Luther Kingsley, the sixth son of the noble Kingsley household. A lineage known for it's formidable prowess and unyielding pride. Born into a world of luxury and status, one would think his life would be filled with warmth and belonging. Yet, from his earliest memories, Luther's existence was marked by a profound and suffocating loneliness. Despite the prestige of his family name, Luther was nothing but an outcast, shunned by his siblings and dismissed as a failure by his parents.
While his brothers and sisters excelled, Luther struggled with the simplest steps of Ethermancy, a constant disappointment to a family that valued strength above all else. His parents, distant and cold, saw him as nothing more than a burden, a disgrace to the Kingsley legacy. Every encounter with them was an exercise in degradation, their words sharp and cutting, reducing him to the sum of his inadequacies.
Trapped in a gilded cage, Luther felt the weight of the disappointment pressing down on him, day after day. The estate, once a home, became his prison, filled with contempt and disdain.
When his father finally instructed him to leave and be admitted into Eldrynn Academy, Luther saw it for what it was, a dismissal, a way to rid the family of him. But he couldn't bring himself to care. In fact, he welcomed it. The academy, with its strict rules and endless expectations, offered a semblance of relief. It was a place where he could disappear, where the suffocating presence of his family's disdain would no longer loom over him.
As he walked away from the Kingsley estate, Luther knew he wasn't just leaving his home; he was escaping a life that had never been his, hoping to find solace in the solitude of the academy.
For the first time, he felt a flicker of something akin to peace. Not the peace of contentment, but the peace of surrender. In leaving, he wasn't just leaving his home; he was leaving behind the last vestiges of a life that had never truly been his.
As he walked away from the grand gates of the Kingsley estate alongside the cohort of guards serving as his escort, Luther knew that he was not just stepping into a new chapter; he was closing the book on a life filled with nothing but sadness and tragedy, hoping that, perhaps in the solitude of the academy, he might finally find some small measure of relief.
********
In a vast, desolate expanse of darkness that seemed to stretch infinitely, the consciousness of Alaric, now only a faint remnant of what it once was, lingered. It felt like a small, weak flame, on the verge of being snuffed out by a powerful gust of wind.
Drifting aimlessly in this endless void, Alaric's final thoughts flickered weakly.
"This isn't as bad… as I thought it'd be," he mused.
For what felt like an eternity, he hovered in perpetual boredom, the fragments of his existence slowly dissolving into the void, disappearing completely. He was on the brink of losing all sense of self, ready to embrace what felt like eternal darkness.
The final lingering essence of his soul already dyed black by the void, assimilating into it.
But then, suddenly, a bright ray of light pierced through the bleak void, striking directly at his soul.
"What the...!?"
In an instant, he felt an unseen force wrenching him away from the comforting darkness, pulling him violently through the void. Feeling a boundless force pulling him from one side to the other, it was as if he was caught in a cosmic tug-of-war between the boundless void and the blinding light, over and over.
After what felt like forever, the light finally won, dragging him out of the darkness.
Bathed in the light, the remnants of his soul slowly grew stronger and more complete with each passing second, filling him with a pleasant sense of elation and euphoria. It was as if the light was mending the fragmented pieces of his being, restoring what had been lost. Alaric felt himself being lifted from hell to heaven, ascending higher as his soul began to shine in harmony with the mysterious, violent light. Eventually, his entire vision—if it could even be called that—was consumed by the overwhelming brilliance.
When the intensity of the radiance reached its peak, Alaric felt a part of himself anchoring onto something… something solid, or more aptly, something firm and unyielding.
'Hmmm, what's this?'
What followed was a disorienting blur. He experienced countless lives within distant dreams and nightmares, each experience more vivid and surreal than the last.
He lived as a humble baker. Then as a tyrant king who burned cities for sport. In the next moment, he ruled a world of silence. Then, he watched as entire galaxies wept and died in his name. And so it went.
He witnessed the very fabric of space and time tearing itself apart before him, unraveling into nonexistence. Some scenes were beyond comprehension. Leaving him trapped in an infinite well of insanity and desperation. His mind split apart countless times, each fracture tearing away a part of his essence and driving him to the brink of madness more times than anyone should ever be capable of enduring, but here's the wild part, he was still alive, still in agony and very much whole.
His perception of time was distorted, he didn't know whether it all happened all at once or a couple millennia.
He tried to scream, but no sound escaped.
He tried to claw at himself, desperate to tear away the pain, but it was all in vain.
He longed for the insanity to stop, for death to bring an end to the torment, but it wouldn't come, no matter what he did.
Finally, it all suddenly subsided so quickly, as if everything was only an illusion or a distant dream. A sharp gasp tore from his lips as his eyes flew open, his body jolting upright as if violently ripped from the clutches of a nightmarish torment.
