The sheets were warm, but his dreams were fire.
Kyle woke up in a cold sweat. He still couldn't forget the moment—the feeling—of being engulfed in flames.
Looking back, the fire had been unbearable. If someone asked him to go through the Trial of Flame again, he couldn't do it. His actions during the trial had been mindless. At the time, he just wanted to awaken—even if it meant relying on the ring's power.
He gently rubbed the ring on his finger.
Right now, the important thing was learning how to use the flame power he had acquired. It seemed like a wealth of knowledge had been etched into his mind when he awakened, but he had no idea where to begin.
He tried to recall the theory he'd learned back at the academy.
Before the awakening ceremony, all students between the ages of 13 and 15 studied theory: the history of awakening, basic spells, the roots of power, elemental types, and more.
Digging into his memory, he tried to remember how to activate power. Did he need to say a name?
"Fire?"
"Flame?"
Kyle called out experimentally, but nothing happened. He felt embarrassed—thankfully, he was alone in the room.
Maybe he needed to rub the ring while calling out?
He tried again. Still nothing.
Alright. It seemed the activation method wasn't obvious. He had awakened, sure, but what good was that if he couldn't even activate his power? There was knowledge about how to use the flame once it was active—but none on how to trigger it.
He sighed. Maybe it was better to wait until he got home. Both of his parents were awakened; there was no need to struggle here when he could just ask them.
Pushing himself out of bed, he looked out the hotel room window.
Below, the vitality of Livia Town pulsed like a heartbeat. People bustled through the streets, hoverboards zipped by, and every kind of profession could be seen going about their business.
Kyle thought, It's time to go home. Maybe he could also find a proper place to start his training.
His goal here was complete. He'd found the ring by following the diary's notes, and now, after being labeled a Null—powerless, an anomaly—he had awakened.
Thinking of the diary, he walked over to the table beside the bed. When he'd entered the room earlier, exhausted, he had emptied his pockets and pouch onto it.
Picking up the diary, he flipped through the pages, checking for a new entry. Kyle believed the diary had two purposes—one as a daily journal, and the other as a guide. For someone like him.
He stopped flipping when new lines appeared on the most recent page:
Hi. Today is a great day. I think today—or to be exact, right now—is the first time I've truly felt human. Honestly, I can't thank Kaius enough for what he did. If he hadn't saved me, I might've already reached my limit. I hope Kaius never finds out what I did. If he knew, then…
The entry stopped there. No continuation. But Kyle could imagine the writer smiling, the joy lingering in her words—right up until the sentence cut off.
Kaius was his ancestor, but Kyle still wasn't sure about the relationship between Milia and Kaius. For now, he was confident Kaius had saved Milia. But the things Milia had written before—about revenge—and now this secret, it was all too complicated to piece together.
Maybe, as the diary progressed, he'd learn more about the ring's previous owner—the one who had granted him the power to awaken.
He stared at the page for a moment, then closed the diary.
The moment Kyle closed the diary, the ring on his finger pulsed with light.
And just like that, the world twisted.
He didn't fall—he folded. Space collapsed inward, his body contorted like paper, gravity vanished. For a brief, twisted moment, he floated in a void of nothingness.
Then, it stopped.
Kyle blinked, only to realize he couldn't move. He was lying down, restrained, arms pinned to his sides. Panic rose like bile in his throat.
What? Where am I?
He tried to turn his head, but the body he was in didn't respond.
It felt like this his body and also not his.
It seem this wasn't just a dream—he was inside someone else. Watching, feeling.
This isn't me…
Clik.
A chime echoed through the room.
Moments later, four figures entered, all dressed in white lab coats and surgical masks. One of them pushed a metal cart lined with syringes filled with glowing red liquid—dozens of them.
Kyle's heart pounded.
"What's the current status?" asked the man in front. Tall, blue-haired, and masked—his voice was clipped, clinical.
"Test F-32 received five doses of the Fire-Flame element yesterday," someone replied. "Her vitals stabilized overnight. No adverse reactions. No sign of rejection."
Test? F-32?
A cold chill ran down Kyle's spine. He couldn't tell who had spoken, but fear clawed its way into his chest. The kind that wasn't his own—but somehow, deeply familiar.
"Oh, she's awake."
Kyle's vision sharpened suddenly, as if a veil had been lifted. The sterile white walls. The machines beeping. Wires trailing from the body he was in, tubes feeding into her arms.
Yes—her arms.
He wasn't in his own body.
He was in hers.
A memory?
A vision?
"It seems her endurance is quite high," the blue-haired man said. "We'll increase the dosage. Anna."
The nurse—Anna—stepped forward silently, picked up a syringe, and drove it into the arm.
Pain.
A scream tore through Kyle's mind, even though no sound left the body. It was like his blood turned to fire, his veins burning from the inside.
Again.
Another syringe.
And another.
Each injection was a new inferno. The agony at this time is 10 times painful than the Trial of Flame. If the Trial had been a test, then this was destruction.
He felt it—cells rupturing, power surging where it didn't belong. Every inch of his body screamed for mercy. But there was none.
More syringes.
More fire.
More pain.
Kyle could barely think. His mind dissolved into raw sensation—flame, pain, panic.
Then, a voice cut through the haze.
"This Null is quite different."
And everything went black.
Kyle gasped.
Silence.
His eyes snapped open. He was back in the hotel room. No machines. No doctors. No pain.
But the memory clung to him. The fear, the agony—it lingered like smoke in his lungs.
Why did I experience that?
The last thing he remembered was the ring glowing just as he closed the diary.
Was it the ring? Was that the trigger?
The ring had been there when he awakened in the forest. The diary too.
So both were constants.
But why now? Why not during the forest awakening?
Why this memory?
And most of all—whose pain had he just lived through?