The first world had ended in fire.
Azer Tor remembered the sky tearing open in streaks of unnatural purple lightning, slicing through clouds that should have held no shape. Screams layered atop screams, the smell of burning flesh and ash so thick it clung to his nostrils and burned at his throat. Stone had melted, steel bent like wax, and everything that had been certain—home, family, loyalty—had been erased in an instant.
He had been thirteen when the Wolfkin Clans fell, scattered across the ruins like leaves before a storm. Now, two years later, he was fifteen, and the second world—his new world—was beginning to rot from the inside.
Azer crouched atop the broken watchtower overlooking Thornreach. Once, it had been a bustling border city, all banners and trade bells and arrogance. Now it was a corpse, picked clean by scavengers, slavers, and something far worse lurking in the shadows.
Smoke curled lazily from the western quarter. Too controlled for a fire to have started naturally. Campfires.
Slavers.
His jaw tightened.
"Three wagons," he muttered under his breath. "Eight guards. One mage. And every single one of them thinks they're untouchable."
The wolfkin instincts, honed through years of hunting, mapped the terrain for him: wind direction, scent trails, blind spots. Every step, every shadow, every small sound became part of a pattern. The human side of him analyzed risk and calculated outcomes, probabilities layering across the scene in his mind. Together, they came to one conclusion:
They deserved to die.
He dropped from the tower without a sound, the wind catching him just enough to mask his descent. The ground below was littered with rubble, but his enhanced agility and balance meant the landing barely disturbed the stones.
The world had never cared that he was half-blood. Wolfkin looked at him as too smooth-skinned, too soft, while High Humans narrowed their eyes at the faint silver sheen in his irises. Both sides had taught him how to kill, though neither could have predicted the combination of lessons, blood, and magic he carried.
His father's people had taught him silence, patience, the anatomy of prey. His mother's had taught him magic—the arcane, precise, and utterly unforgiving.
At ten years old, the System had awakened.
At ten years old, it had branded him "Deficient."
The word had stung. It still did.
And yet, here he was.
⸻
Azer slid between collapsed walls, shadows crawling around his feet like living things. The camp came into view: iron cages, chained figures inside. Men, women, children. Some already too still.
A familiar heat burned behind his eyes.
Impulsive. Reckless. The elders' voices whispered in his mind. You'll get yourself killed.
Maybe. But not tonight.
A guard leaned against a wagon, laughing as he sharpened a blade. Azer appeared behind him like a whisper of darkness.
A knife slid between ribs.
No scream.
The shadow swallowed the body before it hit the ground.
Azer exhaled slowly, feeling the familiar pulse of energy surge through him. His mana dipped, but not dangerously—enough to remind him he wasn't invincible.
Another guard turned. His eyes widened at the faint violet glimmer in Azer's pupils.
Lightning arced along Azer's fingertips, coiled and controlled. It didn't explode outward—it struck surgically, striking nerves and muscles, paralyzing without immediate death. The guard collapsed, twitching. Shadow tendrils unfurled and constricted, anchoring him in place until his struggles faded.
The mage's scream was the last mistake of the night. A half-formed circle lit the air in shimmering blue, but Azer's hand moved faster than the eye could follow. Shadow intertwined with lightning, colliding mid-air in a flash that tore at the chamber walls.
The mage detonated, releasing unstable mana that singed Azer's cloak. He rolled, landing hard, ribs screaming in protest.
Blood soaked into his tunic.
"Worth it," he muttered, tasting iron in his mouth.
The remaining guards panicked, the chaos giving him an edge. Within seconds, the camp was silent except for crackling fire and the faint sobs of survivors.
Azer moved to the cages.
"Run east," he commanded, voice low and sharp. "Don't stop until you reach the river. Avoid the roads."
They stared at him as though he were a monster. And maybe he was.
He turned away before it mattered.
⸻
Night deepened as he limped through the ruins. Each step echoed in ways that didn't match his movements—the dungeon itself was alive, aware, and curious. He felt it before he saw it.
The ground convulsed.
The sky darkened—not with clouds, but something wrong. Pressure filled his lungs as if the air itself were watching, judging.
A brief flicker appeared in his vision.
[System Alert – WORLD INSTABILITY DETECTED]
Origin: Unknown
Severity: Cataclysmic
Compatibility Warning: Dual-Origin Entity Detected
Azer froze.
Dual-origin. That word burned behind his eyes. It had appeared once before, faint and inscrutable. Now it roared at him like a warning.
The ground split.
From beneath the cracked earth rose stone unlike any Azer had ever seen. Massive, veined with violet runes, pulsating as though it had a heartbeat.
A dungeon.
No. Something worse.
[System Alert – ANCIENT RELIC DUNGEON EMERGENCE]
Designation: The Hollow Throne
Recommended Level: ???
Warning: Class Evolution Catalyst Detected
His pulse quickened.
Class evolution.
He had been waiting five years for this. Five years of scavenging, fighting, bleeding, and surviving for a chance to step into power beyond even the wolfkin's harshest expectations.
A roar echoed from the dungeon depths. Old. Hungry. Knowing.
Azer's grin was a thin slash of teeth in the dark.
"Guess I don't get to rest," he said.
He stepped forward.
The dungeon door slammed shut behind him.
And the shadows swallowed him whole.