Shadowborn exile a litrp.., p.1
Shadowborn Exile: A LitRPG Progression Fantasy, page 1
BOOK ONE
HARMON COOPER
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Podium Publishing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2026 by Harmon Cooper
Cover design by Mario Teodosio
Flashwraith designs by Sor
ISBN: 978-1-0394-7728-5
Published in 2026 by Podium Publishing
www.podiumentertainment.com
CONTENTS
Part One The Trial And The Eye
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Part Two The Last Crazed Grin Of Hadrian The Unshaken
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part Three All The Darkness
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Part Four Open The Floodgates
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Part Five Nocturnes And Preludes
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Part Six Some Kind Of Monster
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Part Seven Wolf And Eli Hunt The Mistwhale
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Flashwraith Codex
About The Author
Part One
The Trial and the Eye
Chapter One
Death came after the light. It always did.
The Spiralrealm was vast—its depths uncharted, its tiers descending like a wound through the world. Flashwraiths roamed its reach: terrible things of searing energy, held at bay only by those willing to feast on shadow.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Attica had been born to hunt them. Now, at fourteen, he stood among the Vanguard, an ashling poised to take his place. His heartbeat was steady. His shade coiled restlessly at his back.
Tonight, he would take his first step toward adulthood.
“It’s an emitter,” Hadrian said, nodding toward the creature stalking the ridge below. “A small one. At your size, the best way to kill it is to cut the mana crystals at its heels.” His voice was calm, shaped by years of survival. “Then—shadowblade to the base of the skull. Climb its back like you trained. And don’t let it blind you. If it opens its mouth, you’re dead. These next two minutes could define your future.” A beat. A final weight behind the words. “Do as you’ve been trained.”
“For the settlement,” Attica whispered, jaw clenched. “And the Painter.”
“For the settlement and the Painter,” Hadrian echoed. He motioned to a Vanguard crouched behind a slab of broken stone. “It’s time. Summon your shade, Attica. Prove yourself worthy to be Shadowborn.”
Attica focused the darkness around him, his fingers curling with practiced control. His shade moved first, a shifting mass of ink that was both part of him and something else entirely. Every Vanguard had one—a living shadow, an extension of their will. Most shades reflected their hosts, merging cleanly.
But not his.
Attica’s shade resisted. It disobeyed. It never moved quite as it should. “Stay with me,” he scolded it. The shadow slid over him like a living cloak. “Good.”
He glanced at Hadrian and exhaled. No nod. No approval. Just that same impassive gaze.
Everything Attica had learned since turning ten had led to this moment. And no lesson, not even Hadrian’s, could prepare him for what came next.
His shoulders squared as he moved into position, circling the rock, his shade helping him vanish into the dark.
Stay behind it, he reminded himself. They sense light shifts. That’s why you strike from behind.
Beyond, the emitter trembled with restless energy. Sinewy and angular, it raked the ground with slow, methodical claws. A faint halo pulsed around its skull, its mouth seething with raw radiance, enough to incinerate anything caught in its gaze.
It dug with eerie patience, carving a shallow pit.
Attica sank into the shadows, focused on his sworn enemy, and made the call.
“Now,” he hissed.
His shade flared with him, dark essence coiling up his arms, prickling his skin as it shaped into a blade across his knuckles. Attica lunged, darkness surging with him as his shadowblade carved into the emitter’s heels, splintering the crystalline growths with a sharp crack.
A garbled snarl escaped the creature’s throat as it buckled.
By then, Attica was already climbing, fingers catching ridges in its body, shade shifting to steady him.
In a single, fluid motion, he drove the blade into the back of its skull.
Light erupted.
A final, searing pulse followed as the beast collapsed.
Panting, Attica stared down at the fading glow.
“I did it,” he said, voice thin.
“Gather its resources, lad,” was all Hadrian told him.
Attica crouched beside the corpse. Mana bled in luminous wisps from the wounds. He guided the energy into his family’s gourd, corking it tight.
“To many more,” Hadrian said, stepping closer. His shade flickered beside him—restrained, but eager. A faint smile touched his lips, gone as quickly as it came. “Remember this feeling. Victory. Survival. That’s the way of the Shadowborn. Of the Vanguard.” His gaze sharpened. “Not everyone makes it this far, Attica. Most ashlings don’t.”
Attica swallowed, the words sinking into his chest.
There would be more hunts. More kills. And soon, the trial.
But for now, this was enough.
Every potential Vanguard faced the trial on their eighteenth birthday. Only after a long trek through the upper tiers of the Spiralrealm—gathering essence, lighting lanterns with mana from the Seer’s flask—could they earn their last name, their title.
It was a test of worth. A rite of passage, just as it had been for Attica’s late father, Spiran, Knife of the Glintfang.
Attica had heard the tale a thousand times, how his father had slain a glintfang eight times his size. No, ten. Maybe twelve. The numbers blurred, but the legend endured.
Now it’s my turn …
He met Hadrian beyond the settlement walls, where the greatest of the Vanguard stood, warriors whose names had shaped his childhood.
Standing before them was humbling. A reminder of what lay ahead.
Hadrian handed him the map. “You know what to do,” he said. “And you know what’s at stake. This is more than your life—it’s the future of the settlement. You, and others like you, are why we endure.”
“For the settlement and the Painter,” Attica said. The words steadied him as the others echoed the phrase.
“You leave an ashling. You return a member of the Vanguard. Be brave, but be smart,” Hadrian said. “Some flashwraiths should only be handled in parties. If you see signs of a flareback, leave the area. There are other ways to reach your goal.” A pause. His voice dropped. “Don’t let the weight of your father’s legacy overshadow your task. Remember what I’ve taught you, lad. Remember it well.”
