The great War of the Factions defined existence. For centuries, the realms of the Gods, Demons, Fairies, Spirits, and Humans had been locked in a cosmic, ceaseless struggle, a brutal conflict rooted in the cataclysm of the distant past.
It was a conflict built on fear, and no God inspired more of it than Zechtron, the cruel and wicked God of Hatred. Zechtron was a creature of divine malice, his power a raw, destructive force. He was also a stark, terrifying reminder of the cost of divine corruption. For Zechtron had once been a close ally of the former God, Galaxoius—the very God who had betrayed creation to become the monstrous Demon God of Darkness, and who had fallen in the initial great war.
The remaining Gods did not merely disdain Zechtron; they feared he was destined for the same ruin.
This fear made them silent when the great demon, Arabatogon, plunged his crystalline scythe into Zechtron's celestial form. Arabatogon, one of the few loyal servants of Galaxoius, had not come for conquest. He had come to collect the pure energy of Zechtron's death—the Negative Core Essence—a unique, volatile power needed to fulfill his true mission: the resurrection of the Demon God, Galaxoius.
As Zechtron's consciousness dissolved, sensing his peers' satisfying silence, his final act was not surrender, but spite. He compressed his boundless, murderous rage into a single, screaming core: The Seed of Hatred. This fragment tore free of his dying form, a piece of pure malice designed to live only for vengeance. Arabatogon was too late; the essence had escaped his grasp.
The war ended the gods' betrayal complete. Though the Demons failed to conquer the Gods' realm(Caelestis), they devastated the Spirit realms(Orbtorium) and Fairy realms(Syptomria). Now, only the human realm(Terra-firma) remained untouched—and it was their next target.
The Seed of Hatred was a crisis the Gods could not ignore. An uncontained piece of godly essence, dedicated to vengeance against them, was a threat to all existence. They needed a prison. In a calculated maneuver veiled as pity for humanity, they looked to the mortal realm.
They found Aldomite, a simple, unattached farmer whose grandmother had recently passed away, leaving him alone. With a soul of pure, untapped potential, he was the perfect, expendable vessel. The Gods summoned Aldomite's soul, wiped his memories of the farm and his life, and forcefully implanted the Seed of Hatred into his essence. They sent him back to the human world, to be reborn as a child, hoping his new life would contain and purify the monstrous power.
The child Aldomite was born with a constant, vague sense of trauma. He remembered nothing of the farmer, but the ancient, fragmented memories of Zechtron's war and fury were constantly scratching at the edges of his innocence.
Aldomite was seven years old, living with his parents in a small, quiet village(Asmodan) nestled near the forest line, a place where the rumors of war felt distant and irrelevant. His parents were simple, kind people—his father a woodsman, broad-shouldered and quiet, his mother a weaver whose quick laughter filled their small cabin. Their love was a soothing balm, yet Aldomite was different.
He was preternaturally strong, his small hands often crushing the wooden toys he played with, and sometimes, when he was truly frustrated, a vase would inexplicably rattle off a shelf. He possessed an intense, dark focus that made other children uneasy; while they played games, Aldomite often spent hours staring into the forest, lost in thoughts that were not his own. The Seed of Hatred remained dormant, caged by the genuine warmth of his family, but always subtly influencing him.
His parents, who loved him fiercely, only ever saw his dedication, not the simmering darkness within. His father would often joke, "Our Aldomite will be strong enough to cut down the whole forest one day, just need to teach him some finesse!"
But the Seed needed only one thing to bloom: catastrophic emotional trauma. It was a time bomb ticking beneath the surface of a happy childhood.
This fragile peace was shattered in the deepest hours of the night.
Arabatogon had found them. The demon, dedicated to his fallen master, had tracked the subtle signature of the contained Core Essence. He knew the Gods had hidden it, making it stronger and more concentrated, but harder to access. He needed to force it awake.
Arabatogon appeared as a terrifying shadow, wreathed in roaring, black fire magic. He did not waste time with terror, only efficiency. Aldomite awoke to his mother's screams.
"Run, Aldomite! Run!" she pleaded, pushing him toward the back window as the demon smashed through the wall.
Arabatogon laughed—a sound of cold, mocking malice. The air grew impossibly hot, and a wave of pure black fire consumed the room. Aldomite stumbled out of the house just as the inferno consumed his parents.
