Arthur hung from the wall, the obsidian spikes burning with a cold, focused power that felt ancient and wrong.
Each spike was a needle drawing from his very core, an elegant, agonizing siphon.
His life force fought desperately, hopelessly, against the inevitable drain. The metallic, bitter taste of his own blood filled his mouth, a gruesome reminder of the constant price of simply existing in this cursed body.
It mingled with the unbearable humiliation of being utterly, pathetically helpless.
This isn't how it ends, a tiny, defeated voice whispered in the void where his kingly pride used to reside. This isn't an ending at all. It's just a pointless, agonizing pause before obliteration.
"I don't even get to rest," he choked out, spitting a small splash of crimson onto the stain-soaked carpet.
The sound was swallowed by the silence of the room, a silence heavy with Demos's contempt.
"No memories, and now everyone is making me sick. If I had my power—the smallest fraction of the mana I once commanded—I would have burned this entire academy to the ground.
I would have incinerated this ugly, pathetic life and finally been at peace."
The very thought of his lost power—the boundless, golden mana that had made him Arthur, the King—felt like reaching for a ghost.
It was a phantom limb that ached with a grief deeper than any physical wound. He was trapped in this new, fragile shell, a body named Kyle Hunt, which was nothing but a broken cage.
He didn't know Kyle, yet he carried Kyle's burdens, Kyle's failures, and now, Kyle's imminent death sentence.
Arthur's uncle, Demos Hunt, paid him the minimal attention he reserved for a functional piece of equipment that was currently malfunctioning.
Demos remained seated at his expansive, polished desk, typing calmly on his tablet.
The rhythmic click of his fingers was a sound of ultimate control, a metronome counting down Arthur's final moments.
Demos's expression was bored, utterly devoid of kinship or concern. The crimson blood staining the carpet was not a tragedy, not a crime, but simply another inconvenience—just another Monday to the Headmaster.
He doesn't even see me, Arthur realized with a fresh spike of despair that eclipsed the physical pain.
He sees a tool, a necessary piece of paper. He sees the money and the leverage Kyle represented, and now he just sees a problem to be neatly filed away.
He was so tired. The exhaustion was a deep-seated ache in his bones, a weariness of the soul that had nothing to do with the spikes or the magic drain.
It was the exhaustion of constant pretense, of fighting a world that insisted he be someone he was not, and failing to protect the only person he genuinely cared about in this new reality: his mother.
The summons, the threat of legal battles, the implied danger to her life if he resisted—it had finally broken him.
He could fight gods and armies, but he could not fight the relentless, petty bureaucracy of this greedy, small-minded family.
He forced the words out, heavy with defeat, tasting like ashes and blood. "I will sign the damn papers. Just… get me down."
The admission was the most profound surrender of his life. It was worse than any physical torture because it meant accepting Demos's victory, accepting his own subjugation, and acknowledging that the King was gone, replaced by a beggar.
Demos stopped typing. The abrupt silence amplified the faint, sickening sound of Arthur's blood dripping.
A wicked, triumphant smile slowly spread across his face, not a smile of happiness, but of pure, cold satisfaction. He had won the easiest war of his life.
With a dismissive gesture of his hand, Demos dissipated the Mana-infused spikes.
The energy that had held Arthur vanished, and his body dropped to the floor like a sack of stones, the impact jarring every bone.
The healing process instantly surged, a frantic, desperate wave of mana rushing to complete the repairs, but the sheer physical effort of standing again felt like lifting a mountain. He was wobbly and weak, his focus entirely on the crippling, existential exhaustion.
As he struggled to rise, a shimmering blue message flashed before his eyes. It was a cruel fanfare for a bitter sacrifice.
[QUEST COMPLETE]
[NEW SKILL HAS BEEN UNLOCKED!]
Arthur didn't have the clarity to process the supposed reward. He just wanted to lie there, surrender to the pain, and let the darkness claim him.
But survival was an instinct he couldn't switch off. He pushed himself onto shaky legs, and the System screen updated with a new, terrifying reality check.
The numbers weren't a comfort; they were a countdown.
[MANA: 6050]
[MANA REGENERATION IS INEFFECTIVE.]
[MANA WON'T REGENERATE.]
[THE TEMPORARY EFFECTS OF THE INITIAL MANA USE WILL NOW STOP.]
[QUEST: AVOID REACHING 0 POINTS IN MANA IN 30 DAYS]
[REWARD: TEN INCREASE TO ALL ATTRIBUTES.]
[PENALTY: INSTANT DEATH.]
Instant Death. Of course, Arthur thought, a hollow laugh catching in his throat. This wasn't a game; it was a torture device crafted by some cosmic joke.
Every step he took, every breath he drew, was a risk. The very core of his power was now a ticking clock, counting down to his end.
