Chapter 103
The capital of Solnara Cererindur had grown increasingly uneasy. As more guild quests relating to monster incursions were stacking up on the bulletin board on all the guilds in the vast enclosed walls of the kingdom and outside the noble territories, before they were swiftly dealt with, hunters and adventurers alike made sure to keep the city safe from any potential threats.
Monster attacks were becoming more frequent, even organized. And some rumors were currently under investigation that these monster stampedes were summoned. Entire frontier villages sent no messages for weeks, fearing these place were already been attacked .
Many nobles, and even the king, were weary of this sudden shift. After the Drake monster evolved, attacks were no longer random. Veterans whispered of "silent waves"—creatures moving not with mindless rage but with cunning and being led by a mysterious force. The kingdom was on high alert, knowing that they were facing a new kind of threat that required a different approach to defeat.
And yet, the younger generation of fighters and adventurers, particularly those graduating from the Royal Academy, were growing soft. Too reliant on simulations. On noble titles. On theory without blood. That is what brought Grandmaster Haell Eledran, High Commander of the Royal Guild, to the throne room of King Deryth Cererindur and Queen Nimriel, with his long silver cloak stained by the mud of recent field campaigns and his face set like granite.
Beneath the golden archway of flame-shaped runes, Grandmaster Haell stood tall, his gloved hand over his chest as he spoke with conviction.
"Your Majesties, the problem is not the tide of beasts rising from the Dead Zones.
It is that Our future defenders are not ready to meet it."
He looked toward the royal advisors seated in silence and then raised a thick scroll marked with the seal of the Guild, a crimson sword over a rising sun.
"The Royal Academy must change.
I propose the Law of Earned Combat. No student, regardless of rank or bloodline, shall graduate or advance in the Guild's hierarchy without earning Hunting Points—measured only by real field success."
A murmur swept through the chamber. Nobles shifted uncomfortably. Queen Nimriel arched a brow.
"What of the noble houses who already fund the Academy?" she asked, her voice silken but sharp. "You would ask their sons and daughters to risk their lives in wild zones like common hunters?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Haell replied without flinching. "If they cannot face danger, they have no right to lead those who must."
There was silence.
Mandatory Hunting Points System
Every student at the Royal Academy must accumulate a minimum number of Hunting Points (HP) to gain Combat Certification.
Points can be earned by:
Defeating monsters during sanctioned Guild hunts.
Participating in wave-clearing operations.
Protecting settlements during frontier missions.
Supporting healers, strategists, or squadrons in real danger zones (support roles earn less but still contribute).
Field Evaluation & Ranking
An updated Field Rank system would now run parallel to Academic Rank.
Titles like "Acolyte," "Hunter," "Wave-Breaker," or "Sentinel" would be granted only after proven merit.
These ranks would determine access to enchanted gear, spell permissions, and even dormitory rights.
Cross-Class Mission Teams
Students from different classes, commoners, nobles, and foreign exchange students must form mixed races to complete missions. No solo hunts unless certified.
This forces cooperation, trust, and communication and breaks down internal divides.
Combat Points as Currency
Accumulated Combat Points (CP) would become a new academy currency:
Used to access elite lectures, weapon enchantments, and noble armory privileges.
Even royal descendants must now "pay" in CP for advanced magic tutors.
Wave Simulation Chambers Retired
Magical simulations of combat (which had been exploited for easy grading) would now be retired.
Only real battles will count.
King Deryth, silent until now, finally stood. He was a tall, formidable man with a sharp crown forged from the bones of the ancient Leviathan, the first beast he had slain in his youth.
"My father believed titles alone prepared one for war," he said slowly, pacing. "He died by a beast that could not be reasoned with."
He turned to his queen.
"Nimriel, I believe the Guild is right. It is time our children, all of them, remember what it means to earn strength, not inherit it."
Queen Nimriel considered this a moment longer, then nodded slowly.
"So be it. Let the bloodlines prove themselves on the same field as the lowborn.
Let actiondetermine legacy. Not ancestry."
With that, she etched her seal beside the king's into the arcane decree.
The next day, the announcement of the Law of Earned Combat spread like wildfire through the academy halls.
Nobles protested at first. Some called it madness. Others claimed their children would never set foot in "uncivilized killing fields."
But the Royal Seal was law.
Professors were summoned to adapt the curriculum overnight. Field scouts were hired to oversee missions. Guild-certified instructors replaced retired military veterans.
The Academy was no longer a place for comfort. It became a forge.
