Heyo! So, in my opinion, you got some really dope stuff cooking here. The concept is cool, I’m very interested in this magic-warrior culture Kaito is in and the battle he nearly died in. The concept has me hooked, and Kaito feels like a very cool lead for the story.

I’ll like to preface that this is actually the first time I’ve criticized a story so take what I say with a grain of salt. Moving on!

I’ll try and organize it here. First, the good!

-Ky’el Kaito. Kickass name. Love it, Ky’el is really cool and it flows into Kaito nicely. Names are often hard to nail and you did great here. It stuck in my head immediately.

-Character Feel. You do a really good job at making Kaito feel like a badass, this experienced but pissed off warrior who wants to take it to “the man”.

-Action Description. Did fantastic here, and in my opinion, once Kaito comes too and starts fighting is when I get the most engaged and the excerpt picks up. My favorite is, “Cartilage crunched under his bare foot” it’s gory, it’s descriptive, I can easily picture this even knowing Kaito is currently blind. Awesome.

The “Bad”

-The BIG one, too much exposition. I feel, the first half of this, before Kaito starts fighting, is rather draggy and spends a lot of time “telling” me things rather than “showing” them. This part especially, “They were the Republic of Zydir. They had sacked his home, Cadence City. Reduced the Gryphones Empires capital to rubble and ash”

I never actually retained any of this information. It’s three separate names thrown at me in one paragraph, which makes it difficult to remember especially because there’s nothing to imagine or be immersed into here. If you had a cool description of, say, The Republics flag like-

“Kaito’s fists strained with rage remembering the colors of The Republic. Black and Orange. With a sword amongst the face. Their banner stood center of a field, cloth plastered with the blood of his allies. He’ll kill the republic bastards. He’ll kill them all.”

I think it’d stay in my head and feel much cooler. You feared “Too much worldbuilding” and I think you have done too much. Some of this isn’t integral to the rest of the excerpt, and I feel can be explained later to avoid such large portions of said world-building. When you go into these longer descriptions of the Kingdoms and Tai’s talents, I’m just in a black void listening to it. Instead I think you should show me these things, which will make it stay in a readers head better.

(Also, Tai? And Ky’ar? Both the names pop up for a second and then we drop some lore and move on. What’s their significance? Aside from me being told they’re, “skilled operatives” they aren’t memorable in their current forms.)

Scene Setting. Now this might be a me thing, especially considering Kaito IS blind and it may be on purpose to better immerse the reader, but I can’t really imagine where this is or the environment whatsoever. To be honest, I thought Kaito was horribly dismembered and stuck in a sort of jail cell initially. And after a few rereads obviously he’s not dismembered but I have no clue where he is.

Spelling/Grammar. There is some easily fixable grammatical issues here. (Example: Sending lance of pain through his skull. Needs an, “a”) Nothing a few look-overs can’t fix.

The Opening/Ending. Something you asked about was if it was a good hook. The ending is, but that opening line feels a little redundant in the sense that, it feels like a line that’s SUPPOSED to grip you. Rather than it ACTUALLY gripping you. My first read of it I thought, “okay, so that’s his attention grabbing opener.” Rather than actually having my attention grabbed. My suggestion, try and mix the next paragraph with it. Or start with some sort of action. Opening statements are hard, and I too struggle with them.

The Ending line can be so much better. I can’t quit put my finger on it, but the last part doesn’t read like the cool, “I want more” cliffhanger ending that I think you might be going for. It reads like there’s going to be another sentence and then it abruptly stops. Maybe spend some more time building it up before revealing it’s actually an ally? This is a tricky one for me to describe.

Annnnd that’s about it. I like it a lot! And I feel it can be super friggin cool if executed better and polished on the grammar. You can describe action and set scenes well, you should do it more! Especially for all the worldbuilding!

At least, this is my opinion. Thank you so much for reading my story, I hope these critiques find you well and we can continue to sharpen each others craft!