The world doesn't teach you strength.It teaches you what happens if you don't have it.
Ethan followed the cloaked man through the ruined forest.
Ashes floated in the air like snow. The trees were charred skeletons. The ground was cracked and thirsty. Every step echoed louder than it should've. There were no animals here. No birds. No sound.
It felt like the world had been dead for a long time.
And now Ethan had finally joined it.
The man didn't speak for hours.
Not until they reached the edge of a cliff — a vast canyon below, filled with swirling shadows and whispers that curled up like smoke.
"This place," the man said at last, "is called the Maw."
"Everything that was cursed, abandoned, or hated… ends up here. Monsters that were never born. Spirits no god wanted. Rage that never found a home."
Ethan stared into the abyss. The voices were faint but constant.
Crying. Screaming. Laughing.Something beneath called his name.
"Ethan... Ethan Vale... come home..."
He didn't flinch.
"You want power?" the man asked.
Ethan's fingers clenched into fists.
"I want to burn everything that left me behind."
The man smiled. "Then jump."
Ethan looked over the edge again.
Black mist curled around his feet. It felt cold — but comforting. Like it already knew him. Like it had always been waiting.
"There's no coming back," the man warned.
"Good," Ethan whispered."There's nothing left to come back to."
And then he stepped forward.
And fell.
Falling…
He didn't scream.
He fell for hours — or maybe seconds. Time lost all meaning. Images flashed around him:
His mother's face. Warm and gentle. She died before he could protect her.
His friends turning away as he bled on the battlefield.
Irelia kissing someone else while he burned.
He gritted his teeth.Tears streamed from his eyes — not from fear. From rage.
He hit the bottom.
Darkness swallowed him.
A black sea. Cold and alive. Whispers rushed into his ears, into his lungs, his bones.
"He's not worthy."
"Another broken soul."
"Too soft. Too kind. Too weak."
Ethan screamed — not in pain, but in defiance.
"Shut up!"
He forced his body to move. The darkness tried to hold him down, but he crawled through it like a dying animal.
"They left me behind!"
"They all turned their backs on me!"
"And now… now I'll become what they fear most."
Something moved in the dark — a beast. Tall, horned, with a thousand glowing red eyes. It snarled and lunged.
Ethan didn't dodge.He grabbed it by the neck.
The shadows surged into his skin, merging with his veins. Pain exploded through him. His body shook violently.
"If I have to become a monster," he growled through clenched teeth,"Then I'll become the worst one."
Somewhere above, days later…
Irelia sat in her palace chamber, her smile tight as she received a new medal. The nobles clapped. The crowd adored her.
"To Irelia, Hero of the East! Who saved us when all hope was lost!"
She smiled.
But deep inside, something tugged.
A name she hadn't said in months.
Ethan.
A servant approached her after the ceremony, trembling.
"M-my lady… a message came for you."
She opened the scroll.
And her blood froze.
One sentence.
"The dead walk. – E.V."
Back in the Maw…
Ethan rose from the black sea.
His eyes were not the same.One glowed with a cursed red light.The other was cracked, leaking smoke.
His voice was deeper. His heart colder.
And wrapped around his arm… was the severed horn of the beast he had slain.
"The world taught me pain," Ethan said softly."Now I'll teach it regret."