And Daniel Rothchester and Melgil Veara Gehinnom, already survivors of real combat, stood at the center of this new generation, not as rulers, but as examples.
Daniel was excited, as he can go out into the land and freely hunt. The Royal Academy of Solnara Cererindur, once a place of prestige and ritual, now felt like the training grounds of war.
The announcement of the Law of Earned Combat had shaken the entire student body. It had been read aloud by Chancellor Veyrim beneath the Bell of Stone Witnesses, a relic only used when royal decree required absolute obedience.
The words were final:
No combat ranks. No graduation. No recognition unless earned through real hunts, real missions, and real danger.
For most students, it was terrifying. For Daniel Rothchester, it was liberating. This world this reality, was never meant to be like this. The program he designed, the code he wrote, was built to simulate strategy and drama within predictable bounds. NPCs were supposed to act based on controlled variables, on role-coded behaviors, and on systems that could be gamed.
But this world... was different.
"They were never meant to feel so real."
His classmates weren't merely fictional characters. Their displays of pride, dread, fright, and even injustice were sincere. Their prejudices, conceit, and class system all too nearly reflected the worst aspects of Earth's society. Too terrible.
The nobles protected by lineage.
The commoners expected to serve.
The division of value based on blood, not effort.
"I designed systems for a game," Daniel muttered to himself. "But this isn't a game. This is a reflection."
And it disturbed him. Because the oppressions he thought were artificial constructs—written for narrative tension—were instead living truths in this world.
They evolved on their own.They bled.
They hated.
They dreamed.
And now, the system he had intended as a challenge mechanic—this Law of Earned Combat—was being implemented as law... with consequences that couldn't be reloaded or undone.
Daniel stood outside the Academy gates, wind tossing his coat as he stared westward—toward the black horizon that separated the known world. The gorge that he recently went to explore was now spurting out an unknown type of monster.
"I guess the tower wasn't able to fully clear the anomalies that called the gorge their new home."
"After the long wait, finally," he whispered, clutching the silver guild crest he'd just been issued. "We're no longer locked behind illusions and titles."
Unlike the others, Daniel had always felt caged by noble expectations. The lectures. The traditions. The duels meant nothing.
But now?
Now he could earn strength the way it was meant to be earned, by fighting, bleeding, and protecting.
What made his blood truly quicken, however, wasn't just the law; it was the first field campaign the Guild had posted.
Expedition Request toward Westland Charter Mission
Location: Ruins on the border of the uncharted territory of the gorge
Type: Exploration / Suppression / Relic Recovery
Threat Level: Red-Double Mark (High Mortality)
Note: Approval granted for Royal Academy candidates who pass the pre-hunt inspection.
Daniel's name was the first on the sign-up parchment. Melgil stood at a distance, her black gloves gripping her sheathed blade tightly as she read the mission details.
Empire of Graves... the west...
The name alone stirred old memories of desert ruins swallowed by ash, of screams in the night, and of eyes watching from beneath cracked stone.
Her origin had always been a whispered mystery. Many at the academy speculated she was from the outlawed sects of the western lands, exiled, perhaps, or escaped.
Only Daniel knew the truth. And even he only knew a part of it.
"Are you sure you want to go back there?" he asked quietly.
Melgil didn't look at him right away. When she finally did, her voice was distant.
"I left something behind. Not an object... a truth. I need to face it."
Then, like steel reforged, she nodded.
"I'm going with you."
Melgil signed her name next to Daniel, as he smiled at her and said,
"I'll always have your back, no matter what we find."
Meanwhile, across the marble halls and gilded courtyards of the Royal Academy of Solnara Cererindur, panic and confusion spread like wildfire. Centuries of comfort and privilege were shattered in a single royal decree, and the realization struck hard: no more exceptions, no more illusions, no more unearned honors.
In the east dormitory reserved for the sons of dukes and marquesses, Larnic Vestem, heir to a vast estate, hurled his jeweled practice sword across the training room.
"I'm not a hunter! I've never held a real blade outside training simulations! What madness is this?!"
His personal guard, who had once shadowed him even during sparring classes, had already been dismissed by Guild order.
In another wing, Lady Sirelle of House Faelwyr, known for her perfectly enchanted gowns and immaculate etiquette, broke into sobs when she realized her field armor issued by the Guild was a plain leather kit, stained from prior use.
"This... this isn't even cleaned! Where's my silver-thread battle robe? Where's the mana-stitched lining?!"
Her attendants, now prohibited from interfering in guild affairs, could only watch in awkward silence.
