"No! Don't—!"
Ruhan bolted upright, the scream tearing raw from his throat. His lungs heaved, dragging in the damp, stale air of the storeroom.
He stared wildly into the pitch-black corners, his violet eyes wide, half-expecting a blood-drenched executioner to step out of the shadows.
Seconds ticked by. The erratic hammering in his chest began to slow.
He was alive. His limbs were intact. This wasn't a slaughterhouse. It was just his room—a discarded shed on the absolute edge of the Ahmed Estate.
But the phantom sensation of the dream... the bone-chilling terror right before the axe fell... clung to his skin like frost.
"Just a nightmare," Ruhan choked out, wiping cold sweat from his forehead.
He hadn't performed the evening rites for the Longing Goddess. His mother had always warned him that skipping prayers left the mind vulnerable to roaming evil spirits. Perhaps this was his punishment.
His throat felt like sandpaper. Trembling, he reached for the steel water jug on the rickety bedside table. His fingers were numb, his coordination shattered.
CLANG!
The jug tipped, crashing onto the stone floor. Water spilled out in a wide, dark pool.
Through the rusted window grill, the sinister crimson light of the Bloodmoon poured in, catching the puddle. Under the red glow, it didn't look like water.
It looked exactly like the spreading pool of his own blood.
Ruhan scrambled backward, his spine hitting the cold, damp wall. His chest tightened. The air grew impossibly thin.
He dug his fingernails into his palms, letting the sharp, physical pain ground him.
You're here. You're alive. Breathe.
He dragged himself up and turned his back to the window. The grand Ahmed Royal Palace loomed in the distance, a sleeping titan. And here he was, the supposed heir, exiled to a dusty shed.
On his table lay the physical proof of his exile: his Academy Result Card.
Right in the center, slashed in unforgiving red ink, was a single letter. 'F'.
The Theoretical exam had ended days ago, and it had been a massacre. It wasn't a lack of studying. But the moment he sat in the exam hall, a thick, suffocating fog had rolled over his thoughts.
The deeper he tried to concentrate, the more his skull felt like it was splitting open, until his memories simply dissolved into nothing.
Today was the fifth day of the Bloodmoon. Time was a luxury he no longer possessed. In five days, the Physical exam would begin. Ten days after that came the final judgment—the Sentira exam.
Ruhan clenched his fist, staring at his own palm. He waited for a spark. A current. A pulse of Prana.
Nothing answered.
He had seen it before. He had seen Akira's hand crackle with compressed wind, and Linara's breath turn sharp enough to cut leaves.
And him? Just empty, dead flesh.
"Ten percent..." he whispered. "Not even enough to be called alive."
The mocking voice of the Academy instructor echoed in his ears.
"Still stuck at ten?" The instructor hadn't even tried to hide his disgust. "Come back when you cross twenty, boy. Until then, you're just wasting space in my class."
Without crossing that twenty-percent barrier, his Soul Realm would remain sealed. No Prana. No Spirits. Just a walking corpse in a world of gods.
Even the other clan heirs laughed at him, calling him a crawling worm. But their taunts meant nothing compared to the cold disdain of his own family.
"You're not living up to the name you carry," the Headmaster had told him last week, staring down his nose. "And everyone can see it."
His parents were returning tonight. What would happen when his father saw that 'F'? Would they strip his name entirely? Throw him into the streets?
He didn't think about glory. He didn't think about pride.
Right now, he just didn't want to end up back on that muddy ground from his nightmares... bleeding.
He had failed the Theory. He was useless for the Sentira. But there was still the Physical Exam. Raw muscle, endurance, and steel. No magic allowed.
Ruhan knelt on the dusty floor. Reaching deep beneath his bed, he dragged out a heavy bundle wrapped in tattered rags.
He unwrapped it, revealing a sword.
It was a pathetic sight. Caked in dark, crusty rust, the blade was blunt and cracked. It looked like it belonged in a scrapyard.
His thumb brushed the base of the hilt. Carved into the metal was a strange, geometric design—a perfectly bisected circle, like a crescent or a half-sun.
"It's not junk, my boy..."
His Grandmother's raspy, fading voice echoed in his memory. "True strength does not live beneath shining armor. The day you are ready, even this rust will cut through the heavens."
Ruhan stared at the jagged edge and almost laughed.
A legendary weapon?
Three years. He had swung this thing for three years, and it hadn't even cut a bamboo stalk. It was just a heavy, blunt slab of rusted iron.
Maybe she had just been lying. Maybe a dying woman was just trying to give a worthless, broken boy something to believe in.
Yet, it was the only thing he had left.
He gripped the hilt tightly. The sharp edge of the half-circle carving dug into his palm, the physical pain keeping him awake.
The crimson light of the Bloodmoon fell across the rusted steel. For a fleeting second, the rust seemed to catch the light, looking like dried blood waiting to flow again.
"Five days..." Ruhan muttered to the empty room.
If he failed again, they wouldn't just take his name. This time, they would erase him completely.
He tightened his grip on the rusted hilt, his knuckles turning white.
"I don't need to win," he whispered, his voice cold and hollow. "I just need to survive."
He carefully wrapped the heavy sword and slid it back into the dark beneath his bed.
When he closed his eyes, the darkness swallowed him again. But the paralyzing panic was gone, replaced by a grim, desperate resolve.