Part 1
One April night, the sky pulled on a blanket of deep gray clouds, hiding every star it could. A boy tossed and turned in his bed, eyes stubbornly open.
Rain kept hammering the ground of that small town—if you could even call it a town anymore. The place looked hostile: scars of the war between humans and orcs covered every shattered wall and every building burned to ash. Soot-stained stone, streaks of blood, bodies left to rot in the main avenues, trees blown down over rooftops that had sheltered hundreds of families just weeks ago. Fields were razed. Weapons and armor lay scattered beside their owners' corpses. It was a ghost town now, a graveyard that could never live up to its old name: Rivayle, the City of Flowers.
It had only been three weeks since the battle ended. Even so, the rats had already arrived to "clean up," chewing through the flesh of both races—because nature forgives no one. Not even the children trapped in the orphanage, those a single orc had beheaded while clutching a greatsword, swallowing hard and praying to the heavens for forgiveness for the crime he was about to commit.
But let's go back to the boy who couldn't sleep. He and his parents had reached the city only a few hours earlier and needed a place to spend the night, so they searched for any house that still had four walls and a roof that didn't leak—anything that would let them rest after the long trip.
The kid had silver eyes he got from his mother, Mary, and a mess of jet-black hair like his father, Ryan Ace. He was curious and hyperactive—pretty understandable when your parents are adventurers who love traveling the world. Whenever they went on an expedition, they'd leave him at the first orphanage they could find for a few days so little Maxx wouldn't be in danger.
They hadn't expected this. Then again, everyone was used to it by now—even a six-year-old.
Hours passed. Midnight came and went, and Maxx was still awake, listening to the rain beat the rooftops and the wind whistle through the broken bones of nearby buildings.
The house's hallways were drowned in darkness; the small flame of a candle drifted toward the room where the child lay. It was Ryan. You could see the exhaustion in his eyes, but he had to check that his son was asleep.
At the doorway, he saw the curtain-door hanging open. Beyond it, he spotted his "ray of light" (as he liked to call Maxx) lying on his back, eyes fixed on a single point in the ceiling.
Ryan slipped in quietly—he didn't want to break whatever silence his son was wrapped in. He stood there for a few seconds, until Maxx's gaze met his. The boy sat up and, without a word, invited him in.
Ryan sat on the edge of the mattress. When he did, a calm voice—soft but brimming with curiosity—broke the quiet.
- " Dad, I can't sleep " - Maxx said, staring into his father's tired eyes.
Ryan smiled a little. He already knew exactly what his boy needed to hear.
" How about a story? "
The kid's eyes lit up. His throat knotted with words he couldn't push out; his little body trembled, giving off a faint glow—the reason he'd earned the nickname his dad had given him.
" I'll take that as a yes " - Ryan chuckled, trying not to die of cuteness overload. - " This story starts a long time ago—exactly 10.7 billion years ago…"
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Part 2
Gelidia—the realm of the Pugilists. People who fight with their fists, face-to-face, blessed with the elemental natures of Energy, Earth, and Fire. In Gelidia, your social status is decided by one thing only: your combat strength and your ability to adapt when you've got nothing but your knuckles between you and whatever stands in your way. The nation was born in the snows of the tallest mountain peaks. It's a place of brutal cold and high pressure; for a human, that means headaches, joint pain, clogged ears, hyperventilation, inflamed tissues. The Pugilists evolved to handle it, using their affinities and relentless training to keep their body heat up and push through every hardship.
Only a day had passed since Nivalis, the capital, hosted a once-in-a-decade ceremony: the tournament that decides who'll rule the city for the next ten years. The 128 strongest fighters in the kingdom gathered and fought through elimination rounds for eight days straight. The Coliseum shook every time a new champion was crowned ruler of the capital.
Still, being ruler here doesn't mean much to Pugilists. No matter who you are or where you come from, you work—hunting the mountain beasts that feed the realm. That rule, though, applies only to men. Women are treated like ornaments—companions who take their husbands' names and exist to glorify their partners' public image. Their duty is to keep each home and city clean and orderly. They don't fight, but they do use their strength to build and maintain the country's infrastructure.
