Darkness…
Dense darkness, complete, without limits—as if the entire universe had collapsed into a single mass of nothingness. No sound, no time, no sensation… except for a single flame.
A lone flame hung in the void, glowing like a small sun born for a mind that had lost its light. It was not ordinary fire, but a blaze manifested in the form of a complete sword, inverted, its tip pointed toward the ground, its radiance striking the darkness until it trembled. The blade burned as though it were a piece of the sky that had been stolen and forced to descend into a lesser world.
Elia saw it.
He saw it… and felt something inside him crack open.
It was not merely a sword.
It was not merely light.
It was a promise.
A promise of absolute power.
Power to split the sky in two, to tame the earth beneath one's feet, to build the empire he had dreamed of… that empire which had never truly been a dream so much as it was an obsession gnawing at his chest.
He ran.
He ran as he had never run before.
He ran until his breath tore apart, until his feet felt as though they were being flayed from his bones.
He was getting closer… or so he thought. But the sword remained distant. Always distant. Every time he pushed forward a step, the void stretched beneath him, mocking his attempt.
The heat burned his skin despite the distance.
The flames lashed at his eyes, and yet he did not close them.
"Even if I burn… even if I burn completely…"
He was ready to melt into that flame, to become ash, just to hold that sword.
That immense weapon.
That embodied will.
That unstoppable power.
But…
The fire dimmed.
It did not vanish suddenly; it withered… as though an unseen hand were squeezing its light until the last drop. The glow faded, the darkness returned, and then it suddenly parted—not to return him to the void, but to seal his eyes within a dense mist.
A cold white mist.
A suffocating mist.
Little by little it began to disperse, as though reality itself were creeping back slowly, cruelly, without mercy.
The cell.
Those damp, cracked walls that had preserved his breath for years.
The smell of mold.
The sound of water droplets falling from the ceiling.
But he was not alone.
What he saw before him ignited a fury he could not name.
Arkanon.
He sat beside him, with a disgustingly calm composure, his fingers moving over Elia's body as if he were a piece of meat displayed in an old market. There was no tenderness in his touch, not even explicit cruelty… but something worse. A cold, experimental detachment—like a scholar dissecting a creature just to see how it worked.
Elia's muscles froze for a moment… then rage exploded within him.
He tried to control himself, tried to form a mocking smile, as if he had seen something merely pitiful—but his eyes were boiling.
He shouted in a hoarse voice,
"You… you bastard! Would you stop that?!"
He grabbed Arkanon's hand.
But… his hand was thin.
Unnaturally thin. Bones protruding, pale skin almost translucent. It was not the hand of a strong man, but the hand of a ghost that fed on the thoughts of others. For a moment Elia was startled—but his anger drowned his surprise.
Then it happened.
A shock.
Not an ordinary shock… but an electrical storm exploded within his veins.
His nerves screamed.
His muscles clenched violently as if they were about to tear apart.
His entire body froze, paralyzed as though his soul had partially detached from him.
He could not scream.
He could not even blink.
Arkanon leaned closer, his voice calm, gentle, as though whispering to a stubborn child:
"Be quiet… my experiment. I'm just making sure you're safe."
He paused briefly, his fingers continuing to meddle with every inch of the body, ignoring any concept of boundaries or human dignity.
"Some… may be harmed when they break through and reach the true potential of humans. It is painful sometimes… but it is necessary."
Necessary.
A simple word, yet it fell upon Elia's ears like a death sentence.
He felt the humiliation burning more fiercely than the shock.
He felt naked… not only physically, but existentially. As though his entire being had been placed on a table, dissected, without the right to object.
At last, Arkanon stopped.
He rose slowly, as though he had finished a routine and boring task, and stood above him.
He looked at him.
A look of evaluation.
A look of possession.
"You are perfectly healthy…" he said with a satisfied tone.
"In fact… better than what they call knights."
He stepped closer until his shadow covered Elia's face.
"This… has revealed your true physical capabilities, my son."
My son.
A sticky, contaminated word that slipped into his ears and stirred nausea within him.
