The pale morning light filtered painfully through the crack in the hut.

  A sharp smell of smoke and sweat hung in the air like a curse.

  Tempest opened his eyes with difficulty, his body rigid, every muscle tensed in a painful spasm.

  He was no longer the same boy who had crawled out into the heart of the night.

  He was something different.

  Something broken. Something hungry.

  He slowly sat up, his breath short like a wheeze. His knuckles were swollen, cracked, and bleeding. Every movement tore silent groans from his split lips.

  And yet, he did not cry.

  He did not curse.

  He did not ask for help.

  Only silence. Only emptiness.

  He stumbled outside, where the day began with the usual survival ritual: brutal training, inhuman tasks, battles for food.

  The other youths ignored him, or worse, stared at him with disdain.

  To them, he was just a filthy, useless ghost.

  A stray dog ready to fall.

  But in Tempest's eyes, something had ignited.

  A dark flame.

  A different hunger.

  He no longer spoke. He did not laugh, did not respond to the insults.

  His days were consumed in a spiral of solitary training, running until exhaustion, fighting invisible enemies.

  Under the relentless sun or in torrential rains, Tempest did not stop.

  His feet bled.

  His hands were reduced to scraps of torn skin.

  His stomach growled with constant hunger.

  Yet, every night, when the shadows swallowed the village and the cruel songs of the stronger ones filled the air, Tempest rose again.

  And struck.

  Struck at nothing, struck at fate, struck at his own weakness.

  "I won't die like a dog." he thought.

  "I won't break without taking something from the world first."

  Kael watched him from time to time, from a distance, like one watches an interesting beast before deciding whether to tame it or kill it.

  He did not intervene.

  He said nothing.

  His silence was sharper than any words.

  Tempest did not seek approval.

  He did not seek salvation.

  He sought metamorphosis.

  Day by day, his body bent, broke, and rebuilt itself.

  Every wound was a brick.

  Every insult, a stone.

  Every fall, a root sinking deeper.

  The village still did not see him.

  But under that crust of blood and dust...

  a new creature was being born.

  A creature that would not ask for mercy.

  A creature that would impose its existence with bites and claws.

  The sun beat down like a scorching hammer on the village.

  The ground, cracked and dusty, seemed to whisper of death with every gust of wind.

  Tempest was bent over, carrying heavy buckets of water from the central well to the elders' huts.

  A humiliating task.

  A task reserved for those who counted for nothing.

  Every step was a challenge against his own body, still battered from the secret nights of training.

  Every drop of water that spilled from the buckets seemed to take away a piece of his dignity.

  It was then that he heard the laughter.

  Dry. Cutting.

  Laughter that tasted like poison.

  A group of boys had approached.

  Among them was Gorr, a burly and cruel young man, famous for his thirst to subjugate the weaker ones.

  "Look who we have here..."

  said Gorr, his voice shrill like a rusty blade.

  "The pit rat. Still alive, it seems."

  Tempest did not respond.

  He lowered his gaze and continued walking, tightening the rope handles until the fibers snapped beneath his fingers.

  "Oh, but they don’t teach you respect, rat?"

  Gorr continued, stepping closer with heavy steps, like a predator savoring the fear of its prey.

  The other boys chuckled, egging on their leader with eyes gleaming with sadism.

  Tempest stopped.

  A drop of sweat slid down his temple, mixed with the dust, and vanished.

  He felt his heart beating, slow and powerful, like a war drum forgotten by the gods.

  "Don't react."

  whispered a voice within him.

  "Not now. Not yet."

  Gorr, with a quick, dismissive gesture, tipped one of the buckets, spilling the precious water onto the thirsty ground.

  The water immediately seeped into the cracks, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

  A crime.

  An insult.

  An act of war.

  "Oops."

  Gorr sneered.

  "I hope the old ones don't die of thirst because of you, rat."

  There was a long, endless silence.

  Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

  Tempest slowly lifted his gaze.

  And in his eyes, there was something new.

  Not blind rage.

  Not despair.

  But a promise.

  With a movement as quick as it was sudden, he dropped the second bucket and lunged at Gorr.

  Not with grace.

  Not with technique.

  With pure, wild desperation.

  Gorr's body was overwhelmed, slammed to the ground with a dull thud.

  Tempest mounted him, striking, striking, striking — fists covered in blood and dust — until he felt his knuckles scream and his skin tear.

  "ENOUGH!"

  A voice roared through the air, like thunder tearing the sky before the storm.

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  Kael.

  He had arrived.

  In a few leaps, he was upon them, yanking Tempest off with the strength of a titan.

  He threw him to the ground with a crash that sent a cloud of dust into the air.

  Tempest gasped, his chest rising and falling like a wounded animal.

  He bled from his lip, his hands, his forehead.

  And yet... he smiled.

  A mad smile.

  A free smile.

  Kael stared down at him, eyes narrowed into two glowing slits.

  There was an eternal moment, where the world seemed to tremble on the edge of an abyss.

  "Are you insane, worm?" Kael growled.

  Tempest did not answer.

  He didn’t have to.

  He had said everything with his fists.

  Kael grabbed him by the collar, lifting him face to face.

  "If you think you can survive here believing that anger is enough,"

  he hissed,

  "I’ll break you myself."

  Then he let him drop to the ground like an useless sack.

  Gorr, a few meters away, was struggling to rise, his face covered in blood and mud.

  The boys watched the scene in silence.

  Something had changed.

  Tempest was no longer invisible.

  He was no longer just a beaten dog.

  He had become a threat.