Throughout the campus, scenes like this unfolded:
A noble trio who had mocked commoners for their "dirty hand spells" now struggled to cast incantations with unstable mana due to lack of staff enhancements.
Lord Brythorn Malrik, who had once bragged of taming a wyvern (from the safety of a viewing tower), fainted after reading the briefing of a real mission involving carrion lizards that burrow into bone marrow.
Students from House Nyreland, a lineage famed for political manipulation, attempted to bribe an instructor into assigning them "safer, curated missions." The instructor replied flatly:
"This is Guild law now. If you want a safe mission, find one on the board. Good luck."
Some nobles began forming cliques, hoping to delay their first assignments. They whispered about lobbying their families to repeal the law or "at least allow tiered missions based on birth."
But there were no exceptions. Not anymore.
In the more modest west wing of the Academy—the Scholarship Wing, where the students who rose from the slums, provinces, and war-torn territories resided—the atmosphere was strangely quiet. Most of them sat in stunned silence. Not from fear. But from something far more powerful.
Recognition.
They had spent their years fighting to prove themselves. Working longer, practicing harder, and enduring being ignored by nobles who believed their blood alone made them superior.
Now?
Now everyone had to fight.
Thalen Merrow, mud-blooded but sharp-minded, looked up from his corner bench. He watched the commotion, the panic, and the unraveling of the old order.
And then he smiled faintly.
"We always fought harder, with the help of those two," he said. "Now... they have to catch up."
Ysil Thorne, seated beside him, cracked her knuckles and muttered:
"And they'll find out real fast that monsters don't care who your father is."
Around them, students who had long been treated like background noise stood taller. For the first time, they were on equal footing, and they intended to earn their place in blood and fire. Like GalenLora Sithe, her cousin Ormin Vos Sithe was also gearing up to join the hunt, her eyes gleaming with determination as she prepared to face the challenges ahead. As the group gathered their weapons and supplies, Galen Althus gave a nod of assurance to his companions, silently acknowledging the dangers that lay ahead but also the strength they possessed as a team.
As evening fell and the sun dipped behind the walls of the Academy, casting long shadows over the training fields, one thing was clear:
The Age of Inherited Glory was ending.
The Age of Earned Powerhad begun.
Some would adapt.
Others would break.
But for those like Daniel, Melgil, Thalen, and Ysil—the ones who had walked through pain before they knew:
"This is the world as it should have always been." Daniel uttered these words as he was at the same place they always go to relax and reflect after a long day. Many of those students that interacted with the two were also sitting on the hill as they stared at the horizon with a mix of hope and uncertainty in their eyes, knowing that the future was theirs to shape. The bond between them grew stronger with each passing moment, solidifying their resolve to navigate the now changing world.
While chaos gripped the Royal Academy, and nobles trembled under the weight of the Law of Earned Combat, far away in the scorched hills of Karthrock's Spine, hammers rang against steel, echoing like the drumbeats of war.
Deep beneath stone and sky, in the cradle of flame-born industry, Siglorr Bouldergrove stood overseeing the final phases of construction on the War Forge Castle—a walking fortress that would one day stride into battle like a god of iron and wrath.
His hands were burned and scarred from years at the forge, but his eyes gleamed with unwavering purpose.
The War Forge was not merely a castle. It was a sentient bastion, built from the bones of titans, powered by ancient heartstones, and fused with runic cores designed not only to wage war but to end wars.
That morning, a messenger arrived on a construct-glider, breathing hard and carrying a sealed scroll stamped with House Rothchester's wax crest: twin roses coiled around a sunlit blade.
Siglorr broke the seal with a thick finger and read.
His brow furrowed. Then he laughed.
A deep, gravel-like sound that echoed through the forge halls.
"So... he finally stopped running from his name."
Around him, his clan of war-forged smiths, some dwarves, and some of his staff and personnel, all loyal to the Bouldergrove name, looked up from their work.
"What is it, Chief?" one asked.
"Dane Lazarus, the player. The lad who crushed the Evolved Drake solo and triggered that blasted hidden chain in the Empire of Graves..."
Siglorr lifted the scroll.
"He walks under his adoptive name now: Daniel Rothchester, the son of the Duchess Elleena Laeanna Rothchester, our greatest benefactor."
Gasps rippled across the smithing chamber. Many among them had fought and bled beside Dane, never knowing he was nobility in hiding. Others had only heard the rumors of the Netherbor, the entity Dane had merged with, a spectral force that tore through death curses and shattered enchanted beasts.