Attica swallowed. “I will.” His shade curled tighter against him. “We will.”
Hadrian’s dark eyes met his. For a moment, the world held still. Then, a hand on his shoulder. Brief. Firm. A gesture of quiet certainty. “The path is yours now,” Hadrian said. “Walk it well. Don’t rush. The trial takes as long as it needs.”
Attica turned away from the Vanguard. The Spiralrealm stretched before him: vast, coiled, and mysterious, humming with forgotten history. Mist drifted like breath over abandoned settlements and crumbling stone. A light wind whispered in broken tongues.
And somewhere far below, something stirred in the dim.
One night, Attica thought, eyes fixed, heart steady. I’ll finish the trial in one night.
Chapter Two
Attica set off into the gloom.
The Spiralrealm’s layers stretched endlessly below, each tier veiled in dense fog and fractured shadow, broken only by erratic flashes of light. A haunting verticality. Ancient stone bridges and jagged ledges jutted from the corkscrewed rock, some crumbling with age, others faintly aglow, none holding enough mana to be worth bottling.
There was history here, but much of it was forgotten.
His map guided him to the first checkpoint—a rocky outcrop made of the same stone as the settlement, its surface jagged and worn. Here we are, Attica thought. Matches the map. We should reach the first lantern soon.
Beyond the whirling fog, the other side of the Spiralrealm loomed, vast and unknowable, a chasm of shadow and mystery. It was a sight that never failed to unnerve him, no matter how often he saw it.
“Let’s take a look,” Attica told his shade. He produced a monocular from a satchel under his arm. He scanned the horizon until he found them. A band of flashwraiths carved through the murk, a beacon of searing light.
Too many, he thought. Attica lowered his monocular with a slight scowl. No point. Not alone …
Tucking it away, he continued along the path, only for a sudden gust of wind to snatch the map from his hands.
Hey—!
He bolted after the map, gravel sliding beneath his boots. The map twisted and fluttered like a bird learning to fly before the relentless wind snatched it higher, then farther—right over the edge of the first tier.
He reached the precipice and peered down, heart pounding.
Attica had been told that no one, not even the Seer, knew how deep the Spiralrealm went. Attica’s people lived on its highest level, where it was supposedly safer. He’d heard of other settlements, but no one he knew had ever come across them, not even the most seasoned Vanguard. The farthest they would travel was the edge of the second tier. It was virtually unheard of to go to the third.
Shadows flickered off his fingers as he scanned the cliff face. The map had snagged on a hooked stone, just within reach.
It’s not too far. I can jump to that ledge and climb down.
Without the map, Attica would have to return to the settlement in shame. Arriving empty-handed and without lighting the torches was unthinkable, and while they may let him go out again, he would never be able to live it down.
“Come on,” he told his shade, which loomed beside him, silently judging him. “It wasn’t my fault, and you know that.”
His shade gave no reply.
“It’s not that far down.” He stepped forward, but the bond between them tightened—resisting. A subtle but deliberate pull. “I said, let’s go.”
After a moment, his shade relented, its essence slithering over him like liquid shadow.
Attica dropped onto the ledge, his shade reinforcing his grip. The bond between them allowed him to summon a blackened blade made of dark essence, to anchor himself, to move as Shadowborn should. Yet, even now, his shade held something back, as if it doubted him.
“See? We’re almost there,” he said, gripping the rock as he continued his descent. Darkness slithered along his arms, sharpening his grip, yet his shade’s presence remained tense, unsettled.
Attica reached the map and pulled it free, exhaling in relief. Good. He dropped down onto a lower ledge and paused to catch his bearings. “Told you,” he said to his shade.
The fog was thicker here, curling around his legs like grasping hands. A faint light flickered in the distance, barely visible in the murk.
How far? Attica tied back his long dark hair and pressed on. “Let’s go over flashwraith traits,” he told his shade, partly to focus himself. “When threatened, they can release a burst of toxic, suicidal light. We’ve seen it before—that one time.”
Nearly a year ago, his group had crouched above a slot canyon, waiting for a pair of emitters to move into position.
Tarnal, then Attica’s age, had jumped down to prove his bravery and impress a girl named Eve. He killed the first emitter but was caught by the second. The creature released a desperate burst of light from its terrible maw, killing Tarnal in an instant.
All that was left was a smoldering pile of dust, an image that remained burned in Attica’s mind.
One moment there. The next, dust. Decide which existence you prefer. Hadrian’s words at the time had been sharp, but not cruel. He always spoke plainly, without embellishment, as if facts alone carried the weight of wisdom. Where others might have offered comfort, Hadrian had offered truth. Tarnal is dead. You are not. Learn from that.
That was his way—his lesson in survival. Attica hadn’t understood it then, and he didn’t fully understand it now. But at least he knew enough to be aware.
“We have to be careful,” he reminded his shade. “And if we see a flareback, be ready.”
His shadow tugged at him again.
“I was joking. We’re not looking for a flareback.”
Still, the thought lingered. If we do find one …
The renown it would bring. The stories they would tell.
Spiran, Knife of the Glintfang.
Attica could surpass him. Not just match the name, but eclipse it.
Now on the second tier, Attica followed the map into a wider space scattered with ruins. “What’s this?” He picked up a stone with carvings he didn’t recognize. Dropping it, he noticed his shade shifting toward a crumbled wall.
Something was ahead.
Attica felt the shift as his shade stretched over him, cloaking him in darkness just as a single flaylight drifted near.
He froze, his shade doing the same.
The parasite hovered, its translucent wings humming softly, its body pulsing with a faint, shifting glow. Symbiotic, insect-like creatures, flaylights fed on the excess power of flashwraiths. But if their host was threatened, they became something else—merciless, swarming, and unrelenting.
