike.

A shot grazed his shoulder. Light and blood sprayed into the air. He didn't slow.

He came in low along the creature's flank, closing distance before it could realign. Its maw glowed, too late.

Thorne's right hand, haloed in blue-white flame, struck the creature's chest.

Contact.

The sound wasn't a sound at all, just silence devouring noise. The King's armor didn't crack or melt, it ceased to exist. The touch erased everything it met, turning divine metal and molten flesh into drifting particles of gray dust.

The wound spread upward in ripples, the edges of the void glowing faintly before collapsing inward. The beast's regeneration flickered. The devoured matter did not return.

For the first time, the King staggered backward in fear.

Thorne laughed, a low, breathless sound that came from somewhere between awe and delirium. "That worked," he murmured. "Alright then… let's go for the head."

He jumped again, aether solidifying under his feet, launching him skyward. The storm around them crackled in spirals of molten blue.

The creature tried to track him, but he was faster, nothing more than a blur of light and motion. He reached the side of its massive skull and thrust his glowing hand forward.

It sank in, all the way to the elbow.

The King's scream tore through the world. The entire forest rippled from the sound, trees bending, stone fracturing. Its eyes flared white, the light bursting outward in waves.

Thorne gritted his teeth, trying to wrench his arm free, but the power coursing through him was too wild, too hot. The creature convulsed, light gathering again in its throat.

"Oh no..."

The blast came point-blank.

He had no time to run.

Aether coalesced instinctively around him, the ancient instinct of survival answering his desperation. He extended his left hand and invoked one of the few abilities that could even attempt to counter such force.

He used Arcane Harvest.

He pulled. Hard.

The beam struck.

Aether screamed through him as he siphoned, stripping power from the attack in fractions of a heartbeat. For an instant, the two forces met in equilibrium, his harvest drawing, the King's blast pushing. The world flickered between creation and annihilation.

Then the balance shattered.

The remaining energy hit like a meteor.

Thorne was thrown like a rag doll, the blast catching his chest and hurling him across the clearing. He smashed through shattered trees and slammed into the ground hard enough to crater it. The impact stole every breath from his body.

The forest fell silent again.