SFX: SHHHHH—DRIP… DRIP…
Rain against stone. Rain against skin. Rain against destiny.
The rain tasted like betrayal.
Cold. Metallic. Endless.
It soaked through the black imperial cloak clinging to Caelan's small frame, plastering his dark hair to his pale forehead. Rivulets slid down his cheeks like the tears he no longer allowed himself. He knelt—fifteen years old again—on the execution grounds of Nocturne's First Palace.
The air smelled just as it always had: wet stone, burned incense, and coppery blood that never left no matter how fiercely the servants scrubbed.
Thousands watched from tiered terraces—
Nobles in silver masks.
Priests in bleached robes.
His siblings on the high dais, smiling the way predators smile when prey finally stops running.
Above him, the headsman's axe glinted.
Caelan kept his head bowed, shoulders trembling in perfect imitation of a terrified, talentless prince. An expression he had once practiced in secret—back when he believed fear might save him.
It didn't.
The axe fell.
SFX: THWAAA—
And the world shattered.
Rain froze mid-air. The axe halted an inch from his neck. Every breath, every heartbeat, every torch-flame—suspended.
Then a voice that was not a voice vibrated through the hollow of his bones.
[Chosen 873.
Caelan Ashka vi Nocturne.
Designation: Forgotten Prince.
The Trial of Ascension has begun.
999 souls have been summoned.
Only one may claim the throne of the Tenth Sovereign.
The rest will feed the Spire.]
The frozen rain burst into black shards.
The execution ground vanished.
Caelan fell—
Through darkness with teeth.
Through screams belonging to strangers he had not yet met.
Through memories he had lived once already:
his mother's poisoned tea,
his sister's knife in the dark,
his brother laughing as the axe rose.
He struck pavement.
Another rain greeted him—warmer, thicker, smelling of rot and old nightmares.
He lifted his gaze.
A city.
No.
A carcass of one.
Skyscrapers hunched like broken ribs under a sky bruised violet. Streetlights flickered with dying blue fire. Windows stared as blind eyes. Rain spiraled upward then crashed back down—as if gravity itself staggered drunk.
Shadows moved where shadows had no right to move.
A translucent screen carved from cold starlight seared across his vision.
[First Nightmare: The Sleepless City
Objective: Survive until the Bell of the 72nd Hour
Secondary Objective (Hidden): █████
Warning: Death is permanent. Resurrection is not offered.
Welcome to the Tutorial, Chosen 873.
Do not trust the rain.]
The screen dissolved into drifting ash.
Caelan inhaled. The air tasted of rust and endings.
Good.
He rose slowly, cloak dripping onto cracked pavement.
His hands were small again—unscarred.
The hands of a boy who had never held a sword…
never slit a throat…
never burned a kingdom just to see which sibling screamed loudest.
A faint smile curved his mouth.
The same terrified, broken smile he wore the first time he died.
Footsteps approached behind him.
He didn't turn.
He let his shoulders hunch, breath hitch—prey realizing the wolf was already inside the burrow.
"Oi. Kid." a rough male voice announced, threaded with annoyance.
Caelan turned.
A man stood ten paces away, soaked red scarf covering the lower half of his face, long black hair clinging to sharp cheekbones. His eyes—fresh blood red—cut through the rain.
Kaelith Bloodraven.
Rank 7 in the previous life.
Sword Demon of the North.
The woman who split him in half on the 204th floor just to test if he'd stop pretending to be weak.
Her gaze raked him like he was an insect that dared exist.
"You're one of the Chosen?" she questioned, disdain dripping. "You look half-dead already."
Caelan let his knees buckle. His palms slapped the wet ground. His voice cracked perfectly.
"I—I don't know what's happening… please, my lady, do you know the way back to the palace?" he pleaded.
Kaelith snorted.
But another presence arrived first.
Soft, barefoot steps on wet stone.
The rain hushed.
A figure emerged from shadow like moonlight given flesh—long white hair drifting despite the still air, golden eyes glowing beneath heavy lids, azure robes soaked with seawater that should not exist here.
Rhea vi Sylvestre.
Rank 3.
Saint of the Deep.
The leviathan who drowned three kingdoms for daring to exist in her line of sight.
In Caelan's first life, she pitied him.
Held him as he bled out.
Whispered empty comfort.
Now she tilted her head, studying him the way a tide studies a fragile sandcastle.
"Poor child," she murmured, voice soft as drowning. "You're trembling."
A single tear slid down Caelan's cheek. Perfectly timed. Perfectly false.
Kaelith rolled her eyes. "Great. Dead weight," she complained.
Rhea extended a pale hand.
"Come. Stay close to us. We will protect you," she promised, gentle and terrible.
Caelan took her hand.
Her skin was ice. Beneath it something ancient stirred, testing the taste of his soul.
He squeezed lightly, just as a frightened boy might.
Inside his chest, the thing that died the day the axe fell laughed without sound.
Protect him?
No.
This time, he would let them live long enough to try.
Thunder rolled high above—like gods stirring in their sleep.
Rain kept falling.
In the darkness between ruined buildings, a shadow peeled itself from a wall, following the scent of a prince who had already died once.
Caelan bowed his head so neither Rank 7 nor Rank 3 would see the monster flickering awake in his eyes.
The Tutorial had begun.
And he had seventy-two hours to remember how to become the nightmare they executed the first time.
Let the game begin.