The world was a haze of agony. Dimly, Sephorae was aware of rough hands grabbing him and the indifferent faces of maids and servants as they hauled his broken body from the ground. They placed him on a Celestial Gurney, a floating stretcher that hummed with faint restorative energy. He was carried back into the oppressive grandeur of the castle, to a sterile medical ward.
Advanced healing methods washed over him, knitting the worst of his internal wounds and mending shattered bones. The pain receded from a screaming crescendo to a dull, throbbing symphony of misery. It was only a forty percent restoration—enough to keep him alive, to ensure he would suffer the long journey. The rest, he would have to heal on his own.
He was loaded onto the family jet, a sterile silver tube that would carry him to Lucem Fermius Academy. His sister, Selene, and his personal slave maid were on another plane; he could hear their laughter echoing across the tarmac as they dined on delicacies, their eyes glued to a large screen showing something inane. He was an afterthought, a broken piece of luggage they were forced to transport. His father's decree echoed in his mind: he was no longer a Vespera, stripped of all privileges and rights to nobility.
The jet ascended, and the drugs finally pulled him under. The last thing he saw was the maid's smirk, a final, private victory for her.
⛓️ The 1000 - 7 Countdown
He woke with a jolt, not in the academy's infirmary, but in the dimly lit cargo hold of a different plane. The roar of the engines was wrong—deeper, more menacing. Two figures stood over him, their features sadistic, unnervingly human, but their eyes held an ancient, bottomless malice. They were demons, powerful ones, their Silver-rank aura pressing down on him like a physical weight.
"Look what we have here," one purred, its voice like grinding glass. "A fallen Vespera."
Sephorae tried to speak, to crack a joke about their in-flight service, to maintain that last shred of defiance, but a fist slammed into his jaw, silencing him. The other demon grabbed his left hand, its grip like a vice. With a sickening, deliberate crunch, it began methodically ripping out each of his fingernails.
The torture was not a single, brutal act, but a long, drawn-out process that stretched for days, a performance of sadism while the academy exams raged on without him. The pain was a white-hot brand. Sephorae screamed, a raw, animalistic sound that was swallowed by the engine's roar.
They didn't stop there. With wet, tearing sounds, the rest of his fingers were amputated one by one, the demonic claws impossibly sharp. Then, they moved to his other hand, and then to his toes, each yank a fresh wave of nauseating agony. They doused the raw stumps in a caustic chemical that bubbled and smoked, a fire that ate at his flesh and nerves but refused to let him pass out.
The lead demon leaned in close, its breath smelling of sulfur and rot. "Let's play a game," it rasped, a cruel smile twisting its lips. "You will start at one thousand, and count down by sevens. To keep you from going insane."
"One thousand... nine hundred and ninety-three... nine hundred and eighty-six..."
The numbers became a rhythmic, maddening backdrop to the torture. Each number punctuated by a new agony, a new cut, a new burn, a new broken bone. They isolated him, a single, screaming point of consciousness in a universe of pain. His will, the only weapon he had left, was systematically dismantled, piece by piece, number by number. The countdown, "The 1000 - 7 Countdown," they called it. A twisted mental ritual that became permanently associated with his suffering, a mental anchor that was being forged in the deepest pits of hell, destined to forge a chilling stoicism within him.
"...Three hundred and twelve... three hundred and five..." the demon droned on with him. Sephorae's screams had turned to whimpers, then to silence. His body was a canvas of brutality, but it was his mind they were truly breaking.
They took a hot iron rod and destroyed his face, melting the features that marked him as a Vespera. Finally, when the count reached seven, they stopped. With a final, brutal act, they severed both of his arms at the shoulders and sawed off his right leg at the hip, leaving him a limbless, broken doll. They weren't trying to kill him; this was a message—a message for his father, a message for the Vespera bloodline.
They tossed him out of the plane, not from a great height, but into a barren, rocky wasteland.
Location: Lucem Fermius Academy - Main Auditorium
The opulent grandeur of the Lucem Fermius Academy's main auditorium was a world away from the brutality Sephorae was enduring. Polished marble floors reflected the high, vaulted ceilings where enchanted constellations slowly rotated. Here, the elite of the new generation gathered, the air thick with aether, perfume, and thinly-veiled ambition.
