Chapter One: Painful Memories
The night crept slowly over the kingdom's walls, the sky burdened with clouds as though it carried the weight of the entire realm.
In the long corridor of the palace, the king and his wife walked with heavy steps, their breaths trading places in carrying the weight of an exhausting silence.
The king spoke, his voice hoarse:
"The taxes are burning the people… the last war shattered the treasury, and the Hovers demand wages we cannot afford."
The queen replied, her tone trembling:
"Until when? Soldiers are falling one after another, the people are starving… even the light we promised them has gone out."
He lowered his head, then said with sorrow:
"There is no solution but the Kingdom of Shinken… the excavation contract for Lordinium. A humiliation, yes—but without it, we will collapse."
She gasped, raising her eyes toward him:
"They'll take almost all of it… eighty-five percent for them! Is this all that remains for our kingdom?"
He gave no answer. His silence was louder than any confession.
In the royal garden, the sound of clashing wood rang out.
Young Ashuras staggered under the strikes of his brother, Lloyd, while the latter's laughter scattered through the air.
"You fell again!" Lloyd shouted with glee.
Ashuras rose, sweat dripping, and cried: "I was greeting Father and Mother! That's cheating!"
Lloyd smiled coldly:
"War does not wait for your smile… an enemy seizes every chance. The score now: two hundred victories for me… and none for you."
Blood boiled in Ashuras's veins, but all he had to fight with was his seething frustration.
Then suddenly…
The scene shattered.
The garden began to fade, like a dream dissolving into black water.
The trees, the grass, even his brother's laughter—all receded into a suffocating air.
And through the haze of darkness, a new vision opened:
Blood soaked the ground.
Lloyd lay limp in his arms, breath faint and cold. Beside him, the lifeless bodies of their parents, still and soulless.
Ashuras screamed: "It wasn't my fault!"
But another voice rose from the shadows, hollow, like an echo from within:
"It was you… You envied him… You led him astray… and now they're all gone because of you."
His body trembled, his eyes frozen on the blood flowing until it drowned his very steps.
He awoke to a scream tearing from his chest:
"Llooooyd!!"
He sat up in terror, drenched in sweat, his hands trembling as he whispered:
"I didn't… I didn't… I didn't…"
The words fractured in his throat, repeating endlessly—until he no longer knew whether he was speaking them aloud or only hearing them within.
The next place…
A deserted training ground atop a mountain shrouded in fog.
Ashuras knelt, gasping, his grip tight on a cracked wooden sword.
Before him stood Master Shin, his eyes like dark stones without a single glimmer.
He spoke in a low, unyielding voice:
"Rise."
It was not a word—it was a judgment.
And each time Ashuras rose only to fall again, he felt as though the earth was not testing his body… but his very will to endure.
Shin did not explain, nor did he show mercy.
The training was a silent trial, as though the mountain itself watched his collapse.
And there, amidst the cold and the ashes, Ashuras realized his journey had not yet begun…
His fall was only the beginning.