That night, the forest was not merely a secluded place Asta had fled to in order to escape people's stares and their harsh words it felt as though it had separated itself from the entire world.
The air was colder than usual, and dampness crept between the ancient trees as if the night itself had begun crawling along the ground instead of remaining suspended in the sky. There were no bird sounds, no natural rustling of small animals, not even the distant barking of a village dog.
Everything had fallen still in a deeply unsettling way, as though nature itself had stepped back out of respect… or fear of something about to appear.
Asta stood in the middle of the small dirt clearing where he had trained for years, breathing heavily from tension more than from exhaustion.
In front of him, that black flicker mixed with a deep crimson hue moved slowly in the air. It was neither flame nor mist, but something like an open wound in the darkness. The red within it did not truly illuminate the surroundings, yet it made the blackness deeper… more alive… more terrifying.
The longer Asta stared at it, the more he felt something strange in his chest. Something like fear but not the kind that made him want to run. It was a fear laced with an irresistible pull, as if the flicker was calling his name… a name he only knew deep within himself.
He swallowed hard and said in a low, broken voice,
"What is this? Am I dreaming… or what?"
No answer came from outside. But the voice the one he now knew better than ever echoed again. Not from any direction, but from within his head… and from somewhere behind his heart at the same time.
It was calm in a strange way, yet that very calmness carried something heavy something that made every word feel larger than its meaning.
"Come closer," it said. "Do not fear your true nature. You are the origin… and the rest are merely followers orbiting what was created for you."
Asta's eyes trembled.
He didn't fully understand what it meant to be "the origin," nor why the voice spoke to him with such certainty. But after all the humiliation he had endured… after every moment he had stood empty-handed while the world applauded others… those words pierced straight into the weakest place within him.
He slowly raised his head, clenched his fist, and whispered as if repeating a sentence he had heard before believing in it:
"I… will become strong. I am the origin."
He took one step forward… then another.
His legs felt heavy not only from fear, but because something inside him resisted while something else pushed him onward.
As he drew closer, the air around him began to change. The mana in the area the energy he had never been able to touch as others did seemed to retreat from him.
As if the very earth was telling him that what stood before him did not belong to this world.
And when he was only an arm's length away… something happened that he had never expected.
The air split open.
Not a gate of stone, not a wooden door, nor a magic circle like the stories he had heard about Magic Knights but a long black tear appeared before him, as if the night itself had been ripped apart.
What lay within was deeper than any darkness he had ever known yet it was not empty. Something moved inside it. Something not fully visible… yet undeniably present.
A cold wind poured out of it so cold that Asta felt it pierce through his skin and reach his bones. But this cold was unlike winter.
It was not just painful… it felt ancient. As if it carried a memory far older than him one that did not belong to him, yet awakened something eerily familiar within him.
His feet instinctively stepped back half a step… but his right arm rose on its own.
He wasn't sure if he had moved it… or if his body had responded to something deeper than conscious will.
He reached toward the tear, his eyes unblinking, as though his instincts and subconscious were guiding him not himself.
Then came a moment brief, no more than a second or two yet it felt longer than his entire life.
And from within the rift… something emerged.
At first, he couldn't understand what he was seeing. Just a dark shape slowly approaching, surrounded by a faint red aura.
Then its form became clearer.
It was… a book.
A grimoire.
But not like any he had seen in the grimoire tower.
It was not ornate. Not elegant. Not radiant like the others.
It was completely black an absolute black so much so that its edges seemed to swallow the surrounding light instead of reflecting it.
Faint engravings covered its front, barely visible unless the red flicker moved across them. They were strange unlike the symbols of the Clover Kingdom, unlike any writing Asta had ever learned or seen in the church or the library.
Just looking at it made his chest tighten… and his skin grow colder.
Asta gasped, whispering in shock:
"…A grimoire!"
There was not only joy in his voice, but fear as well. Fear that what he was seeing was real… and an even greater fear that it might be just another illusion that would vanish before him in the next moment.
But the book did not disappear.
It remained floating before him, rising slightly and falling again, as if it had a faint pulse as if it were not an object, but a living entity testing its owner before granting itself to him.
This time, Asta reached out with both hands. The moment his fingers touched the cover, a powerful shiver ran through his body from his fingertips to the back of his neck.
The book was extremely cold, colder than any metal on a freezing night, yet he had no intention of letting it go. He tightened his grip on it, as if afraid it might return to that rift and leave him behind once again.
But the grimoire was not easy to claim.
