The sandy Arena floor beneath Kairan's feet was cold and damp, stained with a mixture of sweat, cheap ale, and blood from the previous fight. The air in Velmire's under-district always smelled like that: rusted iron, ever-present mold, and despair. Hundreds of meters above, stone and earth separated this place from a sky he might never see again.
The cheers of drunken spectators slammed against the walls of the man-made cavern, a hoarse echo celebrating violence. They weren't chanting the fighter's name.
"Finish him, Grak! Crush the Nulla!"
Across the arena, Grak grinned, showing off a row of mostly missing teeth. He was a mountain of flesh and muscle, a former miner relegated to a gladiator. On the back of his hand, a Class-D Stone Sigil glowed with a dull, brown light. His symbol of power. His symbol of status, which, however low, was still far above Kairan's.
Kairan, the boy from Velmire, had nothing. The parts of his body where a Sigil was supposed to shine felt hollow. A cold emptiness spread throughout his body. He was the Nulla, an anomaly, the system's refuse. In this world, a man's worth was measured by the magical light in his body. Kairan was absolute darkness.
The bell tolled, its shrill sound signaling the start of the fight. Grak wasted no time. He roared, and the light from his Stone Sigil crawled up his arm. His skin hardened, turning a granite-like gray. He charged forward, each step making the ground tremble.
Kairan didn't move. His breath was steady, his sharp eyes never leaving his opponent. He had no magic, no comparable physical strength. What he had was something else. Something strange.
As Grak swung his stone-hard fist, the world shifted in Kairan's eyes. This wasn't magic. It was an instinct sharpened by hundreds of life-or-death battles. He saw it—not with his eyes, but with his entire being. Thin lines of pale blue light flowed from Grak's Sigil, enveloping his arm, forming the energy path the attack would follow. A readable pattern. A predictable pattern.
Three degrees to the left. A twenty-degree downward angle.
A split second before the fist could smash into his face, Kairan tilted his head. The wind from the blow ruffled his dirty hair. Grak staggered slightly from the miss, his massive momentum throwing him off balance.
Jeers erupted from the crowd. "Don't play with him, Grak! Break his bones!"
Grak growled in frustration. "Stop dodging, you rat!"
He attacked again, this time with a wild swing. And again, Kairan saw it. The web of magical threads wrapped around Grak's body, pulsing with his intent. Kairan stepped back, then sideways, his movements minimalist yet perfect. He was like a phantom dancer in a storm, always where the lightning couldn't strike.
He couldn't use magic. But he could see it. He could read its language—a language never taught in any academy.
After a few minutes, Grak began to pant. Every failed blow drained his energy. The light on his Stone Sigil started to flicker. His weakness was clear to Kairan's eyes: Stone Sigil users had poor stamina. They were fortresses, but a fortress cannot move forever.
-Now.
As Grak swung his fist for the umpteenth time, Kairan didn't dodge. He stepped forward, into the attack's range. He saw the fading magical path and saw the crack in its structure. With one swift motion, he ducked under Grak's arm, his hand scooping a handful of wet sand from the arena floor.
He leaped, and before Grak could react, Kairan threw the sand right into his eyes.
Grak cried out in shock, not from pain, but from the sudden interference. For a moment, his concentration broke. And when it did, Kairan saw it clearly: the magical path around Grak's body trembled and became unstable.
"Now is the time....."
Kairan twisted his body, using Grak's own forward momentum to amplify his attack. His elbow struck Grak's jaw with a faint cracking sound. Not a magical attack, just bone hitting bone, but placed with deadly precision.
Grak staggered back, his sand-blinded eyes watering. The light in his Sigil instantly went out. His defense crumbled.
Kairan gave him no chance to recover. He kicked the back of Grak's knee, forcing him to kneel. Then, with both hands, he grabbed the giant's head and slammed it hard into the ground. Once. Twice. And it didn't stop.
Silence.
The crowd went quiet for a moment, stunned. Then, a more ferocious cheer erupted. They didn't care who won. They only cared about the bloodshed.
Kairan stood, panting, his chest heaving. Grak's blood dripped from his fingers. He stared at the corpse at his feet, then at the crowd with a cold gaze.
Two arena guards stepped in to drag Grak's body away. It was then that a large, one-armed man approached him. His face was covered in scars, and the cracked Silver Sigil on his shoulder had long lost its shine. His name was Torvek, an arena legend forced into retirement.
"Good work, kid," Torvek said in a hoarse voice, tossing Kairan a small leather pouch with a few coins. His payment. "You moved like a ghost today."
Kairan caught the pouch without a word.
Torvek narrowed his eyes. "I've seen hundreds of fights. I know what luck is. This wasn't luck." He moved closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "How do you do it, kid? How do you know where he's going to strike? You don't have a Sigil."
Kairan just stared at him. Torvek could only see an empty gaze. Kairan had no answer. He didn't fully understand it himself. To him, it was like seeing color. Everyone could do it, right? But he knew that wasn't true. The emptiness in his body was eternal proof that he was different.
Without an answer, he turned and walked out of the arena, leaving the noise and the smell of death behind him. He walked through the damp tunnels he called home, toward a small alcove in the wall that served as his bed.
He sat on a pile of dirty straw, counting his coins. Enough for three days' worth of food. He leaned his head against the cold stone wall and closed his eyes.
His hand unconsciously rose and touched his bare chest. The place where he thought there should be light, warmth, and power. The place where a Sigil should be. But all he felt was skin, bone, and the cold echo of the void beneath.
And in that cold silence, a vow was formed. Not with a voice, but with a will harder than the arena's granite. His eyes opened, staring at the stone ceiling that was his sky, a dangerous glint flashing within them.
"If there is no throne for me up there..."
His mind drifted to the magnificent palaces he had heard of in stories, the glittering towers that pierced the real sky—a sky he would never be able to touch.
"...then I will shake the foundations of that palace until it collapses."