Even judged by its name alone… it was still an understatement.
According to legend, even the continent's strongest warriors had fallen to it, its name forged by the vile evil it had birth over the years.
As dawn broke, the forest lay smothered in dim fog below and heavy clouds above, swallowing the sun and leaving even beasts struggling to see.
A faint, fist-sized gray light flickered between the trees. On a small, mud-covered hill lay a man drenched in blood and dirt.
It was Dante, his dark skin turned ashen from blood loss.
Nearby, a snake slithered through the mud, inching closer.
Suddenly, the gray light twisted, stretching into a translucent hand before snapping forward!
In an instant, the snake vanished.
All that remained was a thin red thread, flowing from the pulsing hand into Dante's body.
His eyes snapped open. He jerked upright, gasping for breath as pain tore through his lungs.
Glancing around, his body slowly eased as he realized… he had survived the fall. He had a smile as he believed that, as long as he was alive, he could still change something. It started with getting out of this forest.
But the thought of where he was made him shiver. Survival wasn't the real problem it was what came next. He knew the Evildemon Forest's reputation, and he was far too weak to survive a second time. He had always been powerless, yet he trained in secret, hoping to one day uncover his power.
A dejected sigh slipped from his lips as he checked his body.
The last place he checked was the wound that had been bleeding before the fall... it had stopped.
Sliding a hand beneath his shirt, he felt the deep gash carved across the right side of his chest.
His black eyes dimmed as the memory returned, his heart raced, the chaotic voices, shouts closing in from every direction.
A knight clad in green armor appeared before him. He hadn't teleported, just simply too fast to perceive.
A flash of silver steel cut through the air.
Dante barely reacted. The blade missed his vitals by inches, but still carved into his chest!
He clenched his fist, the little strength he still possessed frustrated him. He had never been given the chance to truly know his power.
Suddenly, he coughed violently. When he looked down, his hand was filled with blood.
'My Divine Bridge has been severed. I can't feel the world's Essence anymore. What can I even do with this little Soul Essence? I wasn't even given the chance to climb back up. No power means death in this world, and here, there's nowhere to hide. I'm really about to die. Would it have been better… to just be judged?' He thought irritated.
"No!"
Dante muttered through his gritted teeth. "I can't give up now. I'd be breaking my word, a promise already carved into this world… and the Keepers of Oath do not forgive broken vows."
A faint gray pulse flickered around his fist as he forced himself up, first with one hand, then his legs. Everything ached, far worse than the moment he had been branded a traitor.
It was the worst pain he had ever felt, but he ignored it and forced himself to stand.
His body swayed. He frowned as he watched the little gray energy he had left flickered… then vanish from his palm.
Glancing around. He heard a low growl drift through the mist. "I'm losing control of my Essence. I can't sense anything, but I'm not blind either. And yet… I feel Evildemon Beasts everywhere."
Still, he forced himself to try. He couldn't move through this forest blindly, he needed to know what surrounded him.
He felt his unstable Essence rising toward his mind, as if it wanted to consume him. But as it passed his heart, it seemed drawn to something… unfamiliar.
That place, the origin where all warriors awakened their abilities, should have been empty. With a severed Divine Bridge, his power should have been gone. It was the bridge that allowed humans to draw Essence from the world and shape it into strength. Without it, a warrior's future was supposed to end.
"It's… not gone. Just… different."
He decided understanding could wait, he had stayed here too long. He even noticed, around him, runes began to glow across the trees, slowly spreading along their bark.
Worry and fear weighed on him. Beasts were coming, and to them, he was nothing more than weak, easy prey. Even the weakest Evildemon Beast rivaled a trained Empire soldier.
As he took his first steps forward, his eyes lit up, he still had a weapon.
The moment he looked down, he frowned. A ring on his finger, set with a small red gemstone and a needle imprint. He understood that it was destroyed, whether during his escape, the fight, or the fall, he didn't know.
He had thought it was his first stroke of luck. Now, he believed his chances of surviving even a single day here had dropped even lower.
"That's… generous."
He clenched his fist. He rejected that number, not out of confidence, but because he refused to let it decide his fate the way his father once had.
As he moved deeper into the forest, he noticed there were no birds, no wind, as if something here made sound itself disappear.
He only heard a low, suffocating hum seeping from the roots of the trees. The runes carved into their bark pulsed faintly dimly for a second, then brighter, as if reacting to his presence.
'The Evildemon Forest holds more dread than humans. I don't belong here, even as a loner, much less being tied to the Golden Rose Empire.'
The trees rose like towering spires, their trunks unnaturally thick, their bark twisted into shapes like screaming faces frozen in time. Some were split down the middle, yet still stood hollow and black inside, as if something had devoured them and left only the shell behind.
His hand drifted to his chest, fingers brushing the torn fabric and the jagged wound beneath. He believed that by every law of this world, it should have been fatal... It was fatal.
A severed Divine Bridge meant more than lost power, it meant disconnection. From Essence. From growth. From the very system that allowed humans to defy mortality.
Dante looked at his palm, flexing his fingers slowly. That faint gray pulse from before hadn't felt like Essence, nor had it flowed like it.
Essence was warm, alive, and responsive.
What he felt now was… cold. Detached, like it didn't belong to him, yet obeyed him all the same.
A foreign power?
Dante punched a tree ahead of him. "…Father would've called this heresy."
He closed his eyes. For a moment, the forest faded, not physically, but in his mind, replaced by a memory. Painful… yet strangely warm. A moment with his father.
A towering figure who had an unyielding presence, his presence alone could silence entire halls.
"Power is not given, Dante. It is aligned."
His father's voice always carried weight, not just authority… but certainty. The kind that left no room for doubt.That man, no, that title had never once looked at him as a son, everything had led to this moment.
"…I see it now. The outcome was decided before I walked in."
In his mind, he walked once more through polished halls and shadowed corridors, people's whispers following him.
"The bastard carries unstable dread blood."
"He may be tainted… not human enough."
Dante's jaw tightened, and he spoke out in realization. "…You didn't even try to hide it. The priests… the guards… even the trial overseers… All planted. All repeating the same script. You wrote it."
Shaking his head faintly. "And I… thought I was proving them wrong."
The chamber. The Rose. A sacred relic… meant to affirm one's Divine alignment.
His brother stepped forward, calm, composed. The moment his hand touched the Rose, the vines stirred… then softened. They curled around his arm, embracing him.
A warm, golden light spread outward.
"Perfect," Dante whispered. He was glad it also accepted his brother.
"Next."
All eyes shifted. Dante stepped forward, one step at a time. The closer he got… he felt the air turning colder.
Suddenly, a crimson thorn shot toward him, nearly piercing his heart. The Rose hadn't dimmed or faded, it had attacked, lashing out like something cornered, something threatened it.
His body burned from the inside out. It wasn't just pain, something had gone wrong. His Essence had spiraled out of control, responding to something it didn't understand.
This wasn't natural. It wasn't how he had imagined it would go.
"I lost control... Of course I did."
Energy surging, the chamber is destabilizing, voices shouted all around, filled with fear and accusation.
"…Altered records," he muttered. "That's where it started, isn't it? My birth… my blood… something about it didn't fit what you needed."
"And Aurelius…" Dante's voice softened. "With me gone… everything falls into place."
The perfect heir. The perfect narrative. The perfect removal of the "unstable variable." A faint, bitter smile appeared. "…You didn't just erase me."
Slowly, he looked down at his hand. His fingers curled, and the faint gray pulse responded... weak, unstable, but his. "No Divine Bridge. No, Rose. No name."
"If this was all your design, Father…your greatest mistake is still breathing."