The next morning, the rhythmic sound of bare feet striking the composite floor echoed through the Hong Family Training Hall — a space built from scavenged alloys and old reactor panels, its surfaces polished smooth by years of practice.
The filtered sunlight from the dome's artificial morning cast soft golden stripes across the floor as Kaodin stood centered, barefoot and focused. Across from him, Cee-Too matched his stance, his servos releasing a quiet hum as he adjusted his balance.
"Keep your center low," Kaodin said, stepping lightly to the side. "You don't fight the world, Cee-Too… you let the world move, then strike when it's open."
Cee-Too nodded, mimicking the boy's motion — the same guarded stance, elbows close, feet grounded, breath in measured rhythm.
Mrs. Hong had tuned Cee-Too's neural architecture for precision — his frame stronger than any organic counterpart, but governed by empathy and restraint. His limiter kept his immense strength dormant unless survival protocols activated, but even at half capacity, his reaction time was staggering.
Kaodin exhaled through his nose, steadying his breath as the two began their spar. Their movements flowed together in the disciplined cadence of rhythm and purpose — no Qi, no aura, only instinct and control.
"Balance," Kaodin reminded. "Your base — always balance first."
He pivoted, showing how his rear foot coiled with the turn. "Weight shifts before the strike. See this? Don't fight gravity, guide it."
Cee-Too mirrored him, every movement analyzed, processed, refined in real time. Within minutes, he adjusted seamlessly.
Kaodin grinned faintly. "Good. Again."
They exchanged a quick set of jabs and counterstrikes, the air between them alive with motion. When Kaodin swept low, Cee-Too blocked; when Cee-Too feinted, Kaodin caught the rhythm and parried, his heel gliding in a pivot that cut through air as cleanly as a blade.
"This one—" Kaodin said, stepping forward and crossing his arms briefly before striking out with an elbow — "Salab Fan Pla. Switch the stance to break their rhythm. Never let the enemy know which side holds your power."
Cee-Too copied him, slower but exact.
Kaodin flowed into another motion, his knee rising sharply as his shoulders dipped. "Paksa Waeg Rang — Bird Pierces the Nest. Straight up the middle — to the chin, or the throat if they close in too far."
The movement was simple, but his body carried it with such instinctive precision that even without Qi, there was weight in the air — the echo of something ancient.
Then came another shift — Kaodin inhaled deeply, coiling his right leg beneath him before snapping it upward in a short, compact arc. "Yor Khao Phra Sumeru — the Mount Meru Knee. It ends the fight if it lands."
Cee-Too paused mid-motion. "All of these… are meant to disable, not prolong combat."
Kaodin nodded slowly. "Because real fights don't wait for fairness."
He lowered his stance, crossing his forearms into a guarding brace. "And this — Mon Yan Lak — the Mon Defends the Pillar. When you can't dodge, you anchor. Sometimes survival means standing still."
Their sparring continued — the rhythm alternating between bursts of aggression and stillness. Cee-Too learned with astonishing speed, his eyes bright with focus, his motions smoother with each repetition.
The sound of each impact echoed differently—Cee-Too's strikes weren't the dull thuds of muscle meeting flesh, but sharp, resonant cracks, like metal rods snapping under pressure. Once, when Kaodin's knee grazed Cee-Too's ribs, he heard a faint whirr and the soft grind of gears resetting beneath the skin.
"You okay?" Kaodin asked.
"Always," Cee-Too said, smiling too casually.
Before long, their exchanges became fluid — Kaodin attacking, Cee-Too countering, laughter mixing with the thud of bare feet and the echo of strikes.
It wasn't war — it was harmony in motion.
From the upper balcony, three figures stood observing in silence: Zhang Bo, Cee-Ar-Tee, and Wanchai.
The projection panels beside them recorded everything, light flickering across their faces as the two below moved in perfect rhythm.
Cee-Ar-Tee's optics pulsed faintly. "His reaction time exceeds baseline human limits by thirty-five percent. Coordination — near perfect. No Qi output detected."
