Chapter 2:
The CelestForge Chronicles : The Legacy Forge
"A blade does not choose a master; it awakens the burden they were born to bear."
The streets of Feasian were quiet under the dim glow of neon towers, but not for long. Vjay wandered aimlessly, a shadow of himself, when a man stepped into his path. Dressed in a tailored suit that could have cost more than a family’s annual income, the stranger’s gaze pierced him, and for a moment, Vjay felt his chest tighten. The face was impossibly familiar, a reflection he hadn’t dared to hope for.
“You are my son,” the man said. Four words. A single sentence that split Vjay’s life into a before and after.
He didn’t have time to think. One moment he was on the streets; the next, he was strapped into a high-tech spacejet, hurtling across the stars to a place called Earth. Years of believing himself an orphan evaporated in an instant. The woman who ran to embrace him was not a threat, as he had feared, but warmth incarnate — his real mother. The hug lingered, unspoken and infinite, grounding him after a decade of torment.
Vjay learned quickly: his name was not Rez, the name he had carved from survival. He was Vjay Vauldgris, eldest son of a family whose name carried weight across galaxies. His grandfather, the highest-ranking Knight in the Milky Way GalacticKnights Corps, commanded fear and respect. His father and mother led two of the most prestigious regiments, Roaring Lions and Sea Serpents, rivals in skill yet united by love. His younger brother, witty and sharp-eyed, and his ten-year-old sister, curious and fearless, completed the household — each a different sun in a galaxy of responsibility.
A month passed. Vjay’s dreams of becoming a Galactic Knight had never dimmed. One evening, he finally spoke them aloud. His parents’ reaction was immediate — disbelief, frustration, a flaring argument that shook the high-ceilinged hall.
“Mine is better,” his mother insisted.
“No — mine,” his father shot back.
Vjay stepped between them. “Can we decide this after training?”
It worked — momentarily. But the tension didn’t fade; it simply shifted. Vjay’s solution, proposing to train under both, was a silent declaration of his endurance. Eight hours under his father’s rigid regimen, eight hours under his mother’s precise and clever methods, plus another eight in education to make up for lost years — each day pushed him to the brink. Every muscle, every neuron burned, but he emerged sharper, faster, unbroken.
Then came the moment he had dreamed of for years. The family’s high-tech armory loomed, guarded by silent drones, corridors lined with energy locks. His father’s hand passed over a biometric sensor, and the doors parted like the opening of fate itself. Vjay stepped into the vast hall.
“Enerblade,” he whispered. Nothing.
“Enerblade… will a blade choose me?” Again, silence.
His father’s voice, carefully neutral, carried only a single truth. “You are not chosen. That means… you cannot become a Galactic Knight.”
Vjay felt his world collapse. The platform on which his life had been built shattered beneath him. Desperation burned, sharp and raw. “If a blade does not choose me… then I, Vjay Vauldgris, will end my life. My dream… my life… it all ends here.”
The lights flickered. Shadows danced. And then, the impossible happened. A stick of energy, a dormant form of an Enerblade, shattered its glass casing and touched his hands. Darkness surged, swallowing the hall, pulling him into a void.
A voice whispered in his mind — childlike, teasing, alive. “Finally… I am awake.”
Light returned, slow and trembling, revealing his father kneeling beside him, face a mask of restrained worry. In Vjay’s hands, the Enerblade glowed — Blacklight, so black it seemed to consume everything around it. Darker than night, heavier than despair, it hummed with limitless potential.
“No one in our family has ever held a black Enerblade,” his father admitted, voice low and cold. “We do not know how to train you. This… is yours alone.”
They stepped into a hidden arena behind a whispering wall. Here, Vjay would spend six months alone, every day a trial, every moment a lesson in survival, endurance, and mastery. Food, water, all essentials were provided. Nothing else. No distractions. No interference. Only the Enerblade and him.
As the door sealed, silence enveloped him. And then, only he heard the voice again. “Finally… I am awake.”
Blacklight had chosen him. Not for glory. Not for pride. For the burden he was born to bear.
And in that darkness, Vjay Vauldgris understood: his life, his pain, his destiny — had only just begun.
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