"I'll spin the dice and let the world decide what I am."
The stone walls pressed coldly against their bodies as Leornars and the two remaining demi-humans crawled through the shadowy, narrow crevices of the castle foundations. The oppressive scent of damp mold and stagnant war hung thick in the air, catching in their throats. Up ahead, the muffled murmur of voices and the distinctive clinking of chainmail betrayed a cluster of royal guards stationed in wait.
Leornars narrowed his eyes, the faint crimson gleam within them entirely devoid of warmth. He didn't hesitate. He didn't stop moving.
### **In the Audience Chamber**
"My king... the mages we dispatched to bind him... all have perished," the bishop reported gravely, his knees pressed firmly against the stone at the foot of the royal throne.
King Derldragade leaned forward, his weathered face tightening into a mask of tension. "Perished? The entire vanguard of high mages? How?"
The bishop took a ragged breath, the color completely drained from his face. "The survivors reported... a severe disturbance within the boy's mind before their link was severed. They said it was a psychological abyss completely beyond redemption. His mind, Your Majesty—it was already utterly broken long before we ever initiated the summoning ritual."
"Broken? Explain yourself!" the king demanded, slamming a fist onto his armrest.
The bishop hesitated, swallowing hard. "When the mages attempted to invade his consciousness to plant the obedience curse, they saw fragments of his past... horrors. Daily, systematic dismemberment. His limbs and internal organs were ripped apart and meticulously restored through advanced means—twice a day, consecutively, for nine straight years. He was forced to witness his own mother's public execution... over half a billion times in a simulated loop. He starved for years on end, surviving solely by hunting rats and insects in absolute isolation."
A wave of horrified gasps rippled through the grand chamber. The First Princess, Selrose, turned a deathly pale, her manicured hands trembling violently against her gown.
"The faction that held him in his original world planned to utilize him as a mindless puppet soldier as well," the bishop continued, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "But... he broke. He slaughtered over eight thousand people on the very night he was summoned into our realm."
The king shot upright from his golden throne, his eyes wide. "Eight thousand?!"
"Yes, sire," the bishop replied grimly. "And at that time, he possessed absolutely zero knowledge of this world's magic or mana mechanics. But now... he has begun to learn. I reviewed the slain clergymen's residual data logs—in a matter of hours, he has already unlocked Level 2 proficiency across Elemental Magic, Sorcery, and even Dark Magic."
The king's face flushed a violent, furious red. "If he assimilates any more of our world's laws, we are doomed!"
"It gets worse, Your Majesty," the bishop added, his voice trembling. "Based on the spectral residue left in the evaluation crystal... there is an incredibly high likelihood that his innate affinity leans toward the forbidden art. He is likely a Necromancer."
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the chamber. The word hung in the air like a death sentence.
The king finally sank back into his throne, his voice a hollow murmur. "So... he truly is the one. The dark protector the subhumans have been praying for across the ages."
"A high-level Necromancer can turn the tides of an entire continental war single-handedly," the bishop warned, his eyes gleaming with a desperate malice. "He could reanimate our own fallen battalions and force them to turn their blades back upon us. But imagine... imagine if we manage to forcibly place that power under our control. Our victory over the outer territories would be absolute—"
*BANG!*
The heavy, reinforced doors of the Audience Chamber burst open.
An elderly woman stepped slowly into the room, leaning her weight onto a gnarled wooden staff. She was wrapped in a simple, unadorned cloth robe, her hair veiled by a faded cloth, her spine slightly hunched under the weight of decades. Yet, the moment she stepped across the threshold, her presence was so undeniable that the entire room seemed to shrink.
"Lady Saphela!" Princess Selrose gasped, a rare look of genuine delight breaking through her pale terror.
"Selrose, dear. You look well," the oracle offered, her voice gentle as a grandmother's, a soft smile gracing her wrinkled face. "As for me... I am simply getting older."
The king frowned, his irritation flaring. "What business does the oracle have in a military council?"
"I have seen the boy," she said, her voice instantly shifting from gentle to razor-sharp, echoing off the high ceilings. "And I find that you fools have locked him up in the dirt."
"This is a state matter! It has absolutely nothing to do with you, old woman!" the bishop snapped, stepping forward aggressively.
*WHACK!*
Saphela pivoted with terrifying speed, her wooden staff coming down hard across the bishop's skull. The man groaned, stumbling backward as he clutched his head.
"Watch your arrogant tongue, child," she warned, her eyes flashing with ancient power. "You forget exactly who you are speaking to."
