Lloyd slowly opened his eyes… but the first thing he saw was neither a ceiling, nor a wall, nor even a trace of the world he knew.
He was in a completely different place… a sky barely a pale purple, stretching strangely above him, scattered with bright stars like luminous wounds that had ripped through the darkness of the universe, or tiny cracks through which the light of another world seeped. The stars weren't stationary; some seemed to move very slowly, like distant eyes watching silently.
Lloyd gradually rose from his spot, propped up on his hand, while a light gray dust trickled from his shoulders and clothes, as if he had been lying there for an unknown time. His breath came in heavy gasps for a moment, and when he raised his head, the starlight reflected in his eyes in a strange way, until his very gaze seemed to acquire a cold, unfamiliar gleam.
But… what was truly unsettling was the silence… a stifling silence. Not a whisper of wind, not a rustle of leaves, not the sounds of creatures, not even the slightest tremor of life. Just an endless void.
The ground beneath his feet was dry and cracked, riddled with the marks of ancient battles from which nothing had survived. Some fissures stretched so far that they vanished into the distance, while the whole world seemed like the rubble of a war forgotten by time.
Lloyd looked around cautiously, his brow furrowed, his eyes darting rapidly across the vast emptiness. His hand moved involuntarily to his side, as if instinctively searching for a weapon or something familiar to offer a sense of security…
But there was nothing…just emptiness.
Then…the place shook. It wasn't just a tremor…it felt as if the world itself had taken a heavy breath.
A deep, terrifying sound boomed, a sound that didn't seem to come from any particular direction. It appeared to emanate from the sky, from the earth, and from the surrounding air all at once. It was so heavy that Lloyd's chest heaved with every syllable: "This…is the realm of absolute power."
Lloyd's body stiffened instantly, his eyes narrowing with undisguised caution, as he unconsciously took a small step back.
His voice came out gruff and alert: "Who's there?!" But... there was no answer, only silence again.
Suddenly, the ground before him began to crack slowly... luminous lines appeared amidst the parched soil, glowing with a light like that of stars, as if the sky itself were seeping into the earth. The cracks widened... and widened... then human figures began to emerge from the center of that light.
One... then two... then five... then ten, fighters gradually appeared before him, lined up in a heavy, chilling silence, as if they didn't belong to the human world at all.
One of them carried a black spear much longer than himself, standing with terrifying stillness, his face hidden behind a cracked helmet from whose fissures a faint blue energy emanated, as if something alive moved within it.
Another man, his body covered in ancient, deep, and interwoven scars, gripped a broadsword that seemed too heavy for an ordinary man to wield, its blade riddled with glowing red fissures as if it were about to explode.
A tall woman with long, silver hair stood silently with her arms crossed, her cold eyes gleaming in the darkness like two frozen stars, exuding a chilling calm that posed more of a threat than any other.
But the most terrifying thing… wasn't their appearance, but the aura that surrounded each of them.
Each fighter possessed a different presence… heavy… suffocating.
Lloyd felt as if the air itself had grown thicker, as if the world were pressing down on his chest with an invisible force. Even the ground beneath his feet seemed to tremble silently in their presence.
And then… the Requiem symbols on his shoulder ignited against his will.
A reddish-white glow spread across his skin, pulsating like a heart awakened from a long slumber, as if something within him had responded directly to the presence of those fighters.
He felt a strange heat coursing through his veins… as if the power itself was beginning to awaken.
Then the heavy voice returned, deeper this time: "Everyone you see before you…"
A brief silence followed. "…has reached the peak of their power." Lloyd's muscles tensed instinctively.
Then the voice continued: "If you want to survive…" "Or understand the power that dwells within you…" "Then you must defeat them."
At that very moment… one of the fighters slowly raised his head, then vanished.
Lloyd's eyes widened suddenly, his instincts screaming before he could comprehend what was happening, then a glowing fist appeared directly in front of his face...