On a raised platform, thirteen figures stood, the academy's newest and most promising entrants. Among them was Nathaniel Brightmore, his expression calm, almost bored, as the headmaster droned on about tradition and honor. Beside him, a girl with silver hair tied in a severe knot—Lila Vire Steele, Sephorae's ex—fidgeted with her uniform, her gaze occasionally drifting towards the empty seat reserved for the Vespera heir.
"So, where is that loser Sephorae?" a noble with a smug grin, Roric Duskfall, whispered loudly to the girl next to him. "Did daddy's scolding send him running home with his tail between his legs?"
A ripple of cruel laughter spread through the nearby nobles; the commoners watched them with a mix of envy and resentment. They had all seen the stream, the 'Vespera Weed's Pruning', a spectacle put on by the sister herself. Selene, standing on the far end of the platform, simply shrugged, a delicate, venomous smile playing on her lips. "Perhaps he realized his potential was as pathetic as his performance. The Vespera name has no room for failures." Her personal maid, who had been allowed to attend as a 'guest', nodded in agreement, her eyes gleaming with sadistic satisfaction.
The protagonist, Nathaniel, finally spoke, his voice cutting through the whispers. "He got what was coming to him. It's a shame he won't be here. I would have loved to see him here so I could beat him some more." There was celebration in his tone, a dismissive certainty. He had seen the stream, he had seen the fight, and in his mind, Sephorae was already a footnote, a minor boss he had already overcome. This was the start of their story, the beginning of a hellish saga.
The opulent grandeur of the Lucem Fermius Academy's main auditorium was a world away from the brutality Sephorae was enduring. The elite of the new generation were seated in plush, velvet chairs, the air thick with aether, perfume, and thinly-veiled ambition. On the stage, a single figure stood behind a polished obsidian podium: Headmaster Elara Vane. Her hair was a vibrant, stylish cascade of orange, a stark contrast to her chic, form-fitting white suit. Her skin was a lighter shade of brown, smooth and radiant under the enchanted lights of the auditorium. Her gaze swept over the assembled students, a look of cool appraisal in her eyes.
"So, where is the mighty Sephorae?" a noble with a smug grin, Roric Duskfall, whispered loudly to the girl next to him. "Did daddy's scolding send him running home with his tail between his legs?"
A ripple of cruel laughter spread through the nearby nobles, the commoners watching them with a mix of envy and resentment. They had all seen the stream, the 'Vespera Weed's Pruning', a spectacle put on by the sister herself. Selene, seated in the front row, simply shrugged, a delicate, venomous smile playing on her lips. "Perhaps he realized his potential was as pathetic as his performance. The Vespera name has no room for failures." Her personal maid, who had been allowed to attend as a 'guest', nodded in agreement, her eyes gleaming with sadistic satisfaction.
The protagonist, Nathaniel Brightmore, seated a few rows back, finally spoke, his voice cutting through the whispers. "He got what was coming to him. It's a shame he won't be here. I would have loved to see him again so I could beat him some more." There was blatant celebration in his tone, a dismissive certainty. He had seen the stream, he had seen the fight, and in his mind, Sephorae was already a footnote, a minor boss he had already overcome. This was the true beginning of their story, a saga that spanned ten games, over seven hundred hours of gameplay, and countless tragedies for the commoners and Nobles.
Location: Unnamed Wasteland
His single remaining leg was useless, a dead weight, and the blood trail he left behind was a stark, gruesome painting against the grey stone. He crawled until his muscles tore and his vision swam, until the world dissolved into a haze of pain and exhaustion. He saw an opening in the rock face, a dark maw that promised either shelter or a final end. With a last, Herculean effort, he dragged himself towards it, and the ground gave way.
He fell. It wasn't a short drop. It was an endless, stomach-churning plummet into darkness, a fall of ten thousand miles into a hidden abyss. The impact should have killed him, but by some cruel miracle, it didn't. It only broke what was left of him.
He lay in the pitch black, the only sound the rasp of his own breathing and the drip of water somewhere in the vast, oppressive silence. He was in a cave, a hidden lair kept away from society.
And then, something moved. A severed arm, a limb of matte black flesh, lay on the ground nearby. With a life of its own, it began to crawl, a grotesque spider made of segmented, demonic parts, its claws scrabbling silently against the stone. It moved toward him, drawn to the warmth of his fading life.
The arm was a dark, demonic limb from shoulder to fingertips, but the fingers turned pure white—an amazing fusion of organic and otherworldly design. Its base color was a deep, matte black, unreflective and light-absorbing. Intricate, sculpted patterns covered its surface, giving it a segmented appearance, especially around the wrist and finger bases. Thin, stark white, lightning-bolt-shaped sigils and veins traced along its length, acting as conduits for power, their glow most concentrated on the forearm and hand. The arm's claws, which had propelled it across the floor, were now sleek, ivory white and gently curved.