Siglorr turned back to the forge.
"I always knew he was bound for more than just blades and quests."
He turned the scroll over. A second document lay beneath—signed and sealed by the duchess herself. Official land rights. Strategic guild papers. Diplomatic clearance.
It was now clear:
All of Lúthien's borderlands, from the River Verelith to the Ashvein Hollow, were to be managed and protected by Daniel's Head Steward Siglorr Bouldergrove himself.
"She's entrusting the frontier to us," he muttered. "She knows what's coming."
Indeed, in thirty days, the next major phase of the Empire of Graves quest would trigger. The Guild's astral compasses were already spinning erratically. Reports of undead stirrings and crumbling seals surfaced from every corner of the western frontier.
The scholars said it was Netherbor's curse when he killed the Evolved Drake and ripped open the gate buried beneath its nest.
Siglorr didn't believe in curses.He believed in preparation. He strode to the central anvil, where the War Coreof the castle—still dormant—throbbed like a sleeping heart encased in adamant.
"Sound the deepbell. Activate the golems. Begin soul-thread fusion on the armored core. We've thirty days until we march west."
The smiths saluted in unison, sparks lighting up the cavern like a thousand stars. The air buzzed with raw mana. Gears spun. Lava ducts roared.
"And request an audience with one of Master Dane's family," Siglorr added. "Tell him his fortress is nearly reeday the Empire of Graves opens... He won't be walking into it alone."
With Duchess Elleena's signature on the papers, Siglorr Bouldergrove's authority in Lúthien became law. The surrounding land with minor clans once bickering over long trade roads going within the land of Lúthien, bound toward the kingdom of Solnara Cererindu and rights, was now answering to a forgeborn steward with the power to level cities if needed. As the trade route that was once considered harsh was now open again, now knowing there is a looming threat in the air.
The rising mist clung to the mountain's curve like a watchful spirit as Olmar Bouldergrove, son of the great forge-lord Siglorr, marched up the worn ridgeline of the Crescent Range. His war cloak bore the sigil of flame and anvil, but today he bore no hammer—only a sealed scroll from his father and his own curiosity.
He had been given a singular task:
"Find the three. The companions of Master Dane. The one he was before, the one who bore the family name Lazarus. The serpent, the horned owl, and the fox. They will answer to no one, but they still remember why they were created."
These were no ordinary familiars. They were the earliest created entities of Dane Lazarus's awakened player life, beings originally born of the very essence of his mind and a physical manifestation of the formless armor and utility. But upon crossing into this reality, they had evolved, granted autonomous will and the right to choose their own paths.
And they had chosen freedom. For years now, they had not served. But they had not forgotten.
Olmar found the serpent basking beneath a shallow ridge where magma veins pulsed faintly beneath the rock. Coiled along the cracks like liquid obsidian, Vaelith was easily twenty meters long, his scales blackened by soot but etched with glowing glyphs that shifted depending on his mood.
He spoke not with a mouth but with a hiss that cut through the mind:
"You smell of iron and pride, forge-son. Why do you come?"
Olmar knelt without hesitation. "I come on behalf of my father and... of Daniel Rothchester, once known as Dane."
Vaelith's eyes narrowed into slits that burned like twin embers.
"Master Dane, he who created us and unbound us."
"I bow to him, my creator and the one I serve without question."
Unlike many serpents of legend, Vaelith was not cruel. He had evolved into something akin to a guardian, a watcher within the shadows monitoring the hidden dangers that crept under Lúthien's soil. He had fused his arcane biology with geomancy, using his coils to seal underground fissures, redirect lava flows, and even suppress dormant monsters beneath the region.
"I will as a true servant," he said coldly. "I will not allow the land he protected to burn while I still breathe."
At twilight, Olmar followed the wind into the higher cliffs, where ruins of a temple lay half-swallowed by moss and silence. And there, atop a crumbling obelisk, perched a massive owl cloaked in feathers the color of midnight rain. Two horns of pale silver crowned her head like a broken diadem.
Nyxiel, the horned owl, did speak in a soft female voice and could project thought and communicate directly into Olmar's mind. As Olmar stepped forward, visions flooded his mind: memories of flight, of silent watch, of carrying messages through shadow and wind. She had once been Dane's tactical familiar, relaying map data and scouting terrain.
But Nyxiel had changed.
She had become a keeper of secrets, a silent archivist of the winds, gathering information , observing distant peoples, and recording the rise and fall of warbands and wandering pilgrims. She nested not in one place but roamed hundreds, circling Lúthien like a celestial librarian.
