The world did not greet Kael gently when he landed this time. There was no dramatic crash, no explosion of dirt and stone, just a sudden, violent halt that made his entire body seize as if it had slammed into an invisible wall.

One moment he was flying, the next he was kneeling on solid ground, his hands trembling against cold stone as his lungs desperately tried to pull in air that refused to come easily.

A cough tore through him almost immediately. It was worse than before, deeper, harsher, dragging something heavy up from his chest.

Blood spilled onto the pale rock beneath him, thick and dark, spreading in uneven streaks. The cold air of the mountain only made it worse, biting into his lungs with every breath, sharpening the pain instead of dulling it.

He didn’t need to look around to know they were far from the city. The silence alone was enough to tell him that. There were no voices, no movement, no distant noise of people living their lives. Just wind brushing against stone and the faint echo of his own ragged breathing. It felt isolated in a way that made the place seem less like a location and more like a boundary, somewhere removed from everything else.

They were standing at the mouth of a cave. Where Kael could see from where he stood a simple straw bed. A large pot that’s covered with a dirty rage, and a small stream of water flowing from the side of the cave. Around them was dense thick foliage of trees and bushes that hid the cave entirely.

Isolation. Complete isolation from the world.

"Sit."

The word came from behind him, calm and unhurried, yet carrying enough weight that Kael didn’t even consider ignoring it.

He let out a strained breath and shifted his legs beneath him then sat down

"Not like that, Lotus position." The Fist King said.

"The what?"

"Cross your legs." The fist King said.

Kael frowned, but did as advised, the giant man seemed to have a way of persuasion, or it was probably death knocking on Kael’s doors that made him listen.

He slowly forced himself into a cross-legged position. It felt awkward at first, his body still tense from the fall and the pain clawing at his chest, but as he settled, there was a faint sense of stability to it, like his body was being aligned into something more deliberate.

"Straighten your back."

Kael adjusted, wincing slightly as something inside his chest protested the movement.

"Hands on your knees. Don’t move. Don’t speak, don’t ever open your mouth."

Kael exhaled through his nose, a weak attempt at maintaining some semblance of control. "You really couldn’t just give me a warning before tossing me across half the floor?" he muttered, though the bite in his voice lacked its usual strength. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"I told you, you can’t speak a word, or open your mouth, you’ll die if you do so." The Fist King shifted behind Kael and then pressed by the sudden, overwhelming pressure of a hand firmly against his back.

What followed was nothing like Kael expected.

The moment that contact was made, something surged into him, not like mana, not like anything he had ever felt before. It didn’t seep or flow gently.

It forced its way in, violent and absolute, as if his body had been breached by something far greater than it could contain. The sensation was immediate and unbearable, spreading through his chest and into his limbs with terrifying speed.

Kael tried to gasp, to react, to do anything, but his body didn’t respond the way it should have. His mouth opened slightly, yet no sound came out. His throat locked, his breath caught somewhere between his lungs and the outside world, and all that remained was the overwhelming sensation of something moving inside him where nothing should have been.

The pain came next.

It wasn’t sharp in the way a wound was sharp, nor was it dull or throbbing. It was pervasive, total, like every nerve in his body had been lit at once.

The energy forced its way through him, carving paths along routes he didn’t understand, scraping against something deep within his chest that felt fragile, unstable.

His fingers tightened against his knees instinctively, nails biting into flesh as his body trembled under the strain. Every instinct told him to pull away, to stop whatever was happening, but he didn’t move. It wasn’t that he was being physically restrained. It was something deeper than that, he felt it, too. The moment he let out a single sound, all that pain will rip out of his throat and kill him on the spot.

"Do not resist it," the Fist King said, his voice steady and unbothered. "If you fight it, you’ll break faster."

The energy surged again, stronger this time, pushing deeper into his chest. Kael felt something give, not a bone, but something just as critical. The pressure that had been building inside him since earlier, the one that made every breath feel like it was tearing him apart, suddenly burst outward.

Blood rose again, spilling from his mouth in a heavy flow, but this time it didn’t choke him. The energy drove it out, forcing whatever was wrong inside him to the surface in violent waves.

For a second he thought he was done for. That since he opened his mouth, he’ll die on the spot. But that wasn’t the case thankfully, the building pressure began to change. Albite slightly.

The hand on his back sent another beat. Each pulse sent another surge through his body, each one just as painful as the last, yet slightly more controlled.

Time blurred as the process continued. Kael couldn’t tell how long he stayed like that, seconds or minutes, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, something began to change.

The energy was still harsh, still overwhelming, but it no longer felt completely foreign. It moved with direction, following lines within his body that began to feel... defined.

The pain didn’t disappear, but it shifted. It became something structured instead of chaotic, like pressure being redirected rather than unleashed.

Behind him, the Fist King remained unmoving, his hand steady as he continued guiding the flow. "Good," he said after a moment, his tone unchanged.

"At least your body isn’t completely rejecting it. Time for the finishing touch... brace yourself!"