The Imperial Academy.Subterranean Level 4 - Advanced Martial Arts Gymnasium.02:30 PM.
The descent into the depths of the Imperial Academy felt like a journey into a different world entirely. The opulent, sunlit marble corridors and gilded statues of the upper floors gave way to reinforced, mana-absorbing bedrock, dimly lit by flickering, industrial-grade luminescent crystals set into iron sconces.
"Here we are," Amanda announced, her voice echoing flatly against the dense stone.
She led Rudeus to a massive, circular set of blast doors made of enchanted tungsten. She didn't use a key. She simply pressed her gloved palm against a rune-carved panel in the center of the door. The runes flared with a brief, slate-grey light recognizing her unique mana signature as an elite operative, and the heavy doors slowly ground open with the sound of shifting tectonic plates.
Rudeus stepped through the threshold, his crimson eyes immediately scanning the environment.
It was indeed the gymnasium he had desperately wanted to access. It was a cavernous, sprawling arena easily the size of three standard football fields. The floor was padded with a highly advanced, shock-absorbing alchemical material designed to withstand catastrophic impacts. Along the far walls stood rows of deactivated, heavily armored mana-golems used for live-fire combat training. Racks of practice weapons—wooden swords, blunted spears, weighted gauntlets—lined the perimeter.
But the most striking, immediately obvious feature of the colossal room was its absolute emptiness.
There were no senior Knight Commander students grunting through heavy gravity drills. There were no instructors barking orders. The air was stale, cold, and entirely silent.
Rudeus stopped a few paces inside the door, frowning as he looked at a large, arcane clock ticking quietly above the entrance. It was exactly 2:30 in the afternoon.
"Why are we here right now?" Rudeus asked, his voice cautious, his tactical instincts instantly raising a dozen red flags. "I mean, I know you didn't tell me exactly where we were going after we left the Princess's antechamber, and I didn't ask because I assumed we were going to a secure location to finalize the blackmail logistics. But... why bring me here in the middle of the day? Also, where are all the people? This facility is supposed to be booked solid by the third-year combat majors until evening curfew."
Amanda didn't answer his question immediately. She walked to the center of the vast, empty training mat. She turned her back to him, her posture perfectly relaxed, almost dangerously casual.
Without a word of warning, she reached beneath the pristine folds of her black and white maid's apron.
She didn't draw a wooden practice sword. She unsheathed one of her actual, live-steel combat blades—a wickedly curved, perfectly balanced trench knife designed exclusively for severing arteries and punching through heavy armor.
She casually tossed it over her shoulder.
-CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The lethal weapon hit the shock-absorbing mat, bouncing and skidding across the floor until it came to a dead stop exactly three feet in front of Rudeus's polished riding boots.
Rudeus stared down at the gleaming, razor-sharp steel. He slowly raised his head, his crimson eyes narrowing as he looked at the Head Maid standing twenty paces away.
He realized exactly what she wanted.
'Don't tell me... she's actually going to do what I think she's going to do?!' Rudeus thought, his heart rate beginning to spike.
Amanda slowly turned around to face him. Her slate-grey eyes were devoid of any maternal warmth or servant's deference. They were the eyes of the Deathstalker.
"Pick that up," Amanda commanded softly. The absolute lack of volume in her voice made the order infinitely more terrifying. "Let's have some cardio, Young Master."
Rudeus swallowed the sudden, dry lump in his throat.
"Wha-what do you mean, cardio?!" Rudeus stammered, genuinely taken aback.
He slowly bent down, his fingers wrapping around the leather-wrapped hilt of the trench knife. His hand was visibly trembling. It wasn't because of the weakness of his malnourished fifteen-year-old body, though that certainly didn't help.
He was trembling because of the suffocating, oceanic wave of pure, unadulterated killing intent that Amanda had just unleashed. It filled the cavernous room, pressing against his skin like physical weights, making it incredibly difficult to draw breath. She wasn't treating this as a sparring match with a spoiled noble. She was treating this as an execution.
Amanda reached beneath her apron again, smoothly drawing a matching, twin trench knife. She held it in a reverse, tactical grip.
She pointed the tip of the dark blade directly at Rudeus's chest.
"Who are you?" Amanda asked.
The question wasn't philosophical. It was an interrogation.
Rudeus's eyes widened. He stayed crouched for a fraction of a second, still gripping the blade he had just picked up. He didn't answer immediately. He slowly stood up, shifting his weight, holding the heavy blade in his left hand—his dominant fighting hand from his past life.