As it reached the bloody stump of Sephorae's left shoulder, it latched on. There was no pain, only an invasive, chilling cold as the demonic limb merged with him, weaving itself into his nervous system and soul. In the center of its palm, a small orb of intensely bright white light ignited, sending waves of power through the new limb.
The arm began to regenerate him, but its influence was selective and perverse. A raw, demonic energy pulsed from the white orb, knitting flesh and bone. His lost left leg regrew, sinew and muscle stretching and forming over a new skeleton, but the process was agonizingly slow. His left foot, however, remained incomplete, the toes missing, a permanent reminder of his torture. His right arm and the toes on his left foot did not return at all, as if the demonic arm that now shared his body had deemed them unworthy of restoration. His heavily disfigured face, a green and black ruin from the burns and beatings, also remained untouched, a canvas of his suffering.
He stumbled to his feet, now taller, his frame still beyond skinny even with the arm's power, standing at 5'10". As he steadied himself against a wall, his fingers brushed against a cool metal chain around his neck—a necklace he hadn't had before. Nearby, a treasure chest made of interwoven gold and silver lay open, its contents now adorning him. Massive dread filled him because of the arm now attached to him. "No, no, no, no, no! I have to get this off me! Focus! What can I do?" he panicked.
He peered inside the treasure chest again. There, resting on a bed of faded crimson velvet, lay a sword of breathtaking beauty. It was a katana, but one forged from the heart of a frozen star. The blade was made of a translucent, clear-to-white crystal, appearing almost entirely transparent. A swirling, light blue energy, like captured mist, pulsed within it, hugging the razor-sharp edges. Near the base, faint wisps of a deep, almost blood-red energy mingled with the blue, creating a mesmerizing, deadly aurora. The hilt was wrapped in a light gray fabric, its traditional diamond pattern a stark, functional beauty against the blade's ethereal glow. The guard and pommel were a dull, antique silver, their simple, flat design serving only to accentuate the sheer, overwhelming power of the blade itself. It was the Icy Elemental Blade, and it hummed with a latent energy that called to the newfound cold within him.
He picked up the sword and cut the arm off, thinking he was free from the demonic influence. He felt a tiny drop of happiness until the arm reattached itself from the ground, regenerating on his left stubbed arm in an instant. He cried out in shock, terrified. Having no other alternative, he cut the arm off again, reigniting the agonizing trauma his mind, body, and soul had just undergone sixty days ago. The arm stayed on the ground this time. He walked to the exit of the lair, and the arm silently reappeared on his stubbed shoulder. He let out an irritating groan of frustration. "Are you serious? How long and deep is this cave?"
He stepped out of the lair, his new arm feeling both alien and a part of him. The cave was not empty as he'd first thought. The ground was littered with skeletons and desiccated corpses, all human. Some were clad in the tattered remains of hunter gear, others in the simple clothes of commoners. A horrid realization washed over Sephorae: this was not a demon's lair, but a graveyard. This place, with its demonic arm and mystical sword, was a trap, a lure that had claimed countless lives before his. He was just the latest fool to stumble into it.
He traveled deeper into the cave, the only sounds the drip of water and the scrape of his own feet. There were no demons, no monsters, only the silent, accusing stares of the dead. He used his demonic arm to climb, its claws digging into the rock face, pulling him up the sheer, vertical walls. The journey was grueling, a test of will and endurance that pushed him to his limits. The cave was a 10,000-mile-deep chasm, a wound in the earth that seemed to have no bottom. As he climbed, he constantly feared losing his life—one little mistake and his life was over. Then he thought to himself, "Wait a minute, I still have the full body shield, capable of withstanding extremely powerful Ascendants S-rank and below."
When he finally emerged from the cave, blinking in the harsh sunlight, he was a changed man. He would go to the academy as soon as he got himself a mask, but first he had to get out of the middle of nowhere. "There is no civilization for 1,000 miles! This is going to take me thirteen days just to find a shred of civilization and food!" he thought. He started walking towards the horizon, his steps slow but purposeful, and somehow he found a white hooded cloak. He was no longer a malignant bully—that was literally beaten out of him—but he was now a boy who had been cast out, without true purpose and no real reason to live.