The computer fan hummed softly in the darkness of the apartment. NoScopeSlayer123 slouched in his gaming chair, eyes glued to the screen where vibrant pixels danced. It was 3:47 a.m., but who was counting? Certainly not him. His fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, producing that satisfying clack he loved hearing in the quiet of the night.
On the screen, his pixelated avatar lounged on a stone throne atop an abandoned fortress. The view was breathtaking: endless green plains stretched below, and a dizzying cliff dropped into the void. WorldEdit: Divine Edition was something else. A game he'd stumbled upon on a shady website a few months ago, it had become his latest obsession.
"Let's see…" he muttered, leaning closer to the screen.
A gray floating panel had appeared before his character. The command console. He'd spent the last week exploring its possibilities, and damn, they were endless. He'd already created NPCs, reshaped terrain, summoned legendary items… but now, he wanted to try something new.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
`/summon entity:humanoid [parameters…]`
"Alright, let's do this… body age, about a decade, male…" He typed methodically, setting the parameters. Nail growth speed: 1.8 mm per week, average eyelash length: 8.3 mm, ability to digest pebbles: max two per month… "Let's make this good for once."
He paused, staring at the endless list of options. Height, weight, basic skills, starting inventory, level of consciousness, personality traits…
"Ugh, too much work."
With a smirk, he clicked "Random" for half the remaining parameters. This game was just too good. The NPCs he'd encountered were eerily realistic in their interactions. The map was massive, the items countless. Since his first launch, he hadn't been bored for a single second.
It's so fun to mess with NPCs and watch their reactions, he thought, chuckling to himself.
He checked the visible parameters one last time, nodded in satisfaction, and clicked "Confirm."
Then… nothing.
NoScopeSlayer123 frowned. His character was still sprawled on the throne, and no entity had appeared before him.
"What? Are you serious?"
He checked the interface for an error message. Nothing. Then an idea hit him, and he opened the menu of recently summoned entities. A long list appeared, the fruit of weeks of experimentation. At the top was a new name.
`Entity_Humanoid_2847 - "Cassian"`
"Alright, it worked then." He clicked on it, scanning the details. Everything seemed fine, except… "Oh, crap."
The spawn location. He'd forgotten to set it. And the game had apparently decided to place the entity randomly. Very randomly.
NoScopeSlayer123 zoomed out on the map, searching for the marker. He zoomed further. And further. And further.
"Damn it, where…?"
The marker wasn't even on his map. Out of bounds. At an absurd distance from his current position. Literally at the other end of the generated world.
"Fine, let's check out this little guy." He clicked spectator mode, and his view teleported instantly.
The screen filled with blue sky and clouds.
And a kid falling in freefall, screaming.
---
Cassian opened his eyes.
The first thing he felt was the wind. A violent, howling wind that whipped his face and made his white tunic flap wildly around his body. His blond hair thrashed in every direction, and he had to blink several times to process what was happening.
He was falling.
No, not just falling. He was plummeting toward the ground at terrifying speed.
"Wh… what?" His own voice surprised him. Melodious, almost musical, even in his rising panic.
Below him, far below, stretched a dense forest. Trees that looked like tiny green dots for now but were growing larger fast. Too fast.
His turquoise eyes locked onto the sphere floating beside him, spinning slowly as if gravity didn't apply to it. It was compact, the size of a human head, but… dense. Incredibly dense. As if entire oceans were compressed into that tiny space.
The Shoreless Sea.
The name came to him naturally, as if he'd always known it.
"Sea!" he shouted over the whistling wind. "Give me something to fly!"
The sphere pulsed faintly, then opened like an invisible maw. Something shot out in a silver flash.
A ring.
It spun in the air, glinting under the sun. Cassian instinctively reached out to grab it, his fingers closing on… nothing.
"No, no, NO!"
The ring slipped past his hand and continued its fall, vanishing from sight.
Cassian sighed, a strangely calm sound given the circumstances. "Alright. Try again."
This time, the Shoreless Sea floated closer, hovering just above his outstretched hand. The sphere spat another ring directly into his palm.
"Yes! Thank you!"
Cassian slipped the ring onto his index finger. It fit perfectly, as if custom-made. He waited, heart pounding with anticipation.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Nothing.
"…Seriously?"
He raised his hand, staring at the ring glinting innocently. Then he glared at the Shoreless Sea, brows furrowed.
"You gave me junk, didn't you?"
The Sea didn't respond, of course. But Cassian knew, with absolute certainty, that it couldn't be wrong. Its very existence was tied to him.
