When did I gain this?
Clarion…
Oh, right. It wasn't some grand awakening. No divine light. No voice from the heavens. Just pain.
My parents weren't proud of me. Not always. They said I ruined their lives.
I didn't understand. I was just a kid.
They cried when they beat me, which somehow hurt more than the bruises.
I always wanted to ask why.
Why did it feel like I was their punishment?
The day my Clarion awakened, I touched my father. I didn't even mean to. He screamed. His body convulsed like something foreign had slithered beneath his skin.
That was when things changed. They took me to the temple on this island—dragged me there, really. The priests said I had something rare. A Clarion. They didn't know which one, but that alone made my parents… proud? Or at least less ashamed.
It was strange. I didn't understand the shift, but I didn't question it. If this power was the reason they started loving me, then I'd accept it.
This island… it was home to over a thousand people. We worshipped a god we never saw, never read about. Just an old statue and a hundred rumors. They said he was the source of my power.
If pleasing my parents meant hurting others—beating my cousins, following orders—I did it. I didn't like getting hit, and I was sure they didn't either.
Their parents forced them to fight me just like mine did.
Why?
---
"Well what the hell do you mean I should rush up there?"
"You have the Clarion of Touch. Create barriers. We are in a temple and this isn't a part of the deity, it's inside it—consider this undigested food."
"Don't you have the First Fire? Just create a barrier."
"I don't think you understand. Concentration is the key. I'm barely holding it together."
"Bullshit. You look fine to me."
She choked before answering, "Well, I'm tired."
"Just say that you're scared."
I flipped the coin between my fingers as I stared at the storm outside.
This wasn't just rain. It was pressure—physical and spiritual. The droplets didn't fall. They pierced. Like ballistic gel bullets condensed into bead-sized death. Each one dense enough to tear through wood, crack stone, shear flesh.
And it was raining hard. Hard enough to erase the horizon.
"Now how do I get through that?"
I scanned the floor. There—just within the edge of Wanora's barrier—was a puddle. Small, glimmering, trembling under the shield's weight.
"Hey, can you extend it a bit so I can reach the puddle?"
She looked at me, then silently pushed the barrier forward. The air shimmered as the field shifted outward, and I stepped in.
I crouched, fingers brushing the thin layer of water. Just a droplet, I told myself. Nothing unusual.
But then I activated my Clarion.
Instantly, I felt it press back—wrong. My palm tingled from the force. That droplet, that thin puddle, carried weight. Not volume. Weight. The mass distribution was compressed unnaturally, as if reality had folded inward.
It was like submerging my hand into a swimming pool that had been shrunk into a teacup. The density was terrifying.
I exhaled. "If I could manipulate that..."
I remembered what Gramps once told me—how he could liquify solids using the Clarion. It took intense molecular control. Kevin said his friend solidified seawater beneath their feet, creating support from the ocean itself.
But that required shaping a mass as large as an iceberg just to keep it from collapsing. That wasn't just skill. That was mastery.
I tried. Focused. But the molecules in this cursed rain were too scattered. Too chaotic. Their behavior didn't follow natural laws. Trying to bind them together was like catching smoke with a net of fire.
Not possible. Not yet.
I stood up, wiping my hands. "Open some space for me to get out."
Wanora obeyed.
I glanced at the altar—the symbol of the snake positioned opposite the sun. That was my mark. That's where the coin had to go.
I grabbed part of the confession booth, the wood splintering under my grip. Clarion of Touch. It didn't just let me feel—it let me rewrite.
The log shifted under my fingers. The fibers compressed. The softness faded. I changed its internal structure, forcing it tighter than steel. What emerged in my hands wasn't wood anymore. It was a shield, an umbrella a lot stronger than steel.
I held it above me and ran.
The rain screamed. Each drop shattered against the shield like hail made from lead. If not for the iron grip my Clarion gave me, the sheer weight would've crushed me mid-sprint.
My feet struck the stone path, breath ragged, body on fire. I reached the altar. Just then, the fourth bell rang.
The Scorching Sun.
Heat ignited from above. An invisible furnace descended. Each drop evaporated instantly—but so did the sweat on my skin. My nerves lit up. I was burning alive in silence.
I didn't scream. I just reached forward and slammed the coin into the snake's mark.
In the next second, the ground cracked beneath us.
Me, Wanora, the ashes, the dust—everything that hadn't been burned away in that single breath—collapsed downward into the unknown.