The Midan Clan...
The Cold Moon Sect...
It took a long time before Lydaeus accepted his true identity.
He didn't want to believe it.
He couldn't believe it.
That his existence was against nature.
His existence was going to bring chaos to both worlds.
A forbidden child.
He didn't understand why it had to be him.
It could be anyone else but why him.
Why did the VIVAT choose him?
If he was an ordinary child, his mother wouldn't have died.
Those voices were right.
It was his fault.
It has always been his fault from the beginning.
And now the news had gotten to him.
That the Lydaeus forest has been burnt down.
The spirits that hunted the forest became rampant and began killing people in the capital.
Those who lurked around its territory.
So the spirits were transferred and trapped in the Blood sea.
And the forest was burnt.
Those spirits were his brothers.
He must save his brothers.
He must avenge his mother.
His master knew he was the VIVATRA from the beginning.
Yet he didn't turn him in.
Instead, he did the opposite.
Why?
That was the only question his master left unanswered.
Having mastered the laws of the heartless.
Lydaeus began to learn the forbidden arts of the heartless.
They were forbidden not only for their cruelty but for their intent.
These movements had been carved from centuries of war, refined not to defend but to destroy.
Every stance sought the joints, every strike the throat or spine.
Each technique was meant to end battles before they began, leaving only silence and corpses behind.
But there was something darker still.
The breathing methods_ the twisted rhythms Draal forced Lydaeus to adopt _ gnawed at his spirit.
They demanded that the practitioner draw strength from fury, from fear, from pain itself.
The more one bled, the stronger the strikes become.
The more one suffered, the more precise the body's violence grew.
Those who practiced too long were said lose their humanity.
Their hearts hardened into weapons as merciless as their art.
Dynasties had outlawed them.
Monks had burned entire libraries to keep them safe.
Yet here in this sacred hallow, Draal dared to pass it on.
Not for honour.
Not for recognition.
But because power such as this could not fall into the hands of the unworthy.
And so Lydaeus endured.
Each breath dragged fire into his lungs.
Each movement scorched his muscles but he still obeyed.
The path laid before him was one of the shadows.
Yet once stepped upon, it would forever cling to his soul.
Lydaeus's knees sank into the dirt until they burned raw, his body folded in the stance his master had commanded.
Every tendon screamed for release.
Every breath dragged like a blade through his lungs yet he did not cry out.
He had learned already that a cry would earn him silence, the kind delivered through his master's merciless strikes.
The movements were alien to his young framed sharp as broken glass, demanding a precision that mocked his weaknesses.
Each failed attempt left his muscles trembling but his master only ordered him to repeat.
Again and again until Lydaeus's arms hung heavy as iron and his bones felt hollowed by exhaustion.
It was not training.
It was breaking.
Breaking the softness of childhood, breaking the body until nothing remained but a shell to be filled with art's cruel shape.
He could feel it already, a weight pressing down from within as though the very stances were etching themselves into his marrow.
The breathing drills were worse.
Forced to inhale until his chest ached and exhale until his vision blurred.
Lydaeus felt as though his own blood were being forged into fire.
His heart raced, pounding against the rhythm he was forced to obey but still he endured.
Lydaeus bit down, sweat mingling with the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.
He wanted to stop.
His body begged to collapse.
But the shadow looming over him offered no mercy.
Draal's voice, low and cold, drilled into his ears.
" You want to avenge your mother yet you cannot endure such pain. Your enemies will be laughing at your funeral"
A child was being stripped of his innocence.
His suffering hammered into discipline.
And though Lydaeus did not understand,the art he learned was no gift.
It was a chain that would bind him, body and soul, to a path from which there was no return.
Thus the days folded into one another,not as tasks to be completed but as rites to be endured.
Lydaeus meditated day and night with the aid of the forbidden arts of the heartless.
Until him and the VIVAT became one.
The previous VIVATRA's were controlled by the VIVAT.
But now, he controls the VIVAT.
" Master" Lydaeus approached Draal as he tended to his little garden.
" What?" Draal asked coldly without sparing him a glance.
" We want to change our name."
Draal paused for a moment, then turned to Lydaeus.
" We? You and who?"
" The VIVAT."
" Oh!" Draal forgot that Lydaeus regarded it as a living thing.
They merged together.
" Lydaeus means 'cursed souls' and we don't want to bear that."
" So what do you have in mind?"
Draal asked quietly.
" Rose Black"
Draal turned pale.
" Naming yourself after the great goddess of rose is even worse than the name Lydaeus.
You do realise it was goddess of rose that created the VIVAT. She violated a law against the heavens and the Underworld.
You naming yourself after the goddess is worse than a curse."
Lydaeus shrugged.
" That's what the VIVAT said "
Draal almost laughed.
" That's what the VIVAT said? That's what_"
Draal stopped for a moment.
When did he start talking to the VIVAT?
One wrong word could upset the VIVAT.
He didn't want to enter another Nightmare.
" Since the VIVAT was created by goddess, that's why I bear her name. And ' Black ' because I was rejected by nature."
Lydaeus voice turned cold.
For a moment, he sounded like he was the master and Draal was the disciple.
" Hence the meaning of Rose Black is; a forbidden child of Rose born against the laws of nature."
Draal nodded in silence.
Lydaeus was now stronger than him.
Smarter than him.
No. He has to call him Rose Black now.
His killing aura had greatly increased during the meditation period.
He can't go to the outside world with an aura that could kill once felt.
He could kill an ordinary immortal just by passing by.
" The Ice stone tournament is coming up.
It takes place after every 100 years "
Draal told his disciple.
" What's the tournament all about?"
Draal smiled.
" A fight for freedom. Only 70 disciples are to gain freedom. The rest are to remain for another 100 years."