So why…?
Wait. An activation condition.
Of course. The ring probably required mana to work. That made sense. The problem was, Cassian didn't have a trace of mana in his body. He knew it instinctively, like knowing he was hungry or thirsty.
"Sea, fix this."
The sphere spun for a few seconds, as if thinking. Then it spat out something new.
A vial.
Cassian caught it with both hands. It was stunning, made of crystalline glass with golden filigree, containing a luminescent liquid that shifted from blue to purple. The thing practically screamed "I'm worth a fortune."
Without hesitation, Cassian uncorked the vial and downed its contents in one gulp.
The taste was… indescribable. Sweet and bitter at once, with floral and metallic notes. But what followed was far more intense.
"Gah…!"
First, cold. An icy chill spread through his chest, radiating into his veins like crushed ice. Then, almost instantly, heat. A burning warmth followed the same path, as if his blood was being replaced by lava.
Cassian gritted his teeth, his face contorting. He felt something forming inside him. Pathways, channels, an intricate network weaving through his body. It was painful but not unbearable. More like a rapid transformation, a body adapting to something new.
After what felt like an eternity but was likely only seconds, the sensation faded.
Cassian opened his eyes, panting slightly. He felt… different. Not drastically, but there was something new within him.
"Alright, cool. Now let's make this ring work."
He raised his right hand, focusing on the ring. He tried to… what, exactly? Channel mana? Activate it mentally? Say a command word?
Nothing happened.
The ground was getting dangerously close. The trees were no longer green dots but distinct shapes, with branches and leaves visible. Cassian could even make out details of the terrain.
"Come on, come on, come on!"
He tried again, closing his eyes, focusing with all his might. Still nothing.
Then it hit him like a punch.
I have a way to use mana now. But I don't have any mana.
The vial had created the channels, the circuit. But it was empty. And Cassian had no idea how to absorb ambient mana. He didn't even know if there *was* ambient mana to absorb.
And time was running out.
"SEA!" he yelled, panic truly setting in. "FIND A SOLUTION!"
The Shoreless Sea reacted instantly, spitting out something bulky.
A book.
A massive leather-bound book with golden inscriptions on the cover. Cassian caught it clumsily, reading the title as he continued his fall.
*Legendary Guide to Mana Absorption: Theory and Practice by Archmage Veldrin*
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"
Cassian hurled the book with force, watching it spin away. "I DON'T HAVE TIME TO READ A DAMN MANUAL!"
The ground was closing in. Five hundred meters. Four hundred. Three hundred.
At first, Cassian had been almost nonchalant about his situation. It was weird, sure, but he had the Sea. The Sea could fix anything, right?
Now, stress was written all over his beautiful face. His turquoise eyes were wide, his teeth clenched, and his hands flailed frantically as he tried to activate the ring.
Two hundred meters.
One hundred fifty.
"SEA! PLEASE!"
One hundred meters.
The Shoreless Sea seemed to grasp the absolute urgency. It began pulsing rapidly, emitting a strange light.
Fifty meters.
Cassian was screaming now, a high-pitched, desperate cry that would've been comical in other circumstances.
Twenty meters.
The Sea erupted into frenzied activity.
And started spitting.
Creatures. Dozens, then hundreds of living creatures poured out of the compact sphere like an impossible torrent. Wyverns, bears, giant boars, wolves, creatures Cassian didn't even recognize. They appeared all around him, falling with him, forming a dense, writhing mass of panicked bodies.
The creatures roared, snarled, flapped their wings uselessly. All hurtling toward the same impact point as Cassian.
Ten meters.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!"
Five meters.
BOOM.
---
Marcel, Captain of the Royal Guard, was a man who never panicked. With forty-three years of experience, a hulking frame, and a impeccably trimmed gray mustache, he'd seen too much to be easily rattled.
But now, he was seriously worried.
"Your Majesty, we need to move faster," he said, glancing nervously around.
King Cedric of Haverloch trudged forward, one hand pressed against his side where his hunting tunic was torn and bloodstained. In his sixties, tall and lean, with blond hair that gleamed even in the forest's shade and deep red eyes that gave him an almost menacing air.
"I… I'm going as fast as I can, Marcel," Cedric replied, his voice strained with pain.
Four guards surrounded them in a defensive formation, their armor clinking softly with each step. Claude, the king's personal squire, a twenty-year-old with chestnut hair and anxious hazel eyes, brought up the rear, holding the reins of two horses.
Thank the gods we found the king in time, Marcel thought, gripping his sword's hilt. The wild beast had nearly… no, he didn't want to think about it.