  And in that cursed village, threats were brought down without mercy.

  The sun had bent toward the horizon, staining the sky with violent hues: iron red, burnt orange, soot-black.

  The shadows stretched like skeletal fingers between the decaying huts.

  An unnatural silence enveloped the village, as if every creature, every stone, every blade of grass had held its breath.

  Tempest knelt before the central square.

  His knees sunk into the scalding dust, his hands bound behind his back with ropes so tight they cut off the blood.

  His head lowered. His breath shallow.

  The entire village had gathered.

  Men, women, children: all there, eyes empty, mouths sealed.

  There was no compassion in those gazes.

  Only waiting.

  The visceral hunger to see a weakling destroyed.

  Before him, standing like a statue carved in hate, was Kael.

  "In our world,"

  Kael began, his voice low, guttural,

  "actions always have a price."

  The wind blew between the houses, lifting spirals of sand that scratched the skin like invisible lashes.

  Tempest barely lifted his chin.

  There was no more fear in his eyes.

  Only a stubborn, wild spark of defiance.

  Kael smiled, a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

  "For every drop of water you've lost..."

  he drew out a crude whip, braided with worn leather and dried thorns,

  "for every offense to the order..."

  he cracked the weapon in the air, producing a sharp sound like a gunshot,

  "you will pay."

  The first strike came like the bite of a snake.

  Pain exploded through Tempest's back, hot and blinding.

  A burst of blood sprayed onto the dust.

  His knees shook.

  But he did not scream.

  The second strike bent him nearly to the ground.

  The third tore through his shirt and flesh together.

  Time became a vague concept, diluted in pain.

  The beats of his heart mixed with the lashes of the whip.

  The world reduced to blood, sand, and willpower.

  "Remember, insect,"

  Kael growled with each lash,

  "this is the fate of the weak."

  Tempest gritted his teeth until his gums bled.

  He would not fall.

  He would not give him that satisfaction.

  Around him, the faces of the spectators swayed like ghosts in the storm.

  Some averted their gaze.

  Others smiled.

  But Tempest saw nothing.

  He saw only himself.

  Inside.

  Deep within.

  A point of light that would not go out.

  A flame that pain could not smother.

  When Kael finally stopped, the silence was absolute.

  Even the wind, it seemed, had shown mercy.

  Tempest fell forward, his forehead against the searing sand.

  His body a mass of open wounds, his skin a mosaic of blood and dust.

  And yet... he was still breathing.

  Kael leaned over him, grabbing his hair to lift his head.

  "Surviving,"

  he whispered with a voice full of strange, twisted admiration,

  "will not make you strong, rat.

  It will be your hunger... your desperation... your hatred... that will do it."

  Then he let him drop.

  A dull thud.

  A small, insignificant thud.

  And without another word, Kael turned and walked away, his torn cloak dragging in the dust like a sentence.

  The village slowly dispersed, like a flock of full crows.

  No one helped Tempest.

  No one spoke to him.

  He stayed there, alone.

  A bleeding heap beneath a sky that knew no mercy.

  But in his mind, in his battered flesh, one truth roared like an eternal echo:

  "You will not break me.

  Never."

  Night fell like a shroud.

  The sky, black and starless, pressed down on the village like a mute threat.

  The wind groaned through the ruins, carrying with it the acrid scent of blood and dust.

  Tempest was still there, lying on the ground.

  His battered body, the open wounds pulsing with every beat of his heart, like war drums played by invisible hands.

  There was no comfort.

  No hand extended.

  Only silence and pain.

  For a long moment – an eternity made of panting breath and sand between his teeth – it seemed like everything might end there.

  That the world would go on without him, as it always had.

  Indifferent. Relentless.

  But then, from some dark place inside him, Tempest felt a call.

  Not a voice.

  Not an order.

  A need.

  The need to rise.

  With a stifled groan, he moved.

  His hands searched for purchase on the hard earth, scratching and breaking.

  His legs trembled, unable to support him.

  He fell.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  Each fall was a judgment, an accusation shouted by everything around him.

  "You're weak."

  "You're useless."

  "You're already dead."

  But he rose again.

  Not for pride.

  Not for revenge.

  Not even to survive.

  Because inside him, something was changing.

  Something that didn't yet have a name.

  A spark.

  Eventually, stumbling like a drunk, Tempest managed to stand.

  His legs stiff as wood, his face covered in dry blood, his chest rising and falling with broken breaths.

  The village was deserted.

  Only the spirits of dust remained to keep him company.

  Tempest staggered toward the outskirts, where the shadows were thicker and the ground harder.

  He knelt before a jutting rock and, without thinking, began to strike.

  A punch.

  Then another.

  And yet another.

  The skin on his hands tore again.

  His knuckles shattered against the stone.

  But Tempest did not stop.

  With each strike, he no longer saw the rock.

  He saw the mocking faces of the village.

  He saw Kael.

  He saw his own image reflected in the water, weak and trembling.

  And he destroyed.

  He destroyed every fragment of himself that he no longer wanted to be.

  Dawn found Tempest still there, bleeding, hitting, breathing.

  With the first light, the world seemed to hold its breath.

  And in that moment, Tempest made his promise, not with words, but with his entire being:

  "I will not live like the others.

  I will not die like the others.

  I... will change this world."

  Tempest's eyes, caked with blood and tears, lifted to the sky.

  They did not seek mercy.

  They did not seek redemption.

  They sought fire.

  And that fire, at last, burned.

  "There are wounds that, instead of breaking us, dig inside us the strength to change the world."

  — Haruki Murakami