Smoke clawed at the sky.
Kaelen's eyes fluttered open to a world blurred by dust and pain. His ears rang with a shrill, suffocating silence. The world didn't feel real. He could barely breathe, let alone move. Debris pressed against his side, splintered wood, shattered stone, the remains of what was once a home.
He pushed himself up with trembling arms, coughing violently. His fingers dug into ash. Everything burned. The scent of scorched earth and iron filled his lungs. He stumbled forward.
The village was gone.
Where once laughter echoed and fires warmed the night, now only ruin remained. Charred buildings collapsed into themselves. Trees stood like blackened skeletons. A child's toy lay in the dirt, half-melted. A scarf fluttered from a crooked beam, Tomas's. Kaelen's heart twisted.
He staggered forward, calling names. No answers. Only crows in the distance and the sickening crackle of flames devouring what little still stood.
Then he saw it.
Etched into stone, glowing faintly, was a symbol. Not just a mark but one that pulsed with residue, old magic twisted into something cruel. He stared, recognition striking like a blade.
"...Runes," he whispered.
But something was off.
Wait a minute...
Kaelen dropped to one knee beside the rune, eyes narrowing. Runes don't leave traces like this.
He had grown up hearing tales of them used in protection, enchantment, war. Even failed runes either activated or fizzled into nothing. They never left remnants. They never stayed visible to the naked eye. Only mages could sense lingering energy, yet this rune glowed faintly even now, as if clinging to the world out of it's own will.
But that's not possible... unless...
A cold shiver slid down his spine.
The only time such phenomena had ever been recorded was during the construction of the system itself, when the world's balance was first rewritten, and power as people knew it changed forever. The early age of awakened magic. The age before things were perfected. Before stability was enforced.
This was not just magic... this was something ancient. Experimental. A phenomenon the world has discovered. A new way for humanity to rid itself like it has since the dawn of time.
He rose to his feet, realization blooming like poison in his mind.
"This wasn't a strike," he muttered, eyes scanning the destruction. "It was a trial test."