The moment it settled in his hands, it shook violently, as if refusing to be held so simply. Asta had to tighten his arms and hold onto it even more firmly.
It felt like trying to tame something alive something that was testing his strength and determination rather than offering him obedience.
After a few moments of silent struggle, the book gradually calmed… and then its pages began to turn on their own.
At first, they flipped rapidly, too fast for Asta to see anything. Then the movement slowed.
On the dark, greenish-black pages, symbols began to appear as if they were being written in that very moment before his eyes.
They were not in any language he knew not the church's script, not the kingdom's writing, not even any magical symbols he had ever heard of.
They were twisted characters some resembling wounds, others like claws, and some seemed to move slightly before settling into place.
With each page that opened, Asta felt a cold sting in his chest… followed by something else something strange.
It felt as though the book was not merely revealing its spells to him… but studying him. Reading him. Measuring what lay within him.
Asta spoke in a trembling voice, as if afraid the book itself might hear him:
"What is this language? What is happening to me?"
This time, no direct answer came from the voice… but a faint whisper passed through his mind:
"This is yours… and what has been waiting for you."
Suddenly, the pages snapped shut with a heavy sound.
The rift disappeared.
The red glow shrank into a thin line… then vanished.
The forest returned to what it had been moments before except for one thing that would never be the same:
The grimoire remained in Asta's hands.
He stood there, staring at the book… then at the empty space before him… then back at the book again, as if he could not believe that what had just happened was not a dream.
He slowly turned in place, as though searching with his eyes for any trace of what had occurred.
Everything looked normal now the trees, the ground, the air, the darkness.
But his heart was anything but normal.
It was racing not only from fear, but from a joy that was about to burst out of him, despite all the frightening questions piling up in his mind.
"Did I… did I really get a grimoire?" he whispered, then touched the cover again to make sure it was real.
"Am I now… like everyone else? Will they finally stop treating me like I'm nothing?"
Questions flooded his mind like a torrent.
How had the book come from that rift?
Why hadn't it come to him like the others in the grimoire tower?
What was that voice in the first place?
And why did he feel that this grimoire was not just a magical book but something connected to him from long ago?
For a moment, unease cooled his joy.
He looked toward where the rift had appeared… then back at the grimoire, and swallowed hard.
"But… wait. Why did I get it this way? Why? And why did it come from something… like that?"
He stood there for a few seconds, thinking.
Then he shook his head sharply, as if trying to push those questions away.
At last, he smiled not a calm smile, but an explosion of emotion after years of deprivation.
His voice rose, his eyes blazing with excitement:
"Who cares right now? The important thing is I have a grimoire! I really have one! That means I can become a Magic Knight… maybe even… maybe even more than that!"
He began spinning in place like a child who had finally received what he had dreamed of his entire life.
Then he raised the book above his head and shouted:
"I'm not a failure! Do you hear me?! I'm not a failure!"
No one was there to hear him but the trees and the darkness yet he didn't care.
In that moment, the village, the tower, Yuno's gaze, and the villagers' mockery all faded away.
What remained was a raw, honest, overwhelming feeling…
The feeling of finally belonging to a world that had rejected him for so long.
Then suddenly, his eyes lit up with a new excitement.
"Sister Lily! Father Orsi! The kids! I have to tell them!" he shouted, as if he had discovered a treasure too great to keep to himself.
"I have to show them!"
Without wasting another second, he dashed out of the forest.
At first, he held the grimoire under his arm, but afraid it might fall, he quickly clutched it with both hands as he ran.
He shouted and laughed at the same time, leaping over exposed roots and nearly tripping more than once but he never slowed down.
Inside him, the child of all those years ran with him
The child who had been rejected, mocked, and told he would never have anything.
Now, that child wanted to scream to the entire world:
I finally got it.
On the other side of existence, the Demon World was gripped by a completely different kind of tension.
Vasilius sat upon the black throne after seizing power by force, but the expression that had been filled with satisfaction and arrogance moments ago was gone.
He leaned slightly forward, the fingers of his right hand tapping nervously against the arm of the metallic throne, while his narrowed eyes burned with suppressed anger.
The hall was vast, with a towering ceiling. Its walls bore the scars of ancient wars and the emblems of fallen kings, yet the atmosphere now felt heavier than ever.
The demons standing in the rows along the sides did not dare raise their heads or even breathe too loudly. They knew their new ruler was angry and his anger needed only the smallest spark to turn into disaster.
