The Awakening
Darkness had become his only friend.
Ten years.Ten long, agonizing years in the black belly of Verdantia's deepest prison.No light. No warmth. No name.
Only breathing.
And pain.
Endless, orchestrated pain.
He had stopped counting days long ago.Time didn't exist down here.Only suffering did.
But today... something changed.
The Spark
The boy—ten years old, skeletal, scarred, curled against cold stone—twitched.
An unfamiliar energy began to burn through his bones.
His red eyes opened slowly, faintly glowing like embers in ash.
The air around him thickened, humming with something old. Something forbidden.
Magic.
Not the studied chants of scholars.Not the gentle rituals of healers.
This was raw. Wild. Untamed.It didn't arrive. It erupted.
It stormed through him like fire in a dry forest.
His back burned.
Not from blade.Not from whip.But from truth.
The Mark
A symbol emerged—seared into flesh, shining with light and shadow.
A swirling sigil. Ancient. Divine.
The mark of prophecy.
The mark he was born with.
The mark no one had ever seen.
The mark that should have spared him the fire, the blades, the chains.
But now… it was too late.
The Breaking Point
The iron doors groaned open.
A ritual they performed every three days—to see if the "demon" had finally died.
The guards entered with torches and blades, laughing, spitting, muttering prayers.
They expected silence.
They found death.
The first to approach never had time to scream.A black spike of mana burst from the boy's body—straight through his throat.
The second tried to flee.The stone beneath him liquefied, swallowing him whole.
The third tried to beg.
He didn't finish the word "mer—"
His head exploded.
The Rise
The boy stood. Slowly.
His body, still gaunt, trembled.
Not from weakness.
From rage—held for a decade.From power—newborn and merciless.
He didn't scream.He didn't curse.
He moved.
Cold. Silent. Calculated.
One by one, the guards died.
Some screamed.Some ran.None escaped.
The boy walked barefoot over their corpses.Blood soaked his skin like ink into parchment.
Chains that had bound him since birth shattered as if made of paper.
He reached the gates.
The steel bent away from him—afraid to be touched.
And he stepped out.
The Sky Above
Above Verdantia, the sky had never looked darker.
Clouds churned like bruises.Thunder echoed without rain.Birds scattered.Dogs howled.
The Devil had risen.