He knew exactly what had happened. He had been too competent. He had spoken with too much authority, shown too little fear, and demonstrated reflexes in her antechamber that a supposedly lazy, crippled 'Defect' should never possess. Amanda, being one of the highest-ranking intelligence officers and assassins in the Empire, had easily deduced the impossibility of the situation. She had figured out that the entity currently inhabiting the body of Rudeus Blackfyre was not the original, pathetic owner.
Amanda sighed, a cold, disappointed sound that echoed in the silent gym.
"I see," Amanda murmured, her eyes narrowing into lethal slits. "If you refuse to answer me with words... then I will forcefully carve that answer out of your flesh!"
Amanda disappeared.
It was the exact same high-tier Night Raven technique she had used in the antechamber. [Shadow Step].
For the second time that day, Rudeus's veteran instincts screamed at him to move. He tightened his grip on the unfamiliar blade, his mind racing through tactical possibilities at lightspeed.
Amanda disappearing meant one of two things in standard assassin CQC (Close Quarters Combat). Either she was going to appear directly behind his blind spot to sever his spinal cord, or she was going to appear abo—
'ABOVE!' Rudeus's mind screamed, his spatial awareness suddenly pinging a massive shift in air pressure directly over his head.
Rudeus didn't look up. Looking up wasted precious milliseconds. He violently threw his entire body weight backward, simultaneously swinging his left arm upward in a desperate, blind parry.
-CLANG!
A shower of bright orange sparks illuminated the dim gym.
With a bone-jarring impact that nearly dislocated his shoulder, Rudeus barely managed to parry her plunging, downward thrust. Amanda had materialized in mid-air, dropping like a guillotine blade aimed directly for the crown of his skull.
The force of her strike drove Rudeus down to one knee, the shockwave rippling through his weak legs.
Before he could even attempt to counter-attack or push her back, Amanda used the kinetic recoil of the parry to kick off his blade. She flipped backward gracefully, landing lightly on her feet five yards away.
But the moment her boots touched the mat, she melted seamlessly into the dark shadow cast by one of the deactivated mana-golems.
She was gone again.
'She's utilizing the environment!' Rudeus analyzed frantically, scanning the room, his eyes darting to every shadow in the massive arena. 'She isn't just teleporting; she's swimming through the dark mana currents.'
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The threat wasn't coming from the air this time. It was coming from below.
He saw a slight, unnatural ripple in the solid shadow stretching across the floor directly beneath his feet.
Rudeus violently kicked off the ground, executing a desperate, ungraceful backward leap, throwing himself out of the darkened area.
The very instant his boots left the floor, Amanda erupted upward from the solid shadow like a breaching shark, her blade slicing a deadly upward arc through the exact space his groin and stomach had occupied a microsecond prior.
Rudeus landed awkwardly, stumbling backward as he frantically backpedaled, trying to put distance between himself and the relentless phantom. He swept his blade back and forth, parrying two more lightning-fast slashes as Amanda pressed her advantage, her movements fluid, silent, and incredibly lethal.
"You're quite nimble for a boy who has never attended a martial class, 'Young Master'," Amanda noted, her voice echoing strangely around the room as she moved. She paused her assault for a brief second, casually raising her blade and licking a bead of sweat from the flat of the steel.
"Though," Amanda continued, her eyes locking onto his heaving chest, "simply dodging my attacks won't lead you to victory. It will only serve to tire out that pathetic, malnourished vessel of yours. You have no stamina. You are already drowning."
She was right. Rudeus was already gasping for air, his lungs burning, his muscles screaming in protest at the sudden, violent exertion they were entirely unaccustomed to.
"I don't need stamina to deal with you!" Rudeus barked, trying to project a confidence he didn't physically possess.
Amanda smiled—a terrifying, predatory grin. She reappeared instantly directly in front of his face, bypassing his defensive guard completely.
She thrust her blade straight for his heart.
Rudeus didn't try to dodge. He knew he was too slow. He didn't try to parry with his knife; his arm was already numb from the previous blocks.
Instead, he relied on the brutal, pragmatic street-fighting tactics he had honed on the battlefields of Earth.
He violently twisted his torso to the right, letting her blade slide past his ribs, slicing a shallow, bleeding line through his uniform and skin. Ignoring the burning pain, he stepped into her guard.
