Waves crashed violently against the cliffs below the warehouse.
Cold wind slipped through broken windows.
And somewhere in the darkness…
Dhruv Mehata slowly opened his eyes.
“…My head hurts.”
He immediately sat up.
Bad decision.
Pain slammed through his skull hard enough to make him groan.
The warehouse looked exactly the same:
– broken crates
– rusted chains
– rainwater dripping from ceiling beams
Except now… it was morning.
Golden sunlight leaked through cracked windows.
Dhruv blinked slowly.
“What happened…?”
Then memory hit him.
The Ember Fruit.
The hunters.
The strange heat.
Dhruv instantly looked around.
Nobody.
The hunters were gone.
Only muddy footprints remained scattered across the floor.
“Did they leave?”
His voice echoed softly through the empty warehouse.
Dhruv stood carefully.
His legs felt strangely light.
Not weak.
Just… different.
Like his body wasn’t entirely connected to the floor anymore.
He frowned.
“Okay. That’s concerning.”
He grabbed Grandpa’s notebook from nearby and dusted himself off.
Then froze.
His hand.
Or more specifically… the lack of it.
Dhruv stared blankly.
His right hand had disappeared.
Completely.
Only the notebook remained floating awkwardly in the air.
Silence.
Dhruv blinked once.
Twice.
Then immediately screamed.
“WHAT?!”
The notebook crashed onto the floor as Dhruv stumbled backward in panic.
His invisible hand suddenly reappeared again.
Dhruv stared at it breathing heavily.
“…Nope.”
He pointed dramatically at his own hand.
“No. Absolutely not.”
The hand vanished again.
Dhruv froze.
Then slowly looked upward.
“Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
A grin slowly spread across his face.
Twenty minutes later…
Dhruv was aggressively experimenting like a child who found forbidden magic.
“Okay… disappear.”
Nothing happened.
Dhruv narrowed his eyes.
“Disappear.”
Still nothing.
He crossed his arms.
“Disappear, idiot hand.”
His left shoe vanished instead.
Dhruv stared.
“…Progress.”
After another several attempts, he finally understood something.
The power reacted strongest to intention.
Not words.
Focus.
Emotion.
Instinct.
Dhruv slowly inhaled.
Then concentrated.
The air around him shimmered faintly.
And suddenly… his entire body disappeared.
Dhruv looked downward.
Nothing.
No arms.
No legs.
No body.
Only the red thread around his wrist remained faintly visible for half a second before disappearing too.
Dhruv’s jaw dropped.
“I’m invisible.”
A huge grin exploded across his face.
“I’M INVISIBLE.”
His excitement lasted exactly four seconds before he accidentally walked straight into a wooden crate.
CRASH.
“OW!”
The invisibility instantly broke.
Dhruv held his face dramatically while rolling on the floor.
“Okay maybe invisible people should still watch where they’re going.”
By afternoon, the warehouse had transformed into complete chaos.
Dhruv spent hours testing everything.
What disappears?
What doesn’t?
How long can he hold it?
Results:
– clothes disappeared with him
– objects he touched disappeared too
– larger objects required more concentration
– sudden fear or pain interrupted the effect
Dhruv sat upside down atop a crate while thinking deeply.
“This is insane…”
An actual power.
A real Ember ability.
Grandpa had hidden this from everyone.
Which meant Harun definitely knew more than he ever revealed.
Dhruv looked toward the ocean outside the warehouse.
East Cloud knows truth.
The words echoed in his head again.
Whatever Grandpa discovered… it was connected to all this somehow.
Suddenly, his stomach growled violently.
Dhruv looked offended.
“Seriously? Again?”
East Verdan’s harbor looked much brighter during daytime.
Ships crowded the docks while hunters moved through busy streets carrying weapons, maps, crates, and strange creatures locked inside cages.
Dhruv walked through the crowd carefully with his hood pulled low.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the hunters from last night.
Who were they working for?
And how did they know about Grandpa?
A messenger bird suddenly landed beside him on a railing.
“MESSAGE FOR SAPNA DURAL!”
The bird immediately flew away screaming another name.
Dhruv smiled slightly.
Messenger birds were still the funniest thing in existence.
Further ahead, giant screens displayed hunter rankings and bounty lists.
Several famous squad symbols glowed above crowds.
One symbol especially caught Dhruv’s attention.
A skull wearing a golden crown.
Below it:
THE IRON KINGS
S-RANK HUNTER SQUAD
Reward Posters:
– 19 Kingdom Raids
– 7 Missing Officers
– 42 Million Crown Bounty
Dhruv whistled softly.
“Hunter world’s insane…”
A sudden commotion interrupted his thoughts.
People nearby started moving away from the center street.
Two men argued loudly near a fruit stall.
One wore police armor.
The other looked like a rough hunter.
“You hunters think you own this city?!” the officer shouted.
The hunter laughed mockingly.
“Relax. Nobody likes you people anyway.”
Tension spread instantly.
Dhruv quietly stepped aside.
Fights between hunters and police weren’t uncommon.
In this world, hunters chased freedom.
Police chased order.
And both hated each other constantly.
The hunter suddenly drew a blade.
Civilians panicked immediately.
The officer reached for his weapon too.
Dhruv sighed.
“Fantastic.”
Before the fight escalated further, Dhruv slipped quietly behind nearby crates.
His heartbeat quickened slightly.
Then he focused.
The world shimmered.
And Dhruv disappeared.
He moved carefully through the crowd invisibly while people shouted around him.
Honestly?
This felt amazing.
Nobody noticing him.
Nobody watching.
Just movement.
Dhruv reached the armed hunter first and quickly kicked the back of his knee.
The man yelped and collapsed awkwardly.
“What the hell?!”
The officer looked confused.
Dhruv immediately slapped the hunter’s weapon away invisibly.
The sword clattered across the street.
People gasped.
The hunter spun around wildly.
“WHO DID THAT?!”
Dhruv grinned invisibly.
Okay.
This power was definitely fun.
Then suddenly… a little girl walked directly toward where Dhruv stood.
Still invisible.
Dhruv’s eyes widened.
“Oh no.”
THUD.
The child walked straight into him.
She froze.
Dhruv froze.
The girl slowly looked upward toward the empty air in confusion.
“…Ghost?”
Dhruv immediately sprinted away while invisibly laughing.
Behind him, chaos exploded.
“THERE’S AN INVISIBLE PERSON?!”
“WHAT?!”
“GET BACK!”
Dhruv ran across rooftops above the harbor district, barely holding in laughter.
Wind whipped against his face.
Sunlight reflected across the ocean beautifully.
For the first time since Grandpa died…
Dhruv genuinely felt alive again.
Not happy exactly.
But moving forward.
And somehow… that felt enough.
He landed atop a rooftop overlooking the harbor and sat down quietly.
The city stretched endlessly beneath him.
Ships.
Smoke.
Messenger birds.
Hunters.
Adventure.
Danger.
His fingers brushed against the red thread around his wrist.
“Grandpa…”
Dhruv looked toward the far eastern horizon.
East Cloud.
Whatever waited there… he would find it.
Even if the whole world tried stopping him.
A small smile crossed his face.
Then suddenly… his invisibility wore off mid-thought and a random fisherman below nearly fainted after seeing a teenager appear out of nowhere on a rooftop.
Dhruv blinked.
“…Right. Still working on that.”
END OF CHAPTER 3