Vasilius slammed his fist onto the stone table before him. It cracked down the middle, and the sound of shattering echoed through the hall.
Those closest to him trembled. Two of the lesser demon servants dropped to the ground in fear without even being ordered to do so.
"How is this possible?" Vasilius snarled, his voice laced with venomous fury. "How could that gate close so quickly?"
No one dared answer.
He lifted his head slightly, as if staring through the ceiling at something far away, then continued, forcing each word through clenched teeth:
"I felt it. I felt it open. I felt that ancient connection… that pulse returning from the upper world… and then it vanished. It closed instantly as if some unseen hand pulled it away before I could touch what lay beyond it."
He rose slowly from the throne. With every step he took, the black cloak behind him slid across the ground like a serpent made of shadows.
"No… this is not normal," he said coldly. "There is something that fool Surasta was hiding."
Surasta.
The former king. Even his name alone made some demons tense up. He had been a powerful ruler strict, yet deeply committed to maintaining balance between the worlds.
To Vasilius, however, he was nothing more than a symbol of delayed weakness.
One of the demon advisors, standing at a safe distance, spoke carefully:
"My lord… do you believe Surasta placed a special seal upon the gates?"
Vasilius turned his head slowly, fixing him with a gaze that nearly silenced him mid-sentence. Then the new king replied with clear disdain:
"I don't believe. I know. He hid something. A gate inherited between the underworld and the upper world cannot open and close like that… unless there is a key. An inheritance. Or… blood."
He stopped abruptly.
He didn't finish the sentence but the thought was clear in his mind. Something from the upper world had responded to that gate… and sealed it. Something far from ordinary.
Then, in a sudden return of his usual arrogance, Vasilius let out a short laugh.
"But who cares now?" he said. "I am king. And I will open those cursed gates no matter the cost. Between the underworld, the earth, and the heavens… nothing will remain closed forever."
Meanwhile, Lovir the loyal commander of the fallen king was imprisoned deep within the dreaded demon prison, in a lower depth darker than the rest of the world.
His cell was bound by chains of black mana, and its walls pulsed as though they were alive. No demon, no matter how powerful, could escape such a place easily.
Yet Lovir sat in the corner, his head lowered but he was not broken.
Something still burned within his eyes.
A certainty…
That what had begun was not yet over.
And that Vasilius did not understand everything… no matter how much he believed he did.
In the upper world, Asta was running toward the church, shouting from afar even before his figure could be clearly seen.
Sister Lily stood in front of the old wooden door, glancing every now and then toward the path leading to the forest, worry clearly visible on her face. It had been a long time since Asta had stormed out of the grimoire tower, and she knew well how reckless his heart could be—how, when hurt, he could push himself too far or disappear into the forest for hours without noticing time passing.
When she finally saw his silhouette approaching, she let out a quick breath and almost stepped toward him until she realized he didn't look like someone fleeing danger… but someone bursting with wild excitement.
He was running like mad, sometimes raising his arms, sometimes clutching something to his chest, then waving it in the air.
"Asta! What happened?" she called out anxiously. "Is someone chasing you?"
He stopped in front of her, panting heavily, then said quickly, "No! No, it's not that! It's… it's…"
He lifted the grimoire in front of her face with all the excitement he had and shouted:
"I got it! I got one too! I have a grimoire!"
His voice was so loud it reached the nearby houses. Heads appeared at windows, passersby stopped in the road, and soon people began gathering one after another.
Sister Lily first looked at the book in disbelief, then raised her eyes to Asta. She wasn't just smiling—she looked stunned.
She slowly reached out and touched the cover without taking it from him, then whispered,
"This… is real."
But her quiet joy wasn't the only reaction.
Among the villagers stepping out of their homes, voices rose mixed between doubt and irritation.
"That's impossible," one said, narrowing his eyes. "That boy has no talent. How could he get a grimoire?"
Another muttered, "Great. Now he'll bother us even more with his nonsense."
But Asta didn't care or at least, he tried not to. His joy was too great to be poisoned by their words so quickly.
He turned back to Sister Lily with explosive excitement.
"We have to tell everyone! Father Orsi! The kids! They have to see this!"
Lily smiled, though she couldn't completely hide the brief flicker of concern in her eyes when she noticed the grimoire's color… and felt its strange coldness.
"Come inside first," she said gently. "Let's bring this news into the house instead of announcing it in the whole street."
Asta nodded quickly, still breathing like he had just finished a long race, and entered the church with her.