"You are now… a knight. A complete knight. Far more useful than a worthless slave. Far more useful than a fighter born merely for entertainment."
His voice began to change.
Excitement crept into it.
His eyes gleamed with a mad shimmer.
"You will finally… be a sword. A sword that can be directed."
He leaned down slightly until his forehead almost touched Elia's.
"If you had reached this… before your previous words, I would have made your soul and body nothing but raw material. Powder to be reshaped. But your words…"
He stopped.
A fractured smile appeared.
"Made me think. Why not give you that opportunity? Why not show you just how disrespectful your words were to your creators?"
His voice began to rise, cracking, as though madness were flooding through his throat.
"You want to see us fail? Simple! All you have to do is fight. Fight more… and more… until this place drowns in flesh and blood! Until nothing clean remains! Until the sky itself breathes the smell of death!"
His words were accelerating now.
Stumbling.
Twisting.
"Fight… until our great day. Because we will finally create it. We will bring it to life on our land. And it will reign… it will reign in every corner of this cursed earth!"
The cursed earth.
He was laughing now.
A quiet, broken laugh that sounded like bones slowly snapping.
And Elia could not respond.
His body was paralyzed, his voice strangled, his anger boiling within him like a volcano without a vent.
He felt helplessness gnawing at him.
He felt like nothing more than a tool. A piece. A project.
Arkanon straightened, adjusted his robe, as though nothing had happened.
Then he vanished.
No light.
No smoke.
No trace.
Only emptiness.
Elia remained lying on the ground, his body heavy as a corpse, his face pressed against the cold dirt. The metallic taste of blood crept into his mouth without him knowing when he had bitten his tongue.
Alone.
With the promise.
A promise of success…
and a promise of massacre.
Deep within him, beyond the pain, beyond the humiliation, beyond the helplessness…
There was a small flame.
Not like the sword of the dream.
Not a sun.
But an ember.
A black ember… feeding on rage.
And he knew, somewhere that Arkanon could never touch, that one day…
That sword would no longer be a distant dream.
It would be in his hand.
…
Elia's arenas were no longer what they once were.
They were no longer merely narrow pits reeking of blood and rot.
They had become… nightmarish stages, built specifically to torture the soul before the body.
Arenas wider than castles, surrounded by towering stands like the open mouth of a beast, waiting to be fed more flesh. Some were filled with flowing lava, rivers of fire roaring and spitting sparks, within them lived monsters that dwelled among the flames, their skins cracked like volcanic rock, their eyes red like embers that never fade. Demons devoured their own kin before everyone's eyes, tearing into one another without mercy, proving that hell was not a place… but a nature.
Other arenas were sealed deserts.
Dozens of fighters were thrown into them and left for an entire month.
No water except what could be seized.
No food except the flesh of an opponent.
No shade except the shadows of corpses.
Until they lost every trace of humanity.
Until they became fangs walking on two legs.
Until they forgot their names… and remembered only the taste of blood.
And in other arenas… darkness itself was the opponent.
Total darkness, thick, where not even the palm of one's hand could be seen.
They were left there for days… weeks.
They began with screams, then whispers, then speaking to themselves… then tearing themselves apart.
The sound of nails scratching flesh could be heard, teeth biting into fingers, minds collapsing in silence.
All of this…
Sent chills through the bodies of the spectators.
But they had not come to feel terror… they came to feed it.
They threw gold and silver into the arenas, wagering their fortunes, their houses, their names.
Their screams filled the sky, their curses raced one another, their laughter rose higher whenever more blood was spilled.
And Elia…
At first, he was not different.
He had lived in the depths.
He slept on stone, drank from mud, and fought until death.
But that sword mark…
That glowing mark upon his skin, which had not faded since that night, made him realize that what he had been… he no longer was.
His body had changed.
He had become stronger.
Faster.
More enduring.
But the true transformation came when he held a sword.
The moment his fingers touched the hilt… something inside him broke.
Boundaries vanished.
The human voice in his head faded.
And the beast appeared.
A beast that did not scream.
Did not boast.
Did not show mercy.
If you stood before him…
You would see your head and body being split in two before you even understood what had happened.