They'd managed to scare the creature off before it got too close to the king, but the problem was they were now far from the main hunting event. And the beast was still following them. Marcel could feel it, that predatory gaze fixed on them from the forest's shadows.
"Captain," whispered one of the guards, a bald man named Bertrand. "You feel it too?"
"Yes. It's tracking us."
It was strange. No, more than that. It was unsettling. A mere wild beast wouldn't have this obsessive fixation on the king. It would've given up long ago against an armed group.
Unless it wasn't just a beast.
"Claude," Marcel called without turning. "See anything behind us?"
The squire scanned the dense forest, squinting. "No, Captain. But… I've got a bad feeling."
"Yeah, me too, kid."
They pressed on, each step seeming to bring them closer to safety yet deeper into danger. The forest was too quiet. No bird songs, no rustling of small game. Just the crunch of their steps on dead leaves.
Claude, slightly off to the side, suddenly looked down.
Something glinted on the ground, nestled among tree roots.
"Huh?"
He crouched, curious. It was a ring. A stunning silver ring with a blue gemstone that shimmered oddly. What was something like this doing in the middle of nowhere?
"Claude, what are you doing?" Marcel hissed. "Now's not the time to—"
CRASH.
The ground shook.
A deafening noise erupted from the sky, as if the gods themselves had hurled something to earth. Trees snapped. Birds scattered in a panicked flock.
And something crashed a dozen meters from the group.
No, not something.
Hundreds of things.
Marcel froze, his brain momentarily refusing to process what he saw. A mountain. A mountain of dead and dying creatures had literally fallen from the sky. Bodies piled into a grotesque heap, at least three meters high.
Blood oozed. Limbs twitched. Moans rose from the mass of broken flesh.
"What… what am I seeing?" Bertrand muttered, his face paling.
"FORM UP!" Marcel roared, his combat instincts kicking in. "GET HIS MAJESTY BACK! CHECK THE SKY!"
The guards reacted instantly, forming a defensive circle around the king. Shields raised, swords drawn. Claude instinctively stepped closer to Cédric, guarding his flank despite wielding only a ceremonial dagger.
"What… what is that?" the king stammered, his red eyes fixed on the pile.
Two guards held the horses' reins, ready to evacuate the king at the first sign of immediate danger. Marcel scanned the sky, fearing more creatures would rain down.
But the sky was clear. Empty. Serene.
What the hell is going on?
Then, atop the pile of corpses, something moved.
A boy slowly stood, pushing aside a wyvern's body that had been crushing him. He was small, breathtakingly beautiful. His white clothes were oddly pristine despite what he'd just endured.
He let out a long sigh of relief, like someone who'd narrowly escaped death.
Then his turquoise eyes landed on the group below his macabre perch.
Cassian blinked.
Five men in armor. One man in a bloodstained hunting tunic. A young guy with horses.
All staring at him in shock.
"…Oh," Cassian said aloud. "Hello?"
No one answered. The silence was absolute, broken only by the dying groans of the creatures.
Then everything happened fast.
Footsteps. Lots of footsteps.
A new group of men emerged from the forest, quickly surrounding the royal party. About twenty, armed and organized. Marcel's blood ran cold.
"Reinforcements?" Bertrand whispered hopefully.
But Marcel knew. The way these men fanned out, their cold gazes fixed on the king, their hands already on their weapons.
The newcomers glanced at the pile of dead creatures with surprise but quickly refocused on their true target. King Cedric.
"What is the meaning of this?" Marcel roared, his voice booming with authority. "Identify yourselves immediately!"
The men didn't respond. They tightened their circle, blocking all escape routes.
Then, from the forest's edge, it appeared.
The beast.
Except it wasn't just a beast.
It was a werewolf.
The creature stood easily two and a half meters tall on its hind legs. Its gray-black fur was matted with dried blood, and its yellow eyes gleamed with malevolent intelligence. It joined the assassins' ranks, towering over everyone.
"Oh, shit," Claude breathed.
Marcel understood in an instant. The hunting accident. The king's isolation. The beast tracking them relentlessly.
This wasn't an accident. It was an assassination disguised as one.
"Your Majesty," Marcel said in a low, urgent voice. "Stay behind us. No matter what."
Cedric nodded, his face pale but resolute. He wasn't a warrior, but he was a king. He wouldn't show fear.
Atop his pile of dead creatures, Cassian watched the scene unfold with a perplexed expression.
"What am I even doing here?" he muttered to himself. "This is about to get messy."