But it's too early to go down that road. Let's talk about Marvel Ryuuji, the winner of the latest tournament, already moving into the highest house on Mount Thrun, where Gelidia's current king lives with his wife, Ekatherina Ryuuji, and their son, Red Ryuuji. A boy who, from a young age, showed great motor skills and quick reflexes—though to his father, that was nowhere near enough.
Marvel is strict. He beats Red until the kid's body gives out from pain or learns to dodge on instinct. If you ask him why, he'll give you just one answer:
- "The world's cruel. You've gotta be ready to take a hit."
His face is a mask of indifference, no matter what state his son's in.
And if the boy's mother tries to stand between them, Marvel hits her too—head and stomach—until she blacks out. Women aren't allowed to strike a man or anyone else, even in self-defense. The worst fate is for a woman who tries to escape the life forced on her; she'll be hunted down by a special tracking division led by the king himself and the ten army commanders—with one goal only: execute any deserter.
But that's not what matters right now. What matters is the moment that might change one of our protagonists' lives.
Red sat on the floor, staring out the window. A blizzard was raging, and he couldn't see more than a few meters ahead. From this height, the snow swallowed even the houses where his friends lived. He started wandering the house, and tripped over a loose floorboard, scraping his knees. He didn't flinch from the pain. Curious, he crouched to lift the plank and found something underneath: a book titled The Origin, apparently written by a human.
He padded back to his room. His parents were out, so he opened the book. Ekatherina had taught him to read and speak when he was four. Red's mind bloomed early—he soaked up everything. His father, though, believed reading was a waste of time—something that distracted him from what mattered: fighting and becoming the next monarch when Marvel retired. Not that Marvel looked anywhere close to stepping down; with his strength and age, he'd probably rule for another twenty years.
Anyway. Red opened the book and started reading:
"10.7 billion years ago, before time itself and space existed, there was only Nothingness.
An absolute, eternal, formless void, and in the middle of it, a sphere of energy spinning on itself—so massive that even today it's impossible to measure its true size.
No expert knows if that sphere moved forward or remained still, if it followed a course or danced randomly. All that's certain is that everything we know was born from it.
At some point, the sphere began to destabilize. Energy particles started colliding, triggering a chain reaction. That's when the mass of energy finally exploded.
Billions of magical particles lit up the darkness and gave shape to space. But that wasn't all—some of that energy had already started turning into matter.
Matter and energy clumped together in formless blobs, and that's how the first stars appeared. They were unstable, dying almost as soon as they were born. But with each explosion, those particles slowly changed, taking on new shapes. From those bursts came the first traces of the primal elements: Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind.
Centuries passed. The elements tried to form more complex structures, gathering across the cosmos to make stars, planets, natural satellites, asteroids—every piece we know out there.
Some planets formed from a single element—gas giants, or worlds that were just one endless ocean. Others held more than one. Our story begins on one that was born of all four.
Four elements were known by nature, but two more were everywhere, always—born of that first universe: Energy and Darkness.
All of these shaped our planet, Elyria, and from their mix, Life began to bloom.
Time flowed, and the elements themselves gave rise to thinking beings.
The first were born with affinities for one or two elemental natures. Among them, though, a dangerous race—greedy enough to awaken affinity for every element—was cursed with a limit: they could never release the true potential of any single one. Good at everything, masters of nothing—that was their seal.
At the start, peace reigned among the 36 races living across 5 continents. They shared languages and knowledge, learned from each other, and together uncovered the mysteries of magic and the universe. Distance and difference didn't matter. They raised cities as tall as mountains and bright as summer days. They knew things we've forgotten, spoke words that seemed to hold the world together, and carved signs in stone that hushed the wind and called the rivers to run. With those skills they built towers and bridges, plazas and roads that joined far-off lands. It was an idyllic world—full of laughter and song.
Then everything began to change. Tension settled over the land like a crushing weight. The first argument broke out—not a big one, or so we thought. If only we'd known…
That argument shook the foundations of the civilization they'd spent so long building.
Some races claimed power, declaring themselves superior because they could wield more elements than others. Some wanted to control natures they didn't have affinity for, throwing the world's magic off balance. Others—those specialized in a single branch—said they were strongest and most fit to lead, because they could unleash an element's true potential.
