Tyrese found himself in another realm.
It was dark, utterly, impossibly so. The darkness was not merely the absence of light; it was thick, almost tangible, pressing against his eyes until sight itself became meaningless. He stood still, waiting for something to change, for the void to react, for anything at all to happen.
Nothing did.
The darkness suffocated him, yet he endured. If this was the trial he had to face to return to the living world, then he would face it. He would endure. He would succeed.
So, he waited.
Time lost all meaning. He could not tell whether an hour had passed, or a day, or something far worse. Still, he remained standing. Still, he held on. But the uncertainty gnawed at him, the not knowing how long he must endure, or whether endurance even mattered.
Desperate for focus, Tyrese tried to gather his Will.
Nothing answered.
He could not enter his mental place. His grimoire was gone. His stylus, gone. Worse still, he could not even feel his willpower. There was no spiral of energy within his heart. No spark. No warmth.
He was nothing more than an ordinary human.
As time dragged on, his thoughts began to unravel. With nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no sense of passage, the darkness slowly gnawed at his sanity. It ate at him, piece by piece, until panic set in.
He struck at the void, fists swinging wildly. He screamed until his throat burned. Anything, anything, to feel real, to feel alive.
Pain brought clarity.
With shaking hands, he broke one of his fingers. The agony grounded him, snapped his thoughts into focus, but only briefly. When the clarity faded, he broke another. Then another.
One by one, he shattered every finger.
Still, nothing changed.
Desperation consumed him. He cried until his voice broke. He screamed until no sound remained. Eventually, even his tears dried, leaving only hollow exhaustion behind.
At last, he resolved himself.
If there was no escape… then he would end it.
Yet even that mercy was denied to him. With broken fingers, he tried to strangle himself, forcing his hands around his own throat, fighting every instinct screaming for survival. But the body has limits. Strength faded. His grip weakened.
Death did not come.
The sight was pitiful, a young man, broken and sobbing, trying and failing to kill himself in a world that refused to let him die.
There was nothing left to try.
No fingers. No tears. No hope.
And then, something changed.
The despair twisted, rotted, and transformed into something far more violent.
Anger.
Rage at the creature that had cast him here. Rage at the old man who had condemned him. Rage at the sanctuary. Rage at himself, for ever seeking answers.
The fury swelled beyond containment.
It erupted.
Crimson light ignited within him, violent and raw, engulfing his body like living flame. His being burned with wrath, but even then, the void remained unchanged.
Driven mad by futility, he forced that crimson essence to obey him. It resisted at first, wild and unshaped, but his rage crushed it into submission. Losing himself completely, he turned it inward, solidifying it, and drove it through his own throat.
Blackness claimed him.
After an unknowable span of time, Tyrese's body stirred within the void.
His throat healed. His fingers reformed. Every wound closed as though it had never been.
Life returned.
He awoke gasping, dragging air into his lungs as if he had been deprived of it for an eternity. His mind was clear. Horrifyingly so. He remembered everything, every act of madness, every moment of despair.
So why… why was he still here?
He reached for the crimson essence.
It was gone.
Despair crashed over him like a tidal wave. He wept. And then, once more, he broke his fingers. Once more, loneliness swallowed him. Once more, despair gave way to rage.
The crimson essence returned.
Death followed.
And then rebirth.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The cycle repeated until pain lost its meaning. Until death became routine. Until anger no longer consumed him, but answered him.
He learned to control it.
The crimson essence obeyed his will now, shaped and honed by endless repetition. He named it the Essence of Death. He could wield it. Mold it. Command it.
Yet despite all that, he remained trapped, alone.
---
In the lightless realm, a young boy with white-grey curls floated in stillness, suspended within the void, deep in meditation.
Tyrese commanded the Essence of Death.
At his will, the crimson force turned inward, flowing through every cell of his body. It passed through flesh and bone alike, purging weakness, reforging him, again and again. His body was renewed, strengthened, hardened beyond what it once was. He had repeated this process countless times.
Eventually, he stopped.
His eyes opened, clear and sharp, yet something unfathomable lay hidden within them. An immeasurable rage. A boundless madness. All of it restrained, caged, mastered.
Crimson essence coiled around his hand as he reached outward and grasped the void itself, fingers closing as if around solid stone. It resisted him, as it always had. This was not his first attempt.
But it would be his last.
His second hand joined the first. His eyes ignited, blazing until the white was consumed by crimson light. Muscles strained. Essence surged. With a roar born of madness and will, Tyrese tore.
The void ruptured.
Reality split open, forming a jagged breach that fought to seal itself shut. Tyrese would not allow it. The Essence of Death surged forward, wrapping around the edges of the tear, anchoring it in place, forcing it opens through sheer domination.
He exhaled.
Then stepped through.
In the Realm of Hell, Adro waited.
He had not moved since the moment the boy had fallen unconscious. More than a thousand years had passed for him in the realm of the Trial, yet in the living world, barely a heartbeat had gone by.
Adro felt the change before he saw it.
A smile crept across his ancient face.
Tyrese's body stirred. Then his eyes opened.
They were calm, too calm. Like those of a sage who had lived far beyond his allotted years. Yet if one looked closely, a faint crimson light flickered within them, alive and watchful.
"How much time has passed?" Tyrese asked. His voice was steady, stripped of all boyish hesitation.
"For you, more than a thousand years," Adro replied.
Tyrese did not react. He only nodded.
"And in the living world?"
"No more than a week."
Another nod.
"I have to leave," Tyrese said. "Someone I know will be worried. But I will return, for answers."