She turned her gaze back to the king, her expression hardening. "Do you truly comprehend what you have done, Derldragade? Do you realize how many millions have prayed—how many generations have waited—for his return? I have dedicated my entire century-long life just for a single breath of a chance to see his arrival, and now I discover you have imprisoned him like a feral beast? Are you all completely devoid of intellect?"
"Calm yourself, Lady Saphela," the king said, his voice unusually guarded, choosing his words with immense care.
"Calm myself?" she repeated, her voice rising to a crescendo that commanded the room. "You utterly fail to grasp the cosmic storm you have invited to your doorstep. Alvalihm, Seraphim, Kurtov, Seratimn—even the Great Empire of Avrtl—every single one of them will mobilize and turn their blades upon this kingdom the exact moment word gets out. He is the living symbol of ultimate hope for demi-humans and demons alike. If they learn he has been desecrated as a prisoner here, our kingdom will fall to ash—and that is no prophecy, Your Majesty. That is an absolute fact."
"I will not sit here and be lectured about the rights of demons and subhumans!" the king growled, his pride flaring as he bared his teeth. "They were born to be our cattle. Our slaves. Nothing more."
The oracle's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
"You will eat those very words, little king. The dice has already been cast, and it is rolling. Pray it doesn't roll over your corpse."
Without waiting for a dismissal, she turned on her heel and began her slow march out, pausing only to offer a brief, soft smile back toward the balcony. "Come by my gardens for tea later, Selrose."
The massive doors closed heavily behind her.
"Bothersome old hag," the king muttered, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.
"Is she... truly over a hundred years old?" the bishop asked, rubbing his bruised head in disbelief.
The king nodded grimly. "My great-grandfather's personal journals stated she was already eighteen when he was still a mere teenager." He stood up, his royal, gold-trimmed robe trailing behind him as his eyes turned cold. "Deploy the elite units. Bring the boy back alive. I do not care how many knights die in the process—he *will* be our puppet soldier."
### **In the Auxiliary Halls**
A panicked knight burst into the war room, his breaths coming in ragged gasps.
"Sire! We have successfully apprehended one of the subhuman conspirators who assisted the silver-haired boy's escape from the lower cells!"
The king didn't even look up, his voice dripping with casual cruelty. "Kill him. Do it slowly. Ensure he screams loudly enough for the entire sector to hear before he finally dies."
### **Within the Outer Slums**
Leornars and the two demi-humans managed to find a temporary breach out of the primary castle grounds, thanks to the cat-boy's desperate earth magic. They emerged through a crudely reshaped stone wall, ducking into the skeletal frame of a collapsing, abandoned structure.
Moments later—*thwick, thwick, thwick*—a relentless rain of iron-tipped arrows hissed down from the ramparts above.
The elf girl threw herself in front of them, raising her small hands toward the sky. "Wind Magic: **[Spiral Gale]**!" she shrieked.
A localized current of pressurized air whipped up around them, forcefully redirecting the lethal volley into the surrounding dirt. She sank to her knees, panting heavily, sweat pouring down her face.
"My wind magic... it's only Level 3," she wheezed, her small frame trembling from the mana depletion. "I... I still need more practice."
Suddenly, a series of thunderous magic artillery explosions echoed from the main streets. The foundations of the decaying building beneath them groaned violently.
"What was that?!" Leux asked, his feline ears pinning flat against his head as he spun around.
*CRACK—*
The massive stone retaining wall directly behind them fractured, beginning its fatal descent. Shuelt turned back, realizing in an instant that the debris would crush them all.
"Risk your life too... for him," she whispered to Leux, a sad, resolute smile crossing her face as she channeled the absolute last of her mana into a kinetic burst spell, physically throwing Leornars and Leux clear of the impact zone.
*CRASH!*
The structural wall imploded, burying her small form entirely beneath tons of jagged rock and choking dust.
"SHUELT!!!" the cat-boy screamed, pure agony ripping through his throat as tears streamed down his dirt-streaked cheeks. He clawed desperately at the heavy rocks.
Leornars merely stood a few paces away, staring blankly at the wreckage. There was no emotion in his eyes. No sorrow. No human compassion. To him, it was simply data. A variable removed from the equation.
"We... we need to go! Please, Leornars! I need you to live!" Leux pleaded, grabbing the back of Leornars' tattered shirt, pulling him away from the approaching lights of the vanguard.
*'We, we, we'... What is this sentimental nonsense?* Leornars thought coldly, allowing himself to be led.
They fled deeper into the shadows, dodging collapsing structures and sprinting blindly into the foul, labyrinthine underbelly of the royal capital.
### **In the Sewers**
The air in the subterranean tunnels was foul, thick with the stench of waste and decay. Their breaths came in shallow, echoing gasps as the heavy, rhythmic footsteps of patrolling knights echoed through the grates above their heads.