The balance broke. The world trembled harder. The first disputes flared. It started small—trade bans, species slander—and then something no one expected: the first signs of slavery. The first world war erupted right there.
And that's how the great civilization vanished. No wind tore it down; no quake buried it. It burned out from the inside. A candle that flared too bright and consumed itself.
No one understood why all those peaceful, intelligent beings suddenly turned on each other. But there was a theory.
Figures of power had been handled—puppeteered. Some swore they'd seen forbidden symbols—runes like the ordinary ones, but twisted. These didn't create or transform; they stole and destroyed. Heat turned to ice, life to ash, order to chaos.
The wise called it superstition. Others, scared, hid it under a darker name: forbidden magic—Necromancy.
You're probably wondering what happened to the remains of that world-spanning civilization. Truth is, when the towers fell and the temples sank, not everything was lost. Part of its strength—part of its magic—stayed hidden. Not in one place. Buried under mountains, asleep in breathing caves, hidden beneath endless forests, and under the sea too, where there are stones marked with signs no one should be able to read. Across the nearby continents, there are pieces of it—breadcrumbs someone left long ago so the ancient knowledge could be found again someday.
To this day, no one knows for sure if those runes are real or just a myth.
But believe me: in forgotten temples, on broken tablets, in whispers from the shadows—those forces still exist. Some could end everything, spreading fear and ruin across the world. Others might restore what the wars destroyed."
Red couldn't believe what he'd just read. He froze. He couldn't tell anyone—his father wouldn't believe him, and his mother wasn't great at keeping secrets. So he slid the book back where he found it, set the loose plank in place, and prayed no one else would discover it.
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Part 3
Ryan watched little Maxx. Tiny sparks of static danced in the boy's hair—he was dazzled by the story, but he didn't want it to end. There had to be more. He cleared his small throat.
" What happened after that? " - He asked, waiting for his father's answer.
Silence swelled in the room. The lamp crackled. Ryan's heart stumbled as he reached for the right words—like they were tucked somewhere behind his ribs. He let out a breath, then pressed his right hand to his chest and curled it into a fist, as if he were squeezing his own heart.
" Out of everything that happened " - He said - " The worst part wasn't the fallen stones or the empty squares. The worst was opening your eyes and realizing the people who gave the city life were gone. A lot of kids lost their parents. No one waited at the door for them. No one said, 'It's bedtime now. "
His hands trembled as the battle's remnants flashed behind his eyes, but he kept going.
" Some people lost everything—homes, families, friends—their whole lives ripped away in an instant with no way to defend it. They were left alone, trying to figure out how to survive in a world this cruel. "
" Kids slept in the streets, on cold ground, wearing clothes so worn they were basically dirty rags—thin enough that the cold could punch right through to the skin. For them, rainy days are the worst. " - He rested a hand on his son's shoulder, as if to comfort him. - " Maxx, remember this: rain doesn't ask who it hits. It just falls. It doesn't care who's sleeping without a blanket. Rain isn't the cruel one—it can't think. People can. But when a child is lying in the street, somehow no one sees them… Folks walk by and pretend they aren't there, like if they ignore them, they'll just disappear. You know what, son? There's nothing bigger than a crowd walking past a shivering kid."
The boy swallowed and lowered his gaze. His fingers found each other and fidgeted, looking for comfort in their own touch. The story wasn't over.
" Other kids had a different fate—no better, though " - Ryan said, voice full of melancholy. - " They were taken to work where they never should've been—aprons too big tied around them, a bucket shoved into their hands. Best case, they were made to clean a house. Worst case… I don't even want to remember. " - A tear slid down his cheek, tracing a line from his eye to his chin. - " They learned to scrub floors that weren't theirs, to stay silent when their knees hurt, to ask for nothing. They learned to smile without wanting to, just to stay out of trouble, while hiding the scars across their small backs. Some boys and girls forgot the sound of their own names—or even how to speak—because inside those walls their names were 'hey, you,' 'brat,' 'idiot'… living beings without the right to live, forced to die for the pleasure of those who condemned them. "
He let the words sink like a stone settling into a pond—ripples spreading slow across the surface. A dry cough broke the silence. He cleared his throat.
