The air in the Oakhaven village square grew so heavy it felt like breathing liquid lead. It wasn't just the smell of ozone following the mercenary leader, Garroch; it was the sudden, violent vibration emanating from the small boy standing in the dirt. Lloren Lor was no longer the quiet "Dreg" the village had ignored for six years. He was a tuning fork for the planet's fury.
Garroch, the A-Tier commander of the Shadow Syndicate, stared at Lloren. He had burned down dozens of villages, executed hundreds of "God-fruit" users, and never once had he felt his own soul rattle inside his chest just from a child's gaze.
"You speak of mountains, brat?" Garroch growled, his hand glowing a sickly, pulsating orange. "I've turned mountains into ash. Your little tremors won't save you from a molecular meltdown."
Garroch didn't wait. He snapped his fingers.
"Ignition Point: Flash Burst!"
A sphere of concentrated thermal energy, the size of a cannonball, materialized inches from Lloren's face. In a normal world, the boy's head would have been vaporized instantly. The villagers screamed. Lin reached out, her voice lost in the roaring heat.
But Lloren didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his hands to guard.
The Science of Stillness
Inside Lloren's mind, the explosion wasn't a sudden burst of fire. It was a chaotic mess of agitated air molecules, vibrating at a frantic, disorganized frequency. To anyone else, it was death. To Lloren, it was just bad music that needed to be corrected.
Match the pitch. Invert the wave, he thought.
The silver rings in his eyes spun with mechanical precision. He let out a low hum—a sound so deep it was felt in the villagers' teeth rather than heard.
The explosion touched his skin and... vanished.
There was no smoke. No heat. The orange light simply bled out into the air as if it had never existed. The molecules of the fire had been forced into a state of absolute stillness by Lloren's counter-vibration.
Garroch's jaw dropped. "Impossible. My explosions are A-Tier! You can't just... snuff them out!"
"Your explosions rely on the agitation of the air," Lloren said, his voice echoing as if he were speaking through a massive cathedral. "I am the master of agitation. In my presence, the air does exactly what I tell it to do."
The Dance of Deconstruction
Enraged, Garroch leaped into the air. His scepter of bone glowed crimson. "Explosive Carpet: Hell's Rain!"
He swung the scepter, and hundreds of tiny, glowing orbs rained down on the village square. If they hit the ground, the entire village would be leveled.
Lloren finally moved. He slammed his palms onto the dirt.
"Resonance Domain: Sky-Quake!"
He didn't target the orbs. He targeted the air itself. He sent a high-frequency ripple upward—a physical wall of vibrating air that acted like a giant invisible griddle. As the explosive orbs hit the vibration field, they didn't detonate. They were vibrated so violently that their chemical bonds broke. The "Explosion Fruit" energy was stripped away, turning the deadly orbs into a harmless rain of glowing dust.
"Kay! Moe! Get the villagers back!" Lloren commanded without looking back.
His two friends, though still young, were inspired by the sight. Moe used his friction-reduction power to slide across the dirt at incredible speeds, ushering children into the cellars. Kay used his reflection power to create small mirrors, blinding the mercenary snipers on the rooftops.
The Breaking of a Mercenary
Garroch landed, his breathing ragged. He realized he wasn't fighting a child. He was fighting a natural disaster.
"I'll kill you! I'll vibrate your blood until you pop!" Garroch screamed, losing his composure. He poured every ounce of his A-Tier energy into his scepter. The bone cracked under the pressure. "Final Art: Supernova Collapse!"
He lunged at Lloren, the scepter becoming a blinding sun of white-hot energy. It was a suicide move—a blast so large it would kill Garroch too.
Lloren stood his ground. He didn't use a shield this time. He stepped into the light.
Frequency: 14.2 Gigahertz. Texture: Granular. Target: The Core.
Lloren reached out and grabbed the white-hot scepter with his bare hand. The skin of his palm was vibrating so fast it was essentially a liquid-solid hybrid. The heat couldn't transfer to his nerves because the molecules were moving too fast to absorb the thermal energy.
"This is the difference between us, Garroch," Lloren whispered, his face inches from the terrified commander. "You use your power to destroy the world. I use the world to destroy your power."
Lloren squeezed.
"Shatter-Point Resonance."
The sound wasn't a bang. It was a high-pitched ping—the sound of a glass breaking in another room.
The white-hot energy didn't explode outward. It imploded. The scepter turned into fine sand. Then, the vibration traveled up Garroch's arm. The armor shattered first, falling away in grey flakes. Then, the mercenaries watched in horror as their leader's arm didn't break—it simply turned into a mist of blood and bone fragments.
Garroch fell to his knees, staring at the empty space where his shoulder used to be. He wasn't even bleeding; the vibration had cauterized the wound at a molecular level.
"Leave," Lloren commanded. The word hit the remaining mercenaries like a physical blow. "If I see the Shadow Syndicate in this valley again, I won't just destroy your weapons. I will vibrate the air in your lungs until they turn to glass."
The mercenaries didn't wait for a second warning. They scooped up their maimed leader and fled into the dark forest, their black-sailed carriages rattling in terror.
The Cost of Power
As the sound of the carriages faded, the village square fell into a haunting silence. The villagers looked at the cratered earth, the dust that used to be a boulder, and then they looked at Lloren.
There was no cheering.
There was only fear.
Even the Village Chief backed away. They saw a monster, not a hero. A boy who could unravel the world with a touch was more terrifying than a man who could start fires.
Lloren felt the rings in his eyes fade. The sensory overload hit him like a tidal wave. The sound of a cricket a mile away felt like a hammer against his brain. He swayed, his knees buckling.
Before he could hit the ground, Lin was there. She caught him, her green life-weaver energy wrapping around him like a cooling blanket.
"I've got you, Lloren," she whispered, tears streaming down her face. "I'm not afraid. I'll never be afraid of you."
Lloren looked at his hands. They were still shaking—not from power, but from exhaustion. He had saved the village, but he knew he could no longer stay. He had outgrown the music of Oakhaven.
"We have to go, Lin," Lloren rasped. "The Syndicate will send more. And the Academy... the Academy will come for me now."
In the distance, a silver crow watched from a withered branch. Its eyes were mechanical, recording every second of the battle. Far away, in the gleaming spires of Astra Academy, a High Proctor leaned forward, watching the projection.
"Vibration?" the Proctor murmured, a cold smile spreading across his face. "Send an extraction team. We've found a Primordial Candidate."