Leornars walked in silence before randomly reaching over, curiously tugging at the cat-boy's twitching tail.
"H-Hey! Don't touch that! It's super sensitive!" Leux squeaked, his ears flaring crimson as he jumped forward, swatting Leornars' hand away.
"Huh. So they really are real biological appendages," Leornars mused aloud, his voice flat.
"Crov and Shuelt... they were truly good people," Leux said quietly, his voice cracking as he stared down at the murky water swirling around their boots. "Shuelt was only fourteen... and Crov was fifteen. They died believing in you."
"And you?" Leornars asked, his eyes locked forward.
"I'm thirteen!" the boy said, puffing out his chest with a fragile, defiant pride.
"Good for you, then."
Leux rummaged around in his small, waterlogged canvas satchel and pulled out a slightly crushed minced meat sandwich. He broke it in half, holding the larger piece out with a warm, genuine smile. "Here. You must be starving."
"Thanks," Leornars said dryly, inspecting the grime-covered food before taking a bite.
It was entirely tasteless. His palate, ruined by years of ash and iron, registered nothing.
Still, he ate every single crumb.
They talked through the remainder of the bleak day—or rather, Leux did the vast majority of the talking. The young beastfolk spoke of the horrors of the kingdom's slave trade, his arduous journey to the capital, and his simple, burning dream of a world where his people could see the sun without chains.
Leornars listened in absolute silence, absorbing every word, every nuance of this world's social structure. Deep within his consciousness, the theoretical knowledge of magic from the clergyman's books began to seamlessly click into place, aligning with his pulsing mana core.
The next day arrived with the dim light filtering through the sewer grates.
"Let's go! The border is just past the outer district!" Leux said, reaching out to grasp Leornars' hand with newfound hope.
But a sudden roar of flames lit up the tunnel ahead. Before they could pivot, a wall of heavily armored royal guards surrounded them from both ends of the narrow walkway, their spears leveled.
"There's... there's no escape," Leux whispered, his body trembling as he stepped in front of the older boy.
Leornars calmly stepped forward, passing the child. He drew his stolen dagger—and lunged.
A clean, violent slash opened a guard's throat. Another precise twist of his wrist, and a second soldier collapsed, blood spilling into the waste water.
Then—*shhk.*
A warm, wet splatter of blood hit Leornars' cheek.
He slowly turned his head.
A massive iron spear had impaled Leux cleanly from behind, the jagged tip bursting violently through the center of his stomach. A torrent of deep crimson blood poured from the young cat-boy's mouth, staining his tattered tunic.
Yet, as Leux looked up into Leornars' face, his trembling lips pulled upward into a final, bittersweet smile.
With the absolute last ounce of his fading life force, Leux slammed both of his palms flat against the stone floor, channeling every drop of his remaining soul into a final earth spell.
The entire structural ceiling of the sewer line collapsed violently inward. Thousands of pounds of solid rock came crashing down, entirely crushing the royal guards and burying them all in a tomb of solid stone.
All except for one.
Leornars stood completely untouched amidst the cloud of debris and falling dust, a localized void of mana protecting his form.
Slowly, his silver hair drifted in the underground wind. Both of his eyes began to glow—no longer just the left—igniting into two terrifying, brilliant orbs of pure, unadulterated crimson hate.
His internal mana surged, shattering the ambient atmospheric pressure.
And then—Leornars completely snapped.
He tore through the remaining sewer blockades like a mythical beast unleashed from the underworld. Reaching the surface streets of the upper district, he became a whirlwind of carnage. He burned royal guards alive with bursts of raw elemental fire, his bare hands ripping through steel armor and solid bone, his deep-seated, systemic rage fueling a torrent of catastrophic magic.
Violent, unnatural flames consumed the evening sky, painting the capital in the colors of a funeral pyre as Leornars finally neared the towering, pristine white walls of the royal castle.
He began to climb. Using his bare, blood-slicked hands, he scaled the sheer, forty-foot vertical stone facade of the palace, his crimson-drenched body ascending like a demon climbing out of the pit of hell, straight toward the grand balcony of the First Princess's private chambers.
Princess Selrose took a frantic step backward into her room, her eyes widening to the size of saucers.
The boy's silver hair was completely matted and stained a horrific, deep red. His eyes were no longer human—just two burning orbs of endless, calculated wrath.
He stepped over the threshold, the dagger in his hand dripping onto her polished marble floor.
"This is all your fault," Leornars whispered, his voice a low, terrifying vibration.
"Huh—?" Selrose gasped, her breath catching as her knees buckled.
"DIE."