Inside, it was warm, and the smell of a simple meal filled the air. Everyone had gathered around the long table, preparing for dinner young children, Father Orsi, and Yuno, who sat in his usual silence, eyes half-closed as if nothing interested him.
But the moment Asta entered, raising the grimoire everything changed.
"Look!" Asta shouted triumphantly. "Look closely! Do you see this? This is my grimoire!"
Some of the children jumped from their seats and rushed toward him. Their eyes widened in amazement.
"Wow! That's amazing!" one of them said innocently. "Is it really yours… or did you steal it?"
Another child laughed, but Asta immediately replied with puffed-up confidence,
"Of course it's mine! Do I look like someone who needs to steal a magic book?"
Father Orsi raised an eyebrow, then took a deep breath and looked at the book. His expression wavered between the joy of a guardian seeing his child succeed… and the caution of someone sensing something he couldn't understand.
As for Yuno, he remained silent for a few seconds before lifting his gaze toward Asta with a cold look.
"That doesn't matter right now," he said flatly. "We want to eat. No one cares what you're saying."
The words fell like a cold slap across the moment of joy.
Asta turned toward him quickly, nearly ready to explode but Sister Lily intervened before things escalated.
"That's enough," she said, placing dishes on the table. "This is good news, no matter what. Let's sit, eat, and give thanks that everyone is safe."
They all sat down.
The children tried to return to their usual excitement, asking Asta about the book and whether he could cast spells with it.
But Yuno remained quiet, occasionally glancing at his green grimoire… then at Asta's black one with a look that was hard to read.
It wasn't just mockery this time.
There was something else in his eyes… something closer to unease or even suspicion.
As for Asta, despite his excitement, he felt deep down that the room was no longer the same.
As if his grimoire had entered with him… bringing along a subtle silence that only those closest to him could feel.
Early the next morning, the village woke to an unfamiliar sound.
A man dressed in formal attire closer to that of a Magic Knight than a villager stood in the square, raising his voice:
"People of the village! Listen! The Clover Kingdom needs to strengthen its ranks. There is a shortage of knights, and we are searching for qualified youths to participate in the upcoming entrance exam to choose those worthy of protecting the kingdom from the enemies that lurk against it!"
Asta didn't need to hear more than the first sentence.
He rushed out of the church like an arrow, his running alone enough to draw everyone's attention.
He stopped directly in front of the man and pointed at himself eagerly.
"Me! Me! I want that! Take me with you! I'm ready!"
The knight looked him up and down, then said dryly,
"And who are you, you reckless boy? This isn't where we choose Magic Knights. The exam takes place in the capital. Only there will it be decided who is worthy."
Before Asta could continue, Father Orsi appeared behind him and lightly smacked him on the head in irritation.
"You are none of that right now," he said. "You should be thinking about the church and its responsibilities after me, instead of chasing your fantasies!"
Asta turned to him immediately and shouted,
"What?! No way! I'm not a man of the church, and I won't spend my life serving old walls! I will become the Wizard King of the Clover Kingdom!"
The sentence echoed throughout the village, just as it almost always did and it was followed by the usual wave of laughter.
But this time, not all faces were mocking.
Sister Lily was looking at him in silence, and there was something different in her eyes. It wasn't complete belief, nor mere pity, but a small spark of hope… as if, for a moment, she saw something in him that others did not.
At that moment, Yuno stepped out as well.
He was not impulsive like Asta. Instead, he walked forward with a calm that was almost unsettling, to the point that some villagers instinctively moved aside for him.
He held his grimoire, his gaze steady. Then he stopped in front of the knight and said coldly:
"When will this exam take place?"
The knight replied, noticing his composed presence,
"Next month. But if you're weak or lack sufficient mana, there's no need to waste your time coming."
Yuno's expression didn't change. He simply raised one eyebrow and said:
"Would you like to spar with me?"
Some of the villagers froze at his boldness.
The knight laughed at first. "Are you stupid? I'm a Magic Knight. You don't stand a chance against me."
Yuno replied with the same cold tone:
"Let's see."
The knight sighed, then stepped back and summoned his grimoire. Its pages flipped open quickly, and from within, shining metallic swords burst forth, flying toward Yuno like arrows.
Gasps rose from the villagers:
"Is this the power of Magic Knights?!"
But Yuno moved at the right moment. He opened his green grimoire, and precise bolts of lightning shot out, clashing with the incoming swords and knocking them away.
Voices of admiration erupted:
"That's Yuno! It was obvious he deserved it!"