He grabbed the lapel of her pristine uniform with his free right hand, anchoring her in place, and violently snapped his head forward, driving his forehead directly into the bridge of her nose.
-CLANG! (The sound of her blade scraping his buttons.)
-SLAM!
The sickening sound of bone impacting cartilage echoed in the gym.
Amanda stumbled backward, a genuine gasp of surprise escaping her lips. She broke his grip, putting five yards between them.
She raised her free hand, touching her nose. She pulled her fingers away and looked at them. A thin smear of bright red blood coated her pristine white glove.
She looked up at Rudeus, her eyes flashing with a mixture of anger and dangerous, thrilling intrigue. She wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her wrist.
"A headbutt?" Amanda murmured, her voice dropping an octave. "That is a remarkably dirty, unrefined move, Young Master. Or... should I say, unknown entity?"
Rudeus stood his ground, panting heavily. Blood was dripping down his own forehead where the skin had split from the impact, stinging his eyes. He tightened his white-knuckled grip on the trench knife.
The charade was over. There was no point in pretending anymore. If he wanted her true allegiance, he had to give her a truth she could respect.
"I admit it," Rudeus finally spoke, his voice hoarse but incredibly steady. "I am not the Rudeus you have watched cower in the hallways for the last five years. I am not him. Because that Rudeus... the pathetic, crying boy... is dead."
Amanda's slate-grey eyes widened slightly at the blunt, unapologetic confession. She lowered her blade a fraction of an inch, listening intently.
"But—!" Rudeus shouted, raising his own stolen blade, pointing the bloody tip directly at the master assassin.
"It fundamentally doesn't matter if I am not the original Rudeus, or if I am some amalgamation of him!"
Rudeus took a step forward, his crimson eyes burning with a dark, unyielding fire.
"What matters is that I have inherited his will! I carry his memories, his pain, and his ultimate objective!"
"What will?" Amanda asked, her tone entirely serious now. The killing intent receded slightly, replaced by genuine, professional curiosity. "What possible will could you have inherited from a boy whose only known ambition was to desperately seek the affection of a Princess who despised him?"
Rudeus clenched the hilt of his blade so tightly his knuckles turned a stark, bone-white. The suppressed rage of the boy who had been tortured for a decade boiled up inside him, mixing perfectly with the apocalyptic fury of the Vanguard Captain.
"To utterly, systematically destroy the House of Blackfyre!" Rudeus roared, the sound tearing from his throat. "And to personally sever the head of Grand Duke Raemond Blackfyre from his shoulders!"
Amanda's eyes widened to their absolute limit. The pristine facade of the Head Maid cracked entirely, revealing the shocked intelligence officer beneath.
"Is that... is that truly the original Rudeus's will?" Amanda asked, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. She had monitored the boy for years. She had seen him cry. She had seen him bullied. She had never, not once, sensed a fraction of this treasonous ambition within him.
"Yes!" Rudeus replied vehemently.
"I read his private diary after I possessed this body," Rudeus lied smoothly, blending the truth of the diary with the profound meta-knowledge he possessed from The Chronicles of Adelina. "I saw his true will. I saw the burning, festering hatred that drove him to become the most terrifying, patient manipulator within his own family. He spent his entire life meticulously manipulating everyone around him into thinking he was just a weak, pathetic defect. A crying punching bag."
Rudeus lowered his blade, taking another step closer, his voice dropping into a deadly, conspiratorial cadence.
"But the absolute truth, Amanda? The truth hidden behind the tears and the bullying?"
Rudeus stared directly into her eyes.
"The truth is that he was already pulling the political strings from the deep shadows. You are the Head of Intelligence for the Night Ravens. You monitor the court. Tell me, Deathstalker... didn't you ever try asking yourself why the First Empress's political faction has been steadily, inexplicably growing weaker over the last three years?"
Amanda froze.
Her mind, a steel trap of political data, assassination reports, and court intrigue, began to rapidly process the information. It was true. The First Empress, the most powerful and ruthless political manipulator in the Empire, had been suffering a string of bizarre, unconnected setbacks. Key financial backers had suddenly gone bankrupt. Vital, loyal vassals had been caught in scandalous, career-ending traps. Crucial supply lines to her private military forces in the East had been quietly sabotaged.
The Night Ravens had spent years trying to find the rival faction responsible for the brilliant, shadow-war dismantling of the Empress's power base. They had assumed it was a foreign intelligence agency, or perhaps a secret cabal of Archmages.
