The alley was dark. Not in the sense of the absence of light—but in a way that suggested something darker still. Emptiness. Detachment. It suited Arthur.
He adjusted the faded straps of the duffel bag slung over his shoulder and stepped into the dim passage, his footsteps echoing with mechanical precision. Every step, every breath, every heartbeat was measured. Controlled. That's what the years had made him—disciplined, like the steel of a blade drawn too many times, dulled to everything except the motion of its swing.
Arthur hadn't always lived this way. Once, he had laughed. He had shared meals with people who cared. But that was long before the fire, long before the accident, and the long string of betrayals that taught him people could be more dangerous than blades. The path of solitude wasn't chosen. It was earned, one scar at a time.
His training began at thirteen, when his father—once a martial arts instructor—lost the will to fight but still forced his son to continue. At first, Arthur resented the endless routines: the early morning runs through icy streets, the blisters, the cold mats of the underground dojo. But pain became a teacher. It whispered truths to him that no human ever did.
By the time he was eighteen, Arthur could dismantle a grown man in seconds, using nothing more than momentum, leverage, and silence. He didn't fight for glory. He didn't fight in tournaments. He trained because it was the only thing that made sense.
That night in the alley, something had shifted. He knew it the moment the three men stepped out from the shadows, knives in hand, eyes twitching with chemical madness.
"Hand over the bag," the tallest one hissed. "Now."
Arthur's eyes remained unreadable. No fear, no anger. Only stillness.
"You don't want this fight," he said quietly, his voice low and clear.
They lunged anyway.
The fight lasted seven seconds. Arthur moved like a ghost—ducking, striking, twisting. Two of them were already on the ground groaning, but the third—perhaps out of sheer desperation—managed to swipe wildly with his knife. A sliver of pain bloomed across Arthur's ribs.
It wasn't deep.
But the sound that followed wasn't from the knife.
It came from above.
CRASH.
A construction beam, dislodged from the scaffolding three stories above, slammed down with brutal finality. The men scattered.
Arthur didn't.
He didn't have time to.
Everything went dark.
Then—light.
A vast expanse. Endless white. No ground, no sky. Just Arthur, floating in nothing.
He blinked. He wasn't in pain. He wasn't anything.
"Interesting," came a voice. It wasn't sound, exactly. More like the idea of sound, directly implanted in his awareness.
Arthur turned. Or thought he did. The nothingness shimmered, and in the center of it appeared… something. A silhouette made of shifting light and shadow. Humanoid, but too perfect, too fluid to be real.
"You are not the first to die with rage in your bones," the being said. "But you are the first to face death with peace in your soul."
Arthur didn't respond. He simply waited.
"I offer you a second chance," the voice continued. "Not as a reward. Not as a test. But as a spark."
"A spark for what?" Arthur asked, his voice sounding distant.
The being moved closer, though the space around them never changed. "A dying world. A war between darkness and light. A place where nightmares are real, and strength is carved from suffering, also known by you as the fictional work by the name Shadow Slave.."
Arthur frowned slightly. Not in fear. In thought.
The only thing that helped him pass the time beside training was reading books and novels so he clearly knew what this creature was talking about but a thought filled his mind as he voiced his thoughs out loud.
"Will I remember?"
"Everything. Your solitude. Your training. Your death. And your purpose."
Arthur paused. "What purpose?"
"To become what you could not on Earth," the voice replied. "To find something worth protecting—or destroy everything in your way trying."
The light began to pulse. The being extended what could only be called a hand.
"Accept."
Arthur hesitated for the briefest moment. Then, with the same control he'd lived his whole life by, he reached out.
The first thing he felt was cold.
The second was hunger.
Arthur sat up with a gasp, choking on air that stung his lungs like ice. , lying on a slab of smooth, obsidian rock. The sky above was a swirling tapestry of deep purple and red, like a bruise stretching across the heavens. Two moons hung in the sky—neither one familiar.
Around him was a wasteland. Craggy black hills. Forests of twisted, skeletal trees. A single ruin in the distance, half-swallowed by the earth.
Arthur gasped, lurching upright as he heard a Voice whisper in his ears.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell.
Prepare for your First Trial...]
The first thing I did was Open my Attributes and Aspect
Name: Arthur
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant.
Soul Core: Dormant.
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Fateless], [Steel Body],[Outsider],[Mind Fortress],[ Prodigy]
Aspect: Blade Wielder
Aspect Description: A nameless soldier wielding his blade and fighting with willpower alone through this treacherous reailty.
I didn't have enough time to look through everything as the scenary around me started changing the once wasteland regrow in to a beautiful land a castle atop a hill and a beautiful greenery all around me yet as quickly as it came it changed once again as a battelfied appeared before my eyes fire and ash raining down from the sky
the screetching and howls of beasts all around me as soldiers and beasts alike fell down to the ground.