Zhang Bo folded his arms. "And restraint — he's holding back deliberately. Every strike stops just short. He could've flattened Cee-Too five times already."
Wanchai said nothing at first. His gaze was fixed on the boy — his breathing, his angles, the shift of his shoulders during turns. It was the same posture he had seen in the footage, but now, in daylight, it revealed something deeper.
Finally, he exhaled. "He doesn't know he's doing it."
Zhang Bo turned. "Doing what?"
"The rotations. The elbow sequence. The way he coils his hips before striking," Wanchai said softly. "That's not instinct — that's tradition. He's moving in the patterns of an art thought extinct. Muay Boran."
Cee-Ar-Tee tilted his head. "You mean the same form you suspected last night."
Wanchai nodded. "Confirmed. Every technique, though rough, holds the exact intent of the old forms. Even the breathing — see how his shoulders barely rise? That's Nam Saam Phad (The Three Inner Winds) training, inner-breath conditioning. Lost centuries ago."
Zhang Bo's gaze darkened slightly. "You said last night that if this knowledge spreads, it could change everything."
"It could," Wanchai said simply. "It already is."
He turned back to the window, watching as Kaodin corrected Cee-Too's stance with quiet patience. "And the irony? He's teaching it the way it was always meant to be passed — not for money, not for power, but through care and understanding. Through family."
Cee-Ar-Tee folded his arms. "He doesn't even realize the weight of what he's doing."
"Exactly," Wanchai murmured. "And that's what makes it pure."
Zhang Bo's tone sharpened. "Purity doesn't defend walls. If we can integrate even fragments of this into our security force, the settlement could gain an edge over raiders and CCs alike. Imagine cyborgs trained to move like that — adaptive, fluid, lethal."
Wanchai's eyes flashed toward him. "Lethal to whom, Zhang? The world or ourselves?"
The strategist said nothing.
Cee-Ar-Tee broke the tension with a quiet, mechanical sigh. "If you want my opinion — Kaodin should decide. Not us. He's earned that right."
"Agreed," Wanchai said.
Zhang Bo's gaze lingered on the floor below, where Kaodin and Cee-Too were laughing again — two boys unaware that their morning practice had just rewritten history.
He turned away at last, voice low. "Then let the boy grow strong first. The world can wait for its lesson."
Wanchai's expression softened. "It won't wait long, Zhang. Not for a child who moves like a ghost of the past."
Below them, Kaodin's next movement blurred — knee, pivot, elbow — a sequence so natural it was almost poetic.
The rhythm of an ancient heartbeat — reborn in a world that had forgotten how to listen.
At the Break of Dawn_____
Talgat felt those tremors most of all.
He had lived long enough among killers to know that peace was only the pause between betrayals. Yet here, surrounded by laughter, trade, and the faint hum of the restored power grid, he felt something he hadn't felt since before the raids — guilt.
Guilt for what he had become.
And guilt for what he was about to do.
He stood at the shaded edge of the observation gantry, scarred hands gripping the railing as the workers below went about their morning routines. Every clang of metal, every echo of chatter, every small sign of normal life pressed against his chest like a weight he couldn't shake off.
In his ear, Korren's voice came through the comm — cold, precise, unrelenting.
"Three days, Talgat. That's the schedule. Nyla will breach from the eastern perimeter. You trigger the inner grid from within. One spark — that's all it takes."
One spark.
That was the plan. The promise. The exchange for his and Nyla's freedom from a life of servitude under Korren's command.
But the more he thought about it, the more unbearable it became.
Every passing day inside the dome chipped away at his resolve. He saw faces now — children running through the plaza with bread in their hands, workers singing to broken radios, a historian's laughter echoing through the marketplace.
And he saw Kaodin — reckless, stubborn, and unafraid to hope. The boy reminded him of himself before he lost everything. Before Korren's gang raided his home. Before survival meant blood on his hands.
And then there was Nyla.
Her name was a wound that refused to close.