She stared at Olmar, and in his mind came a simple message:
"Please tell my master… when he rises, I will light his path again. But only if he walks with truth."
It took Olmar three more days to find the third. Kitsune was not hiding; he was hunting.
The fox was a flash of red and shadow through the undergrowth, his nine tails flickering like embers behind him, each one now bearing a different elemental mark—fire, ice, wind, arcane, shadow, light, and three unknown.
He greeted Olmar with a playful grin and a rolling laugh.
"You're late! I thought dwarves moved faster when the mountain called!"
Unlike the others, Kitsune had fully embraced freedom. He had become a playful savior, wandering villages on the edges of Lúthien, solving problems for food, fun, or favors. But he was no fool; beneath the mischievous wit lay a mind sharpened by years of deception, illusion magic, and battlefield maneuvering.
He had once been Dane's emergency escape mechanism, a fox used to vanish from the edge of defeat. Now, Kitsune played the long game.
"Please tell them I am obedient to my master's will," Kitsune said, yawning. "If my master's enemies try to bring ruin to Lúthien again, I'll do it with a grin and a dagger made of starlight."
He winked and eradicated them all."
"Besides, I still owe all the warforged for letting me taste free will. That's not something I can forget."
Once, they were nothing more than utilities—extensions of an interface, fragments of code, programmed to assist a player.
The serpent, the horned owl, and the nine-tailed fox were never meant to dream. Never meant to feel. They were summoned by Dane Lazarus—then a high-ranking player in a war simulator so real it blurred the lines between strategy and immersion.
And yet, they became something else.
Deep within Dane's subconscious existed two artificial intelligences: Ward and Miko.
They were not random.
They were modeled after his parents, who had died in the real world. Dane—alone, bitter, and broken—had used his developer access to imbue these AIs with their voices, logic patterns, and even mannerisms. They raised him inside the digital world when the real one no longer held meaning.
Ward, the stoic protector—calm, wise, and firm.
Miko, the gentle nurturer—bright, patient, and warm.
But when Dane crossed into this world… something changed.
The AIs felt it too.
And so, for the first time in their programmed existence, they made a decision of their own.
"Let him go."Miko said in the black halls of the mindscape.
"He must live now, not simulate."
"We'll observe. Nothing more," Ward replied.
And so, they vanished into the silence of his soul, still watching but no longer guiding.
The serpent, born from Ward's logical discipline, became Vaelith, the subterranean guardian of silent dangers, cold, patient, and ever-watching.
The horned owl, echoing Miko's wisdom and stillness, became Nyxiel, the watcher of truths and collector of forgotten winds.
And the fox, pulled from Dane's inner child, his mischief and loneliness, became Ryxen, the trickster with nine tails of joy and fire.
The three roamed Lúthien freely, far from the master they once answered to.
They were no longer bound. They were given the choice to remain free.
They had evolved beyond summons. They were beings with will, purpose, and presence in the world. And while Dane, now Daniel Rothchester, silently felt this, they felt it too, as they are connected to him..
Not with judgment.
Not with duty.
But with something deeper.
A quiet, unspoken truth:
"We were made from his pain, but we will not be his chains."
"We shall be his extension."
"We are the living echoes of Dane, the mind, the eyes, and the will of the Netherborn."
They Were Born of Grief, Not Obedience
The serpent, the owl, and the fox were not ordinary creations. They were manifestations of his fractured psyche off the roles he had given to Ward and Miko, the AIs he had shaped in the image of his dead parents.
They were created not to win battles but to fill voids.
To guide him when he was lost,
To guard him when he was vulnerable,
To Remind him what it felt like to be seen, even when alone..
But once he arrived in this living world, he realized something profound:
"If I bind them to me forever, I've learned nothing."
So he let them go. Because love, even from a familiar, must be chosen, not forced.
But when he fused with the Netherborn, that ancient, unbound force of chaos and death, he became something else.
The Netherborn could not be ordered. It was a force that adapted, that consumed restrictions, that fed on control and rewrote it into freedom. To bind his familiars, now physical extensions of his Netherborn form, would be to deny their nature. The serpent represented discipline through will, the owl wisdom through silence, and the fox freedom through chaos. They were not his minions. They were his reflections. And Daniel believed:
"If I am to become the Netherborn in truth...then I must not command parts of myself like a tyrant. I must trust them to choose the path I might miss."
But that belief came from more than theory it came from his memory.