Amanda's eyes blew wide as she reached a terrifying, impossible conclusion. A conclusion that was as horrifying as it was brilliant.
"Don't tell me—!" Amanda gasped, taking a physical step backward, staring at the boy as if she were looking at a monster.
"Yes," Rudeus confirmed, delivering the revelation with cold, hard finality. "Rudeus. The original owner of this fragile body. The boy everyone spat on. He was the one who systematically made the First Empress's faction grow weak. He was the one causing her faction to lose vital support and funding each and every year."
Rudeus let out a long, heavy sigh, feeling the immense, tragic weight of the boy's unfulfilled genius. He delivered the final, crushing blow.
"Rudeus was the one who investigated them. He was the one who engineered the scandals. He was the one who slowly, methodically wiped her faction out from the bottom up, meticulously snatching her financial supports and quietly persuading them, through blackmail and extortion, to secretly defect to Princess Veronica's side. He was building an empire in the shadows to hand to the woman who hated him."
Amanda was speechless. She literally lowered her weapon entirely, the tip resting against the mat.
"That's right," Rudeus continued, rolling the trench knife casually in his hand, letting the magnitude of the truth settle over the assassin. "You might have looked at him and only saw a pathetic kid being relentlessly bullied by his own siblings, a boy being rejected by the high nobles, and getting looked at in absolute disgust by Veronica. But—"
Rudeus pointed the bloody tip of his blade back toward her chest.
"He was the most terrifying, brilliant strategic mind I have ever encountered. Even in my past life, as a veteran commander who fought literal gods, I could never have engineered such a flawless, long-term manipulation. He outplayed the First Empress herself, the woman known as the absolute grandmaster of manipulation in this entire empire, all while pretending to be a fool."
Rudeus's voice rose, vibrating with passionate, genuine respect for the boy whose life he had taken.
"And since he didn't live to achieve his final, grand plan! Since his heart gave out before he could enact his master stroke to annihilate the House of Blackfyre and brutally murder his father... then I will inherit his will! I will be the one who finishes his job! I will execute his master plan, and I will burn that Duchy to the ground!"
The gymnasium fell into absolute, ringing silence.
Amanda stood completely still for a full sixty seconds, her brilliant mind turning the monumental revelation over and over. She analyzed his micro-expressions, the cadence of his voice, the raw, unfiltered passion in his declaration.
It was the truth. Or, at the very least, he believed it with every fiber of his being.
Slowly, Amanda closed her slate-grey eyes. She let out a long, slow breath.
She opened her hand, and simply dropped her trench knife.
-CLATTER.
The weapon bounced on the mat.
"I see," Amanda said softly, opening her eyes. She looked at him not as a target, or a defect, but as an equal. "Then... despite your claims to the contrary, you are still Rudeus."
"Wha-what?!" Rudeus sputtered, completely baffled by her conclusion. He lowered his own weapon slightly. "What the hell do you mean by that? I just told you I possessed him!"
Amanda offered a small, knowing, and incredibly sharp smile.
"Think about it logically, 'Rudeus'," Amanda said, stepping forward, entirely unthreatened by the armed boy. "Why would a kid like that... a boy who was so incredibly manipulative, so fiercely intelligent, and so terrifyingly driven to achieve his revenge... simply roll over and let some random, unknown entity from the void possess his body without a fight?"
Rudeus froze.
The words hit him like a physical blow.
Amanda's analytical mind had pierced straight through the metaphysical veil.
Rudeus knew it already. Deep down in the recesses of his soul, where the memories of Damien the soldier and Rudeus the abused noble bled into one another, he wasn't dumb nor dense enough to not figure it out eventually.
He was Rudeus. And Rudeus was Damien.
Both of them were seemingly twin, joint souls. It was a concept that was already cosmically impossible, considering Rudeus was a fictional character from a visual novel Damien had played on Earth, and Damien was a flesh-and-blood soldier who had fought the Demon God Nesmeranda and died brutally by her hands.
And yet, even though they originated from entirely different, mutually exclusive universes, their connection wasn't severed by death. Rather, it had connected them more deeply. It was as if the two fractured halves of a single, tragic soul wanted to show the entire Multiverse, and the arrogant Constellations who played games with their lives, that no matter how many times they were severed, beaten, or killed... they would eventually find each other. They would reunite across the boundaries of reality, merging together to become one whole, terrifying entity again, like two volatile atoms colliding to create a nuclear reaction.