He looked back to see the roaring flames climb into the night sky. Framed by the devastation, he saw Arabatogon, his sharp, crystalline armor gleaming in the firelight.
"Humans are weak!" the demon roared, his voice dripping with contempt. "This is what happens to weak blood and weak destinies!"
The words, coupled with the sight of his burning home and the image of his parents, were the final, necessary catalyst.
The Seed of Hatred exploded. The raw, searing pain of his mother's sacrifice, the absolute trauma of loss, fused with Zechtron's cosmic malice. Aldomite did not weep. He was simply consumed by a singular, cold Hatred. A flash of toxic yellow pulsed in his eyes as a terrible, unearthly power surged through his seven-year-old body. He tasted metal and blood, and in his mind, he heard a chilling, dominating presence stir.
The Core Essence was awake. Arabatogon smiled, tasting the raw power of the awakened essence, knowing his cultivation could finally begin. Aldomite, trembling with unfathomable rage, fled into the night, carrying the vengeance of a God in his small, wounded heart.
Aldomite walked for weeks, fueled by trauma and the faint, simmering energy of the Core Essence. He arrived at a bustling refugee hub known as Freda Village, a miserable camp where the displaced souls of the war gathered.
Here, he found Graven, a former knight whose solemn eyes held the weight of too many battles. Graven showed Aldomite the children who had lost everything to the demonic invasion, the families torn apart, and the endless suffering.
The sight broke through Aldomite's raw desire for vengeance. He realized his hatred, fueled by the God inside, could be aimed toward a greater purpose than just murder. He decided that day he would not just kill demons; he would kill them under the banner of humanity, protection, and law.
He would become a Knight.
It was not the path he would have chosen as a farmer, nor the destiny Zechtron demanded. But it was the destiny forced upon him by the war, by Arabatogon, and by the divine hand that had damned him. It was The Unchosen Destiny.
Aldomite's journey led him eventually to Astoria, the sprawling, powerful kingdom that housed the greatest Knight Academy in the human realm. For two grueling years, he toiled, working menial jobs—cleaning stables, hauling goods—hoarding every copper coin until he had enough to afford the expensive application forms. His only goal was the training, the structure, and the tools he needed to realize his vengeance.
During the enrollment exams, Aldomite met two young men who had suffered a similar fate and carried a similar drive.
Lipton was immediately distinguishable: disciplined, with an innate sense of justice, he had lost his family to a slow siege—a cold, agonizing death that made him value endurance and strategy above all else. Calvin, quiet and tactical, was haunted by the fact he had failed to save a group of refugee children he was leading, and now lived with the relentless guilt of being a survivor. All three, bound by the scars of the demonic war, found a strange, mutual solace in each other's presence.
The final phase of the exam involved three tests. Aldomite's strength, fueled by the constantly simmering Core Essence, pushed him and his new companions through the first two trials with sheer, terrifying resolve. But the last test was the Triple Threat—they were forced to fight each other.
It was during this fight that Commander Graven's resentment was forged. Graven, a veteran instructor, had placed his pride and reputation on Darian, his personal protégé—a student known for technical perfection and discipline. Aldomite, despite his wild, untrained strikes, fought Darian with a brute, desperate will that defied all established technique. Aldomite absorbed every clean hit, but his eyes, blazing with an internal fire, never wavered. Darian, exhausted by the sheer force of Aldomite's refusal to yield, eventually faltered. Though Lipton claimed the final victory, Aldomite had crushed the technical superiority of Graven's best student.
The Headmaster, recognizing the unprecedented, albeit dangerous, potential in Aldomite's resolve—the very essence of a God's hatred masked as human grit—declared all three boys qualified due to their overall performance.
Graven seethed. He saw only a reckless commoner whose unrefined fury had humiliated his teaching methods. He vowed to prove the Headmaster's special consideration a mistake.
Aldomite, Lipton, and Calvin officially became students. Aldomite felt the presence of the Core Essence, Zechtron's hatred, constantly shifting beneath his skin. He did not yet know the name of the power inside him, only that it tasted like fury and gave him the strength he needed to keep his promise. His unchosen destiny, born of divine betrayal and demonic malice, had now placed him in the halls of Astoria, where the real battle—the internal one—was about to begin.
Chapter 2: THE UNCAGED VOICE