Ashen Ascension: The Divided Flame-Chapter 45: Beyond Human

She had left Nara behind and betrayed him. He was her owner. His authority was absolute. A single command from him could force her body to obey against her will. She had never disobeyed him before. Not once.

Yet she had chosen to leave him.

Because of this boy. Because of what she had felt. A human on the verge of a beast awakening. She could not allow it to be interrupted.

She willed and activated her skill again. Energy surged along her legs as her figure blurred, and she dashed forward in another burst of unnatural speed. The forest stretched and shifted around her as she moved, her direction changing sharply as she avoided open paths and continued deeper.

The boys chasing her fell behind.

They could not match her speed.

But then—

Ivor’s body jerked violently.

A force burst outward from him without warning.

It struck Luna mid-motion.

Her balance collapsed instantly as the ripple tore through her, throwing her sideways. She crashed into the trunk of a tree, the impact jarring through her bones before she fell hard onto the ground.

Her vision blurred. She blinked rapidly, forcing herself to focus as she pushed herself upright.

Then she saw him.

Ivor’s body was no longer on her shoulder. He floated in the air before her. His arms were spread wide. His head hung forward. His eyes remained closed.

He was unconscious. And yet he remained suspended.

Luna stared at Ivor’s suspended body, her breathing uneven as her mind struggled to process what she was seeing. He remained upright in the air, held in place by something she could feel but not touch.

Soul energy.

It gathered around him in vast quantities, visible even to her eyes as faint, white, transparent strands drifting like smoke. It did not move randomly. It flowed toward him, circling his body in slow currents, wrapping around his limbs, his chest, his head, holding him upright as if the world itself had loosened its grip on him.

Her eyes widened.

She had seen beasts awaken before. She had awakened herself. She knew what soul energy looked like during that moment.

This—

This was not normal.

The amount surrounding him was far beyond anything she had ever witnessed. It was dense enough to be visible, thick enough to distort the air around his body. She had never seen this much soul energy gather around a newly awakening beast.

Her thoughts raced.

Humans had mana.

Their entire power system depended on mana. Mana existed everywhere—in the air, in the earth, in every living thing. Humans absorbed it, circulated it through their mana cores and circuits, and used it to unlock their nodes and build their strength.

Beasts were different.

Beasts did not depend on mana.

They depended on soul energy.

Soul energy did not exist freely in the environment. It could not be absorbed from the air or drawn from the world like mana. It came from only one place.

The Primordial Soul Source.

Every beast was connected to it from birth. It was not a physical connection, nor something that could be seen. It existed beyond the physical world, a deeper origin that only beasts could access.

But access was not equal.

It depended entirely on Instinct.

Just as humans possessed seven Primal Matrix: Ignis, Umbra, Aqua, Terra, Aero, Lux and Echo, beasts possessed four Primal Instinct.

Seeker.

Guardian.

Devourer.

Shade.

Instinct defined everything. It defined how deeply a beast could connect to the Primordial Source. It defined how much soul energy they could draw. It defined how strong they could become.

The rest of the system mirrored the human structure.

Beasts possessed a soul circuit within their bodies.

They possessed 108 nodes. Each stage of their growth came from filling those nodes with soul energy, attuning them, strengthening the circuit that allowed them to exist as something greater than flesh.

But unlike humans, beasts could not simply train to improve. Their growth depended on one thing above all else.

Instinct.

For example a Seeker’s instinct was driven by pursuit. Not merely the act of chasing prey, but the need to understand it. A Seeker did not hunt blindly. They observed. They learned. They searched for patterns, weaknesses, and truths that others overlooked. Their instinct pushed them to find answers—answers to locate prey, answers to track it across unfamiliar terrain, answers to uncover what remained hidden.

Curiosity was not a flaw in a Seeker.

It was their path.

The stronger their pursuit, the deeper their connection became.

To form a powerful link with the Primordial Soul Source, a Seeker had to follow that instinct completely. They had to walk the same path their ancestors had walked, guided not by instruction, but by the pull of instinct itself. Only then would the source respond, granting them greater access to the soul energy that defined their existence.

And that was why beasts had grown weak in the human world. Because they were denied their instinct. Denied the freedom to hunt. Denied the freedom to live as they were meant to.

Her fist clenched unconsciously. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

She knew that truth better than anyone.

But as her gaze returned to Ivor, that anger gave way to something else.

Something deeper.

If this much soul energy was gathering now, at the very beginning of his awakening—

Then the number of nodes it would unlock...

Her breathing slowed.

Soul energy gathered during awakening was not permanent. It was consumed immediately, used to attune nodes and unlock the beast’s first skill.

She could see how much surrounded him. It was enormous. Far beyond what she had experienced.

When she had awakened, the soul energy had only been enough to attune three nodes. It had granted her a single skill, her dash. Nothing more.

But this...

This could attune five.

Maybe six.

Maybe more.

Which meant his first skill—

Her eyes remained fixed on his suspended form.

It would not be small.

She did not know which Primal Instinct this strange boy belonged to. There were only four, and each walked a completely different path. Each carried its own nature, its own authority, its own kind of power.

Seeker’s skills centered around pursuit and mastery. They allowed the beast to find, track, and understand what others could not.

Guardian’s skills focused on protection and stability. They reinforced the body, strengthened defenses, and allowed one to endure against overwhelming force.

Devourer’s skills embodied consumption and dominance. They fed on what they defeated, converting destruction into strength.

Shade’s skills governed deception and control. They obscured presence, twisted perception, and allowed the beast to exist beyond the reach of ordinary senses.

She tried to recall everything she had seen of him.

His patience.

His ambushes.

His silence.

His relentless observation.

Her mind worked rapidly, trying to understand which instinct had guided him.

Then something changed.

Her hand rose instinctively to cover her mouth.

Ivor’s body trembled, and suddenly—

Mana burst out of him. It did not flow gently. It erupted. Blue mana surged from his body like rising smoke, pushing outward into the air. It did not replace the soul energy. It merged with it. The blue glow intertwined with the white soul energy, mixing and coiling together around him.

Her eyes widened.

Mana and soul energy.

Together.

His hair began to lift, rising weightlessly as if gravity no longer applied to him. At the same time, dark smoke began to rise from his body. It drifted upward slowly, like ash carried by unseen currents.

Umbra.

The darkness was unmistakable.

"He is... an Umbra," she whispered.

She had believed he was simply human. An unawakened human somehow undergoing a beast awakening.

But this—

This was something else entirely.

Mana and soul energy existing together.

Darkness answering his awakening.

"He has both," she murmured, her voice barely audible.

"A Primal Matrix..."

Her gaze remained locked on him.

"And a Primal Instinct."

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