The original Rudeus hadn't been possessed. He had reached out across the void and pulled his older brother's soul into his own body, willingly surrendering the driver's seat to the one person in the multiverse he knew possessed the sheer, apocalyptic violence required to execute his revenge.
Amanda watched the realization dawn in his crimson eyes. She gave a highly satisfied, predatory smile.
'He already knows it, then,' Amanda thought inwardly, crossing her arms over her chest. 'He is Rudeus from the very beginning. And what is far, far worse for the enemies of the Empire... this combined iteration of Rudeus is infinitely more terrifying, because the brilliant strategist and the ruthless killer have finally become one.'
Amanda smoothly bent down and scooped her fallen trench knife off the mat in a single, fluid motion. She gripped it tightly.
"Though... despite my newfound respect for your grand design," Amanda said, her voice dropping back into a strict, disciplinary tone, "the physical lesson for today is not over yet, Young Master."
"Wh-what?!" Rudeus squeaked, his eyes widening as he felt the killing intent flood the room once more. He began trembling again, his exhausted muscles crying out in preemptive agony. "I thought we just had a profound emotional breakthrough!"
Amanda simply disappeared again.
"The true, practical lesson regarding your pathetic lack of stamina starts right now." Her voice echoed from all directions at once.
-CLANG!
'FUCK!' Rudeus screamed inwardly as a blade materialized out of the shadows, aiming for his ribs. He knew, with absolute certainty, that he was screwed.
***
Two Hours Later.Subterranean Gymnasium.
After a grueling, agonizing, absolutely merciless two hours of physical torture disguised as combat tutoring, Amanda stood in the center of the mat. She wasn't even breathing heavily. She smiled warmly, looking remarkably satisfied as she casually used a silk handkerchief to wipe a few drops of sweat—mostly Rudeus's—from her brow.
Meanwhile, Rudeus was lying flat on his back on the shock-absorbing floor, staring blankly up at the ceiling lights.
He looked like he had been thrown into a meat grinder.
'Goddamnit, I really should have just run away earlier,' Rudeus groaned inwardly.
His entire body was a mosaic of deep, purple bruises and shallow, stinging cuts. Every single muscle fiber in his body was currently twitching and screaming in agony. Amanda had systematically dismantled him. She had given him a brutal, hands-on lesson on how to properly defend himself against a high-tier assassin.
In truth, he didn't need the tactical lesson. He was a veteran soldier in his past life, a man whose one of the people charge against the Demon God Cult and fought a literal deity hand-to-hand. He knew the theory of combat perfectly.
And yet, despite getting beaten to an absolute pulp, it wasn't a bad experience at all.
Lying there in a puddle of his own sweat and blood, Rudeus gained profound physical insights and a crucial, humbling enlightenment from the sheer beatdown. He realized two vital things about his current existence.
First: He must never, ever fight fair against an assassin or any high-tier enemy in this world. The martial arts and honorable CQC tactics of Earth were useless here. Fighting fair against magic and superhuman agility always lead to a swift death. He needed to adapt to the dirty, ruthless combat style of the Night Ravens.
Second, and more importantly: He couldn't currently outsmart a master assassin by relying on his past life's combat reflexes, because he physically couldn't execute the maneuvers. He couldn't use advanced techniques like Shadow Step or Godstep to disappear and reappear behind her, because this current vessel completely lacked the raw power, and worse, it had virtually no mana capacity.
This body possessed a tiny, crippled mana core. And the tragic reality, as Rudeus deduced, was that the core was likely stunted because he had been systematically physically abused and chronically starved of proper magical nutrients by his own family during his crucial developmental years.
He had the mind of a god-killer trapped in the body of a weak, stunted child. He needed to fix the hardware before he could run the software.
Rudeus let out a long, ragged sigh, still staring numbly at the ceiling.
"Hey," Rudeus croaked, his throat dry.
"What is it, Young Master?" Amanda replied politely. She was currently tidying her pristine uniform, adjusting the cuffs of her sleeves, looking ready to serve tea at a royal banquet.
"I have a question," Rudeus said, slowly pushing himself up onto his elbows, wincing as his bruised ribs flared in protest. "What is so fundamentally, politically important about this arranged marriage between me—I mean, Rudeus—and Princess Veronica?"
He looked at her, his expression genuinely confused.