Even when the comm line was silent, he could still hear her voice — her whisper through static.
"Don't lose focus, Talgat. Not again."
"You have to come back safe."
Would she call him a traitor if he hesitated?
Or would she understand why?
For the first time in years, he didn't know which frightened him more — dying in the explosion he was meant to ignite, slaughtering innocent people trying to rebuild civilization, or living long enough to watch the world burn by his hand.
He turned his gaze toward the faint illusionary veil that concealed the settlement.
Somewhere beyond it, Korren and Nyla waited.
And Talgat — the man who once thought himself unshakable — began to wonder whether he could still tell right from wrong.
Beyond the shimmering illusion wall of the Central Sector Dome Settlement, past the jagged ruins and the rusted bones of the old world, Kaodin trained where no one could find him.
His secret hideout lay beyond the dome's reach — through a collapsed overpass leading toward the old town metro line, descending into a forgotten sewer shaft buried in shadow and rust.
The place reeked of damp air and iron. To most, it was death — a graveyard of forgotten cities.
To Kaodin, it was the only place where he could fall apart unseen.
Here, he could lose control.
Here, he could test the boundaries of what he was becoming.
He had been coming back for months, returning to the same cracked floor, the same cold echo, at first only to secretly practicing his Muaythai form, but since manifesting the mysterious derived Qi energy, it's became a necessity to add at least 15-30 mins meditation session to the list of things he has to do before heading back to the work for Mr.Zee-Ar-Tee or for whoever might request of me, however, unfazed, still holding on trying to tame what no one had ever taught him to hold, and albeit, such an extensive practicing for months eachday, his Qi had became harder and harder as the manifestation began to change element, they began to grow unstable — no longer a gift, but a storm.
Some days, it shimmered blue, calm as moonlight on water.
Other days, it burned red, sharp and violent, eating through him like wildfire.
"How do I even control both…?" he whispered into the dark.
His voice came back to him — small, hollow. "Fire and water… can't even exist in the same place."
He sat cross-legged on the damp concrete, eyes closed, and inhaled deeply. The breath felt wrong — shallow, uneven. The air refused to move the way it used to.
He pressed harder. Tried to slow it down.
Then, the first wave hit — pressure, tight and suffocating, building behind his temples like the walls of his skull were closing in. His vision went red behind his eyelids.
He tried again.
Again.
Each attempt failed harder than the last — the energy in his chest twisting, choking his ribs from the inside.
In his mind's eye, he saw flashes — the streets of Bangkok, his father's laughter, his mother's voice calling him from the kitchen. Every image warped and melted away, replaced by thunder, flame, and Liara's pale face whispering, you couldn't save me.
He gasped, breaking the trance. His hands shook. Blood tasted faintly on his tongue.
He slammed his fist into the ground. "Why… why can't I—"
The words broke into a sob that never left his throat.
Stillness. Then he tried again.
He remembered something — a book autobiography, yellowed and torn, on the book cover, that his mother once showed him. A monk sitting beneath a Bodhi tree — serene, untouchable by chaos. Somdet Phra Buddhacarya (To Brahmaramsi) — the name surfaced faintly, yes, my mother used to read his book for me as if to sing me lullaby, may be my mother is trying to give me a signal !
He tried to picture that figure — spine straight, hands resting lightly over the lap, the entire body both still and alive, like the sea holding its breath before dawn.
Maybe… if I sit like that.
He shifted position — cross-legged, back upright but relaxed, hands folded over his lower abdomen, thumbs touching lightly. The stance felt foreign at first — too still, too deliberate — but something about it fit.
He inhaled through the nose.
Held the breath.
Exhaled through the mouth, slow, whispering.
The first current of Nam Saam Phad (The Three Inner Winds) — Ruang Lom Ruean Jai (The Anchoring Breath) — began unknowingly.
His breath flowed down past the lungs, to the point behind his navel — the Dantian.
A faint vibration rippled under his skin. For the first time, the current moved. But not gently.