Encouraged or perhaps provoked the knight launched a second wave of swords, greater in number and faster in speed.
Yuno moved with astonishing agility for his age, dodging some and countering with lightning arrows that shot back toward the knight.
But the metallic swords absorbed part of the impact and continued forward.
The knight smirked slightly. "Alright… now the real fight begins."
He flipped another page, and the metal gathered in the air above the entire clearing, forming a massive, towering sword so enormous that its shadow alone seemed capable of covering part of the village.
Murmurs of fear spread among the people, and some of the children stepped back.
"What is that?!" someone shouted.
Yuno lifted his gaze toward the giant blade and, for the first time, felt that his opponent was truly serious.
He unleashed lightning with everything he had but the sword's size and charge were overwhelming.
He clenched his teeth and whispered,
"It's useless… is this the gap between me and a real knight?"
The sword descended rapidly, closing the distance with every passing second.
In a single moment, countless possibilities flashed through his mind: injury… helplessness… perhaps even death.
His eyes widened as he realized that the lightning in his hands might not be enough this time.
Then… it appeared.
A black flash, tinged with deep crimson, tore through the air from the side as if darkness itself had surged forward to stand between Yuno and death.
In an instant that no one could comprehend, all the swords shattered small and large alike as if they had entered a field that crushed magic at its very core.
Even the massive blade recoiled, breaking apart into metallic fragments that fell to the ground, stripped of their power.
Everyone shouted at once:
"What… was that?!"
And from the heart of that flicker… someone emerged.
He walked with steady, cold steps nothing like Asta's usual impulsive movements. His hair had turned a deeper black, more pronounced, and his eyes were almost entirely red, with darkness creeping along their edges like a shadow settled into his skin.
A cold breath escaped from his mouth, visible to the eye, as if the air around him had grown colder than the surroundings.
In his hand, he held a long sword resembling a katana but it was not entirely separate from him. It felt like a part of his very being, as if the darkness that had emerged with him was the same force that had shaped that blade.
Across his forehead, faint dark cracks appeared, like dry earth etched into his skin.
Sister Lily trembled and whispered,
"It's… Asta… this can't be real."
Shock spread among everyone:
"What?! Asta?! That's impossible!"
Asta slowly turned toward Yuno, who was still on his knees from the impact of the confrontation. Then he spoke in a low, sharp voice one that did not quite sound like his own:
"Where is that magic you boast about… you failure?"
Yuno did not answer.
He couldn't.
It wasn't just the power that shocked him it was Asta's presence, his form, the overwhelming aura surrounding him. This was not the loud, reckless boy he had known since childhood.
This was… someone else wearing his face.
The knight clenched his teeth, anger rising in his expression at the sudden humiliation.
"I'm not done yet," he said. "And I'll make you pay for that!"
He opened his grimoire violently, and this time, thousands of sharp metallic swords poured out, filling the air like a storm of blades.
He shouted, pointing forward:
"Severing Blade Strike! Go! Block it if you can!"
The swords surged forward like a deadly whirlwind toward Asta
But Asta only gave a small, cold smile.
That smile alone was enough to make the knight step back unconsciously.
"This… no longer works," Asta said calmly.
Then he moved.
He did not run like a human would. He surged forward as if he had vanished from one place and appeared in another closer point.
Every sword that approached him shattered or lost its form the moment it entered the dark field surrounding him.
He did not block them with his hand or even with his blade. Simply coming near him was enough to destroy the spell itself.
The knight's eyes widened as he realized
This power did not just cut through metal… it erased the magic within it.
And in the blink of an eye Asta reached him.
He raised his black sword and struck once.
No flourish.
No technique.
No complexity.
Just a single, straight slash yet it carried an overwhelming weight.
The moment it hit, the force exploded outward like a crushing shockwave. The knight was sent flying several meters before collapsing unconscious on the ground, his grimoire lying open beside him as if even the spells themselves had lost consciousness along with him.
Silence fell.
A heavy, suffocating silence.
No one dared move. No one dared whisper.
Some of the children clung tightly to the adults' clothes.
Father Orsi stared at Asta as if he were looking at someone he had never known before.
Sister Lily covered her mouth not only in fear, but because she didn't know whether to be happy that he had finally become strong… or terrified of the way that strength had manifested.
But the image that engraved itself into everyone's memory was simple yet shocking:
Asta stood in the center of the clearing, holding his black sword, surrounded by the remnants of shattered magic…
While Yuno knelt before him.