Unknown Ascension
This novel draws heavy inspiration from several different novels, including Shadow Slave, Lord of the Mysteries, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (Tensura), and others. These stories have helped shape the tone, pacing, and complexity of the world I’ve created—one filled with mystery, and transformation.
Our protagonist is Krova Astris, known more casually as Kastis. He was once an ordinary man living an ordinary life—until he wasn’t.
Orphaned at a young age, he lived alone on the streets until he was ten, when he was adopted by a Japanese mother and a Pakistani father. For the first time, he felt what it meant to have a home. His life unfolded quietly and steadily from there. At thirty, he fell in love with Ariel, his childhood friend who had also been adopted and raised apart from him—but never truly separated. A year into their relationship, they married. A few months later, their daughter, Estelle, was born.
Kastis had everything he ever wanted… and then it was taken from him.
When Estelle was just three years old, Kastis was killed under mysterious circumstances—and transported to another world.
That world is Mistale, a parallel realm that exists alongside Earth. In the ancient ruinic tongue of that world, Mistale means First or Ruins. It is a place marked by forgotten history, deep power, and a fractured reality—where souls can evolve, but only through unimaginable trials.
Kastis does not have a fixed personality. His experiences—both in life and after death—shaped him into someone constantly shifting, growing, unraveling. The man he once was was deeply cautious, reserved, and quietly humorous. But the man he is becoming? That’s something even he doesn’t yet understand.
On the surface, he carries a relaxed, almost indifferent mask. But beneath it lies unprocessed grief, dormant rage, and a pain so sharp it threatens to define him.
Even his name reflects this duality.
The name Krova is a subtle variation on the Russian word krov’, meaning “blood”—a nod to his hidden lineage and the legacy that binds him to the ancient powers of Mistale. Astris, meanwhile, is loosely inspired by French linguistic roots, lending a sense of elegance and celestial significance. Together, the name becomes a symbol: of blood and stars, destiny.
This is Kastis’s story.
A journey through pain, power, illusion, and identity.
And it has only just begun.