If you took his sword…
You would find his teeth buried in your neck, tearing flesh as though iron itself were nothing but a luxury.
And if you stripped him of everything he possessed…
He would remain alive somehow.
Bleeding… breaking… yet continuing.
Until the end.
And in this year…
He completed his twentieth year.
Only twenty years.
But what lived in his eyes… was far older than that.
He felt that the time was approaching.
He noticed the bodies that were taken away.
He noticed how the walls had grown wider, the arenas larger, the rituals more complex.
Even the river of blood he had left in one of the battles… had dried in its place, leaving a dark trace like a scar upon the earth.
He remembered the days of slavery.
The days of fighting until death.
The days of sleeping while wondering if he would wake up.
The days of humiliation, experiments, pain.
But his goal…
The empire.
The crown.
That dream which had burned in his chest like a flame.
At this moment… it seemed distant.
Very distant.
What he had become now… was not a king.
He was a monster.
A monster that had lost its humanity piece by piece.
He wondered, while staring at his hands stained with uncountable blood:
Does a monster have the right to wear a crown?
Perhaps.
Many emperors had been mad monsters.
Tyrants.
Butchers of blood.
Perhaps he would be no different from them.
Or perhaps… he would be worse.
Then…
A voice echoed.
Then another.
Then a third.
Arkanon.
Horus.
Gambler.
Their voices intertwined in his head like an endless echo.
Calling him.
Mocking him.
Promising him something greater.
Their names repeated in his mind until they nearly tore him apart from within.
He stood up.
Slowly, heavily, like a body rising from its grave.
He walked toward the arena for his next battle.
Their next sacrifice…
Or would he be the sacrifice?
He stepped forward.
But what he found when he emerged… was unlike anything before.
A gigantic circle.
Carved into the ground, glowing with strange lines, symbols that belonged to no human language. The air itself trembled above it.
And the audience…
Silent.
No shouting.
No curses.
No wagers.
A thick silence, like the silence of graves.
Elia smiled a crooked smile.
"It seems today… has finally come."
Then he burst into laughter.
"Ha ha ha… ha ha hahaha!"
His laughter was hysterical, sharp, slicing through the air. Its echo struck the walls and slipped into everyone's ears like the announcement of a catastrophe.
As for Arkanon… he smiled.
He and his brothers.
Arkanon stepped forward, his voice calm, yet drenched in sick excitement:
"You… who thought we would fail. You who thought yourself a man of worth and dignity… today you will have an honor far beyond your station."
Horus continued, his voice firmer:
"Today… we have reached how to create a god."
Then Gambler stepped forward, his voice rough, commanding, like the sound of a guillotine:
"Worshippers! The body of a demon from hell has been found, and a blessing stolen from paradise. The blood of thousands has been gathered… and all we need now are your souls. Offer your blood, your spirits, your bodies. For what we shall create… is the absolute existence of all life."
No one hesitated.
In a single moment…
They exploded.
Bodies burst like red flowers in the sky.
The dome was covered in crimson.
A rain of blood poured upon everyone.
The screams did not last long.
They turned to silence after the explosions.
The limbs, the flesh, the bones… began to spin.
A vortex at the center of the circle.
Arkanon shouted, raising his arms toward the sky:
"Look! Look, you wretched filth! We… we will finally create a god! One who will not abandon us like those ancient gods did!"
Elia tried to hold onto something, but the ritual was like a raging storm.
The blood gathered.
The flesh formed.
The souls collided, screamed, then melted into the growing mass.
"Look, world!" Horus shouted.
"We have done the impossible! We humans… have created a god!"
In the center of the circle…
A body began to form.
A gigantic mass of flesh, pulsing, growing, expanding.
Bones forming from nothing.
Veins intertwining like a hellish web.
It grew… and grew…
Until its shadow covered the entire arena.
Then something split open at its top.
An eye.
A single eye.
Not the eye of a human.
Not the eye of a demon, nor the eye of an angel.
The eye of the end.
An eye that had seen miracles…
And seen the fall.
And when it opened…
The world trembled.