He had thought that perhaps this new body, this Kyle, was destined for great things—a second chance.
Now he knew the truth: this body was engineered to fail.
"F-ck, f-ck... who made this thing?" Arthur cursed under his breath, the words laced with profound despair.
"Why am I always stuck in problems I can't punch my way out of? Why did I survive only to face this slow, calculated annihilation?"
The weight of the lost king, the memory of battles won, of true power, made the current moment agonizing. He was a lion forced to beg.
Demos, entirely unaware to the System's flashing death sentence, gave him no more time for internal panic.
He tossed the sheaf of legal papers onto the desk. Arthur snatched the modern pen. The simple act of gripping the slick metal was a profound effort. He dipped the pen and signed the name Kyle Hunt with a hand still slick with his own blood, pouring every ounce of his kingly hatred and his present, crushing self-loathing into the looping script.
It wasn't just a signature; it was the burial marker for Arthur, the final, official surrender of his new identity to Demos.
Once finished, he handed the signed papers back. His eyes met Demos's for a fleeting second, and in that gaze, Arthur saw not just malice, but a shallow, grasping greed that made his stomach turn.
Demos's smile widened into a predatory, ecstatic grin. He snatched the documents as if they were winning lottery tickets.
"Ooh, yes. Ooh, yes! Finally!" Demos declared, savoring the paper between his fingers.
"Okay, we have a deal, nephew. I will solve the case of your guard's suicide, and yeah, your mom won't die. Why should a brother's wife die for no reason?" He said the words for no reason with the chilling implication that dying for a reason would be perfectly acceptable.
Arthur felt sick. He had just sold his identity, his autonomy, and possibly his soul, for a promise from a viper.
He had sacrificed everything, and the only feeling remaining was the profound emptiness of his defeat.
As Demos spoke, the heavy office door opened again, revealing Madam Veridia
. The teacher was a study in controlled weariness. She took in the scene—the blood-soaked carpet, Arthur's wobbly, exhausted stance, Demos's triumphant, disgusting leer—and sighed, a sound that conveyed not judgment, but a bone-deep disappointment in the world.
Her composure, however, remained intact.
"We wish to send Young Master Kyle to the courtroom, Master Demos," she said, her voice dry and utterly devoid of warmth
.
"Yeah, of course. You have him." Demos dismissed them both with a wave. He rolled his chair back from the desk, turning away from his nephew and the teacher to take a phone call.
His business with "Kyle" was concluded. Arthur was now just a logistical problem.
Arthur and Veridia moved toward the heavy oak door. With every dragging step, Arthur felt the mana-death clock ticking in his chest.
Just before the door clicked shut behind them, Demos spoke into his phone, his voice a low, commanding murmur that carried just enough for Arthur to hear the calculated cruelty of his fate.
"Don't send him to the regular holding cells. The signature is signed, but I don't trust him. Make him go to the Underside as a waiting period. If it's a fake, we'll know soon enough.
If it's real, it keeps him from accessing anything until the probate is complete."
He doesn't trust me, Arthur thought, the realization not angering him, but settling deep in his chest like a frozen stone.
He doesn't trust the signature. He thinks "Kyle" is planning something. The Underside… it's a test.
The regular dungeons would have been bad, but the Underside—the chaotic, deadly, uncontrolled pit beneath the academy, a place where only the forgotten and the condemned survived—was worse.
Demos knew that if Arthur were sent to the regular cells, he might be able to access the tons of hidden gold or the old contacts that formed the core of his "heritage." In the dungeons, he'd just be jailed.
But in the Underside, Demos and his soldiers would have complete control over his fate. It was a meat grinder. If Arthur survived thirty days in the Underside without his mana regenerating, while also navigating the inherent dangers of that forgotten place, Demos would know the signature was legitimate, and his claim was secured.
If Arthur died—which was almost guaranteed given his current state—Demos lost nothing, confirmed his suspicion of the forgery, and cleared a path to seize the Hunt estate immediately.
The crushing despair deepened. Arthur wasn't just defeated; he was being discarded into a hole where his survival was the final piece of evidence Demos needed.
Every direction was a loss. He had sacrificed his pride, endured the torture, and signed his name, only to be tossed into a pit to wait for a death that was now almost certain.
Demos, having hung up, placed the signed documents neatly on the desk, ready to enact his triumphant, self-serving propaganda in the courtroom.
Arthur, the broken King who was now Kyle Hunt, could only drag his exhausted body into the darkness, knowing that his final struggle had only bought him a slightly more complicated, and infinitely more agonizing, death.
He was alone, powerless, and utterly, profoundly sad. His only remaining companion was the ticking clock of his own failing life force.
Man's won't regenerate !!!!!