It surged.
Blue light erupted around him, shimmering for only a second before twisting red — colliding, boiling, writhing like oil in fire.
The pressure returned tenfold. The world vanished into roaring sound.
His spiritual vision tore open.
Inside his mind's sea, the horizon cracked.
A storm the size of mountains rose from below, scarlet waves colliding with dark blue depths.
The air howled. The ground of his consciousness splintered beneath him.
He tried to hold on — to breathe — but the breath shattered. His heart pounded faster than his control could follow.
Fear. Affection. Sorrow. Helplessness. Hatred.
The emotions struck all at once, like lightning inside his chest.
His inner self — the Kaodin of his mind — dropped to his knees, drowning under the rising tide.
Above, his real body trembled violently, veins glowing faint blue then red, alternating like the pulse of two hearts fighting to exist in the same body.
Boom.
A surge of Qi exploded outward, slamming into the tunnel walls. Pipes burst. Steam hissed upward in violent gusts.
Outside the sewer mangrove entrance, one of Korren's reconnaissance drones caught the spike on its sensors — a sudden bloom of light deep below the surface.
The feed glitched, flared, then went dark. The drone's circuits fried. Its metal shell cracked open in smoke and silence.
Below, Kaodin gasped — eyes opening wide but unfocused.
He could barely feel his body anymore. The Qi had become heavier than breath, denser than thought. The blue dissolved into black, swallowing everything, even light.
The Blackened Qi encased him like a living void, humming low, suffocating, devouring sound and air alike.
Inside that darkness, he found a single thought.
"The source of my focus… is wrong. I'm breathing from the head… when it should come from the heart."
He forced his awareness downward, toward his fists — aligning them with the center of his Dantian.
Slowly, painfully, the storm inside began to move — not outward, but inward, folding over itself.
Something shifted.
The black thinned.
Colors flickered — white, blue, red, and faint gold — swirling like streams inside a translucent bubble. The aura around him pulsed violently, unstable, mixing everything he had ever been: fear, love, rage, hope.
The bubble shook — then broke open.
A soft pulse of orange and yellow shimmered before him.
From the haze, a small spectral tiger cub stepped out — its form unstable at first, flickering between flame, water, and smoke. Its fur glowed with shifting hues — bright-white, fiery red, oceanic blue, and streaks of black curling like ink in wind.
Its eyes — impossibly vivid — looked straight into his.
Kaodin froze.
The tunnel fell silent. Even the dripping water stopped.
The cub tilted its head once. And, for the first time since the storm began, the chaos inside him eased.
The red bled away. The black dissolved. The sea stilled.
The cub's body stabilized — orange flame with soft blue undertones. It stepped forward, circled him once, and climbed onto his shoulder. It was warm — not burning, not cold — alive.
Kaodin felt its heartbeat — or was it his? They moved in perfect sync.
"…You feel what I feel," he whispered.
The cub blinked — once — slow and deliberate.
A quiet, shaky laugh escaped him. "Then… I guess you need a name."
He wiped his eyes, exhausted, smiling faintly through it.
"Cao? Too fierce. What about… Wa?"
The cub yawned — a tiny spark of flame curling from its mouth, the sound soft like a sigh.
"Wa it is," Kaodin said. "A tiger cub born from chaos."
He reached up gently as the little spirit curled around his right arm, glowing faintly — a bracelet made of living light.
He stared at it, chest rising and falling with slow, ragged breaths.
It wasn't mastery.
It wasn't peace.
It was survival.
But that was enough.
"In destruction," he whispered, "there's still creation.
In fear… still peace."
The light of his Qi shimmered weakly — blue streaked with faint gold.
And for the first time in countless nights, Kaodin found stillness — not because he had mastered it,
but because he had survived it.
Above the surface, the shattered drone lay smoking in silence.
And somewhere far beyond the ruins, Korren frowned at the loss of signal, unaware that the boy he sought to control had just been reborn — not as a weapon,
but as the beginning of balance.