"Why would the Emperor, the most powerful man on the continent, and my father, a man obsessed with genetic perfection, allow a widely despised 'defect' and a bastard like me to secure a binding, contractual marriage to the beloved First Princess? It makes zero political sense. I bring absolutely no value to the royal family."
Amanda paused her adjustments. She looked down at him. She reached up and thoughtfully touched her chin, her slate-grey eyes clouding with memories of old, bloody court secrets.
For a grueling, silent three minutes, she didn't speak. She seemed to be debating whether or not he was ready to hear the truth.
Finally, she let out a quiet sigh.
"It is because of your mother," Amanda said softly.
"What?!" Rudeus gasped, his eyes widening in profound shock. He ignored the pain in his ribs and sat up completely.
What could possibly be so important about Rudeus's mother? Even in the deepest, most hidden lore drops of the game, she was only ever explicitly referred to and known as a beautiful, tragic, "commoner concubine" who died in childbirth.
Amanda sighed again, walking over to a wooden bench to retrieve her discarded apron.
"Did you really, truly believe your mother was just a normal, unspecial commoner picked up off the street, Young Master?" Amanda asked, her tone carrying a hint of dark irony. "Your father, Grand Duke Raemond, is notoriously known to be exclusively attracted to incredibly powerful, inherently dangerous women. Just like his first, legal wife, the Duchess, who is a master of dark magic."
Amanda turned to face him, holding the apron.
"Which is precisely why he kidnapped her. He kidnapped his first wife to force a marriage, and, after he grew dissatisfied with her political maneuvering, he eventually ventured out and violently kidnapped your mother as well."
Rudeus's jaw literally dropped. His eyes widened in absolute, unfiltered shock at the horrifying lore bomb she had just dropped.
'No fucking way!' Rudeus screamed inwardly, his mind racing. 'In the entire game, across hundreds of hours of dialogue and hidden texts, there is absolutely no description or hint that Raemond kidnapped his first wife, let alone that he kidnapped Rudeus's mom! He's a serial abductor?!'
"Your mother was not a commoner, Rudeus," Amanda continued, her voice dropping to a solemn, respectful whisper. "She was a Witch. A true, pureblood Witch. And she was a high-ranking, fallen noble who originally hailed from the Clovius Kingdom."
'No way!'
Rudeus physically recoiled as he heard the name "Clovius". He knew that Kingdom. Every player knew that Kingdom.
The Clovius Kingdom was the treacherous, mountained domain located in the far east reaches of the region. It was the ancestral homeland of Eula Van Clovius—the most tragic, terrifying villainess in the entire franchise, and the apocalyptic Final Boss of Act 4.
The Clovius Kingdom was famously known as the domain of ancient Dragons and primordial Witches. It was the kingdom ruled by Eula's parents: her father, the terrifying Blood Dragon King, and her mother, The Grand Witch, who was the current, absolute Queen of the realm.
If his mother was a noble Witch from Clovius, that meant Rudeus possessed an incredibly potent, highly dangerous magical lineage that the Empire had actively tried to suppress and hide. It explained the green hair. It explained the crimson eyes.
Amanda took a step closer, her expression grave. She delivered the final piece of the puzzle.
"Your mother's true, full name before she was taken... was Maleficent Vincenzo Faery."
Rudeus stopped breathing.
His crimson eyes dilated until they were almost entirely black. The world around him seemed to violently tilt on its axis. A rushing, roaring sound filled his ears, drowning out the ambient hum of the gymnasium.
He stared at Amanda, his mind completely fracturing.
'Vincenzo...'
The name echoed in his skull like a tolling bell.
'Vincenzo...'
He knew that name. It wasn't just a fantasy name from a game lore dump. It was a name burned into his very soul.
'Tha-that's my Mom's maiden name!' Damien screamed internally, his past life and his present reality violently, impossibly colliding. 'My Earth mother! Her name was Celissa Vincenzo! Ho-how... how could this fictional woman in this fictional universe possess the exact same name, Vincenzo?!'
The implications were too massive, too terrifying to process. The universe wasn't just a game. It was a mirror. A twisted, cosmic reflection of his own soul's lineage, woven into the fabric of a different reality by the blindfolded guy.
Rudeus scrambled to his feet, ignoring the screaming agony in his bruised muscles. He grabbed Amanda by the shoulders of her pristine uniform, his fingers digging into the fabric with desperate, frantic strength.
"Tell me!" Rudeus screamed, his voice cracking, tears of absolute shock and desperate need welling up in his crimson eyes.
"Tell me more about my mother!"