" Maxxi… that great civilization wasn't shattered by the wind, and no earthquake buried it. It burned out from the inside. A candle that flared too bright and ate itself. "
The boy stopped playing with his fingers and looked up again. In the half-dark, his big eyes begged for—and feared—the next part. Ryan leaned closer and lowered his voice, like sharing a secret you only tell at night when no one's supposed to be awake.
" Listen closely. There's a secret only a few know: when the towers fell and the temples sank, not everything disappeared. Part of that power—part of that magic—was hidden, sealed so no one could see it. Not in one place—no. Buried under mountains, asleep in breathing caves, hidden beneath forests that never seem to end, and even under the sea, where there are stones carved with signs no one's been able to read. "
" No matter where you go, across the nearby continents you'll find pieces of it—like breadcrumbs someone left long ago so we could find our way back. "
The child drew in on himself—not from fear, but from a strange chill mixed with curiosity that raised goosebumps on his skin. That spark only true stories carry.
" To this day, no one's brought proof you can set down in a public square for everyone to see. No witness has said, 'I saw it,' and convinced the whole world those places are real. What people have are tales passed mouth to mouth, old drawings on older stones, hollow words riding the wind toward ears that don't want to listen. Some laugh. Others stay quiet. Most repeat the same line: 'Whoever finds those remnants—whoever wakes what's sleeping—will be unstoppable. "
The word hung in the room like a stubborn ember, still shining in the cold night.
" Unstoppable… " - The boy echoed. His father gave a small, crooked smile and nodded.
" And that's the danger—and the temptation—of the places we call dungeons " - Ryan said. - " Because not everyone who searches for them wants to heal the world. Some would use that power to reignite the fire that burned it all down. The danger's always there. So if you ever choose to follow in my footsteps and go into those places, remember this: not everything that glitters underground should be dragged into the light. Some things are better left hidden—for the sake of the world and its people. "
The boy's fingers traced the blanket, as if counting invisible words.
" Do you think… " - The question faded. He started to mumble, dropped his voice before he could finish—didn't matter. His father understood.
" I think you can do it " - Ryan said. - "You don't have to force yourself to follow your father's path. But if you choose it, here's my warning: shut your heart off. Dungeons are cold—not cold to the body, cold to the soul. They tear it down until there's nothing left. The treasures, though… are incredible. " - He paused and took the boy's hands. - " Maxx, every time you discover something, ask yourself if it makes the world bigger or smaller—if it puts bread on a table or takes lives away. And one last thing… don't be afraid of stories, son; be afraid of steps taken without thinking. Those are the steps that make the tragedies we know. "
The lamp's flame dipped, still dancing in its glass cage, but running out of wax. At the window, the wind eased. The rain had stopped. Silence settled in—like the night itself wanted to listen, too.
Maxx's eyes grew heavy. Sleep had finally won. He lay back. The story kept glowing behind his eyelids.
" Sleep now " - His father whispered, tucking the blanket around him. - " Tomorrow's a new day. If it lets me, I'll tell you another one—funnier and more exciting than tonight's."
The boy managed a tired smile. His eyelids were lead, but the story stayed lit inside him.
Ryan rose quietly, picked up the lamp, and walked to the door. Before leaving, he turned back and looked at Maxx with a faint smile. He wanted to freeze this moment—but he had to sleep, too.
Light narrowed as the door swung shut. With his eyes almost closed, the boy murmured:
" Good night… I love you."
The latch clicked. The room fell into dusk. Outside, somewhere not far away, the night still smelled like rain. And in the hush between sleep and waking, a blond boy with golden eyes had just reached the town where Maxx and his parents were staying.
He looked exhausted—like he'd been running forever, either trying to escape something or find it. His body was thin, almost skin and bone, as if he hadn't eaten or slept in days. The night alone would witness his fate. When he finally stumbled into a city, he realized it was in ruins—abandoned, wrecked, and empty of food. His mind went dark. His body gave out. In slow motion, he pitched forward and hit the ground. He couldn't move—he'd fainted where he stood. But he was still alive, clinging to it with what little he had left. If he didn't eat within the next twelve hours, though… his life would end.