Beastbound: The Gryphon Tamer

Benjamin was a simple bookstore clerk, a young dreamer lost in the pages of fantasy—until one night, fantasy became real. A quantum shift, a ripple in the unknown, and suddenly he found himself in Khial, a world unlike any he had ever imagined. A world where the very fabric of reality is shaped by Laws, not rules, but patterns of existence woven by those who can perceive them. Here, the Sages are more than scholars—they are forces of nature, bending the world to their will. And beyond the surface, in the shadows of history, a war wages unseen, where those who understand the Laws fight for power, survival, and something far older than the world itself. Benjamin, however, is different. He has no connection to the world. His soul does not resonate with its Laws, making him an anomaly—a ghost in a reality that should reject him. But he has something else. He can absorb knowledge, not just learn but internalize entire histories, combat styles, strategies, languages. It should have made him powerful. Instead, it made him a target. His journey to find his place in Khial led him to the Academy of Sages, where he trained to survive. But the more he learned, the more he saw that power was never as simple as strength. He forged bonds, crossed paths with warriors and schemers, and found himself entangled in a conflict far greater than he understood. A single mistake sent him tumbling into the depths of the Black Flame, the shadow empire controlling the world from beneath its surface. Enslaved, broken, forgotten, he is forced to claw his way back from the bottom. He will rise—not as a hero, but as something else. His path will take him beyond this world, across vast empires and ancient ruins, toward a final reckoning with Malachros, the entity that should have never existed—the first Itharim to break free from the Maker’s will. But before that, Benjamin must do the impossible: Escape. Survive. Become more than what this world allows.