"I will be here," Adro replied calmly, "as I have been for the last several million years."
Tyrese nodded once more.
Crimson essence erupted from his body. He clenched his fist and struck the air, as though instinct alone guided him. Reality fractured at the point of impact, splintering like shattered glass. Fragments of space drifted weightlessly, mirroring the phenomenon that had drawn him here in the first place.
Without hesitation, Tyrese stepped through.
___
He emerged beneath the Lost Sanctuary, the fissure sealing behind him as though it had never existed.
Tyrese stood once more upon Orion.
The living world.
And it would never be the same again.
In Meadow's Edge district, within a house far more beautiful than most in the middle quarters, a young girl sat in meditation.
She looked no older than sixteen.
Despite her still posture, a faint frown marred her expression. Her concentration wavered, her visualization collapsing again, for the sixth time since she had begun. With a quiet sigh, she opened her eyes.
Maha.
It had been a week since Tyrese disappeared.
He stopped coming to the church for training, she thought. And he wasn't home when I went to see him…
Worry weighed heavily on her chest. She had tried to ignore it at first, after all, this wasn't the first time Tyrese had vanished without warning. He always returned. He always did.
But this time felt different.
She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of her parents calling her name.
"Maha," her mother said from downstairs, her voice carrying a note of surprise. "Tyrese is here."
Her heart skipped.
She rose so quickly her chair nearly toppled as she rushed toward the door. From the hallway, she saw her mother speaking with a familiar figure, a young boy standing politely, his posture composed.
She had told her parents about Tyrese's disappearance. They had reassured her, gently reminding her that he had done this before, that he always came back safe and unharmed.
Only Maha knew about his strange visions since training had begun.
And she couldn't tell them.
When her eyes met his, her breath caught.
It was Tyrese. The same face. The same presence. Yet something was unmistakably different. His eyes, once lively, once warm, now seemed to hide depths she could not see into. Emotions lay buried there, layered and restrained.
"Hey, Maha."
His voice snapped her from her daze.
Her mother smiled and excused herself, leaving the two of them alone.
"What happened to you?" Maha asked softly. Even with him standing right in front of her, worry refused to loosen its grip. Something was wrong, she felt it in her bones.
"I just needed some time alone," Tyrese replied. "I'm sorry."
The words were familiar, but the tone wasn't. The easy cheer he always carried when speaking to her was gone, replaced by a calm that felt… distant.
No matter what she asked, he insisted he was fine. He apologized again for worrying her. Promised he would return to training the next day.
And then he left.
Maha stood in the doorway, watching his back as he walked away. Her gaze lingered, filled with emotions she could not name, unease, relief, fear.
And the quiet certainty that the boy she knew had returned…
but not unchanged.
The next day was Highsun, the second day of the week on Orion. It was the twelfth day of Emberleaf, the second month, in the 1465th Cycle of Durnas and Veyra.
Tyrese sat in meditation upon his bed. To an untrained eye, he appeared still, but a closer look would reveal that his body was slowly levitating, suspended just above the sheets, unmoving and serene.
Within his mental place, everything had changed.
The endless spatial darkness that once stretched above was gone, replaced by a vast sky tinged with deep crimson. A colossal red moon loomed overhead, its presence heavy and watchful. Below it stood the sanctuary, now fully formed, yet no longer a faithful reflection of the one in the real world.
Tyrese had given it a name.
Broken Heaven.
It was no longer merely a sanctuary, but a sprawling structure of stone and shadow, more castle than temple. Countless chambers branched outward, most of them still empty, waiting. At its heart lay a vast throne hall.
There, a single throne dominated the space.
Forged entirely of black stone, it bore an uncanny resemblance to the throne of King of Deon.
Upon it sat Tyrese.
His eyes were closed, his posture composed. Before him, the crimson aura of Death drifted and pulsed, unstable yet obedient. It twisted and reshaped itself continuously, transforming into shifting sigils, each one dissolving and reforming within seconds, as though testing the limits of form and meaning.
Broken Heaven stood silent.
And its king was learning how to rule.
His eyes fluttered open as he lay on his bed. It was still early, 7:30 in the morning. Training wouldn't begin until ten.
Tyrese rose and went through his routine in silence. Push-ups. Sit-ups. A quick bath. A simple breakfast eaten without haste. Every movement was precise, controlled. His demeanour was calm, too calm. Yet from time to time, a faint tremor passed through his gaze, a flicker of crimson light surfacing briefly before vanishing, as though something vast were being held tightly beneath the surface.
Tyrese's mind rested in a fragile equilibrium, balanced between sanity and madness. Though he had learned death, he was far from mastering it. Death carried with it one of the Primordial emotions, anger, and even now, it pressed constantly against his restraint. Every moment was a quiet struggle not to lose himself.
He arrived at the church just before nine.
Sir Arras was already there, as always, standing at the front of the training hall while awaiting the arrival of the other trainees. The moment his eyes fell upon Tyrese, something within him stirred. He felt it immediately; the boy was different. Fundamentally so. Yet no matter how he searched, he could not identify what was wrong.
"Good morning, Sir," Tyrese said. "I apologize for missing training this past week. I needed time to attend to… personal matters."
Sir Arras studied him in silence for several seconds.
"It's alright," he finally replied. "Tyrese, correct? Go and take a seat. Your peers should arrive shortly. There is nothing you won't be able to catch up on. We've only begun crafting the first sigils and some basic combat training, according to the paths each of you has chosen."
Tyrese nodded and moved away.
Sir Arras watched him go, unease settling quietly in his chest,
because whatever had changed in the boy, it was not something taught through training.