His breath came in ragged and uneven bursts, cold sweat trickling down his face. His head throbbed with a mind-splitting headache, each pulse of pain feeling as though someone had pried open his skull and was mercilessly smashing his brain around like a twisted toy.
Instinctively, his hand shot up to his head, his fingers brushing against something wet and sticky. Pulling his hand back, he stared in disbelief at the dark blood smeared across his trembling fingers. A grimace twisted his features, but before he could make sense of it all, he felt a rough jerk at his collar.
A stranger's panicked face filled his vision, eyes wide with terror, mouth moving rapidly in a frantic scream that he couldn't quite make out. The words were muffled, distorted by the pounding in his head and the relentless ringing in his ears. Confusion gripped him as he tried to focus on what the man was saying, but the overwhelming pain made it impossible to comprehend.
"What…!?"
Just as he was about to push the stranger away, he glanced around, his senses slowly registering the world around him. His heart skipped a beat as he realized he was at the center of what appeared to be a battlefield. Everywhere he looked, men clad in armor clashed violently, swords gleaming as they struck with deadly precision, while others hurled spells that exploded in bursts of light and fire, the chaos a stark contrast to the darkness he had just escaped… or was probably still in it?
The scene was a whirlwind of chaos and destruction, a nightmare made real, and he was right in the middle of it. His mind raced, trying to piece together what was happening, but all he could think was one thing:
"Where the hell am I?!"
As if answering his own question, he took in his surroundings. He found himself in a vast woodland, the ongoing battle taking place in a spacious clearing among the trees. The ground was uneven, with patches of knee-high grass and stretches of barren earth interspersed.
Despite the carnage unfolding around him, the sun shone brightly in a clear sky, offering a stark contrast to the chaos below. The weather was perfect, warm, and refreshing. Almost serene.
Lost in this dissonance, he was abruptly jolted back to reality by the stranger who had been screaming at him like a banshee this whole time:
"Hold on, my lord! We'll escape these heathens soon and head to Ryneth for safety. It's just ahead!"
"Lord… Heathens… Ryneth?… Ugh!!!"
Alaric was dumbstruck, the words tumbling around in his mind as he struggled to make sense of them. Before he could gather his thoughts, a sharp, excruciating pain drilled into his skull, far worse than anything that's going on right now.
The stranger noticed his contorted expression, mistaking the horrible pain he was feeling for the wound on his head and quickly tried to soothe him, speaking hurriedly.
"Yes, my lord. You may not remember, but we were ambushed by a band rogues. One of them broke through and struck you down with a club."
He paused briefly, then continued, urgency in his tone.
"Thankfully, I got there in time and dealt with the bastard. Now, we need to keep moving. Ryneth's not far."
Alaric followed the man's pointed finger and saw a small clearing ahead, the trees sparse, and a faint path leading on. But beyond that, nearly three dozen men stood, blocking their escape.
Understanding dawned on Alaric's muddled mind. He gave a slight nod and, with some effort, stood up.
Satisfied, the man took the lead, guiding the escape party of seven through the blood-soaked battlefield.
The next few minutes were a blur of horror and desperation. The man who called him "lord" stayed by his side, cutting down anyone who dared come close. A guardian of unmatched strength, he dispatched foes with a single swing, blocking attacks without even a flinch.
Through it all, Alaric fought a different battle within his own mind.
"Wh-who am I?"
"Luther... Luther Kingsley."
A grimace twisted his features, his expression warping as if he was rejecting the name.
"N-no."
An uncertain expression shadowed his face, but he forced himself to continue.
"Yes, I'm Alaric S-Sullivan."
"...What the hell was that?!"
He wondered, his body shuddering uncontrollably at the memory of whatever the hell he'd gone through in the darkness.
"A nightmare?"
No, it couldn't be.
That hell was way too much to dismiss as just a dream. The void was gone, the nightmares had vanished, but the memory of them lingered, etched into his mind like a brand, but he instinctively chose to push it aside, terrified of what he might uncover if he delved too deeply.
He focused instead on the memories before that—his true life, the life of Alaric. His head throbbed with pain as fragments of memories resurfaced, struggling to coalesce into a coherent picture.
With each memory that returned, each piece of himself that reassembled, the pain began to ebb away. Slowly, the events of that terrible day, his final adversary, and everything in between came back to him, right up to the moment he was consumed by that damned storm of flames.
As his mind settled, the panic and confusion on his face slowly gave way to a cold, indifferent look of clarity.
The men around him shuddered for some inexplicable reason, feeling as though a predator was
hiding in their midst. Even the tall, unshakable guardian suddenly felt uneasy out of nowhere.
A/N: Author here, you can leave a comment if you have any questions for anything related to the story.