“Chapter V: The Trials of the Storm

The world struck back.

It always does when a man begins to rise.

The winds tore at him, the rain spoke in riddles,

and the cold bit through his resolve like teeth of iron.

But he did not retreat.

He moved through the storm with eyes unblinking —

each drop a lesson, each gust a question:

“Will you bend, or will you become?”

Lightning split the sky, and in that flash he saw himself —

not the man he once was, but the weapon he had become.

He did not shout against the thunder.

He listened to it.

He matched its rhythm with his heartbeat until both were one.

When the clouds broke, he stood unchanged.

The storm had not destroyed him.

It had anointed him.

He was no longer shaped by conditions.

He was the condition.

• X