ARC 1: THE CHILD NAMED DEUS
The wind howled softly over the black spires of the Zars estate, whispering through the marble corridors like a phantom seeking permission to speak. Servants moved like shadows, hushed and alert, all drawn toward a single room at the heart of the manor.
Inside, the Duke and Duchess stood before a carved obsidian cradle. The child within didn't cry. He hadn't since birth.
He watched them.
Not with the confused wonder of a newborn, but with the silence of someone who'd already seen too much.
Duke Stradar Zars, a tall man with sharp eyes and sharper presence, studied the child in the cradle with a mix of awe and pride. Beside him, his wife Thesea — graceful, composed, and cold-eyed — nodded once to the family priest.
"Speak his name, and bind it to our house," she said, her voice like cool steel.
The priest raised a black-gloved hand. "From this day forward, in the house of Zars, heir to our line and bearer of fate, this child shall be called…"
He paused as the wind died completely.
"…Deus."
The flames in the lanterns flickered. No one moved.
The name settled in the air like prophecy.
Deus Zars.
He wasn't born of this world.
Not originally.
In another lifetime, in a reality far from the magical veins of Tenria, he had been Fred Winslet — a weak boy with a fragile body, born to a world that punished difference. Bullied for the illness that ate away at him, ignored by doctors who pitied more than they helped, and ultimately left to rot in the sterile glow of hospital lights.
No family visited at the end. No friends wept. Only the dull beeping of machinery and the endless buzzing inside his skull.
When death came, Fred didn't cry.
He smiled.
And whispered, "Let me live without chains."
The gods — or something crueler — listened.
Tenria, Year 963 – Six Years Later
"Deus, hold your grip firm. Don't let the sword choose your hand — you choose the sword."
The training yard echoed with the voice of Master Halric, a retired war knight of the southern borderlands, now personal tutor to the heir of Zars. He barked commands like the swing of a whip, but the boy before him barely reacted.
Deus, now six, stood in the winter grass, sweat trailing down his cheek as he raised a dulled practice blade. Around him, three older noble sons lay groaning in the mud — bruised, humiliated, and very much conscious of the mistake they'd made in underestimating him.
One had mocked him for not speaking.
The other had mocked him for refusing to use magic.
The third had simply called him "weird."
Deus had dropped each of them without magic, without rage.
Just precision.
Calculated efficiency.
"You weren't supposed to injure them that badly," Halric muttered under his breath, eyeing the boys.
"I didn't," Deus replied. "They moved wrong."
The tone was flat, almost bored.
Halric squinted at the boy, then chuckled. "You speak like an old man."
Deus didn't respond. He was watching the clouds — counting how many moved against the wind.
At dinner that night, Duke Stradar lifted his wine and gestured to his son.
"Did you see what he did today, Thesea? Three noble sons in less than two minutes. At six."
"Thesea" — Duchess of Zars, tactician, and keeper of the estate's secrets — didn't smile. She simply cut her venison and replied, "They were undisciplined."
Stradar grinned. "But he wasn't."
Deus ate quietly. No emotion. No pride. He didn't need to prove himself. He only needed time.
Every day, his body grew stronger.
Every day, his control sharpened.
Every night, memories flickered — not as dreams, but as echoes. A boy in a hospital bed. A whispered apology. The taste of blood when the tubes came out. Faces laughing through glass walls.
Fred Winslet.
He didn't hate that name.
But it wasn't his.
Not anymore.
That night, as the moon hovered low and pale, Deus stood alone in the manor's south tower — his sanctuary. A library floor forgotten by most, where the dust of old magic and forgotten war stories clung to every page.
He ran a finger across a leather-bound tome. The Duality of Soulcraft.
A phrase from within echoed in his mind: "To wield to blades of origin is to command both will and fate."
He looked to his side.
Propped against the wall were two wooden practice swords — one black, one silver. Identical in weight. Opposite in energy.
He had named them already.
Antrar. Twin weapons of divine descent. Unawakened. Unforged.
But he felt it.
Someday, when his magic bloomed, they would take their true form.
And the world would remember his name not because of birthright or wealth — but because no one else could hold both.
Deus knelt, opened a small black notebook, and began writing.
Objective: Learn advanced combat flow from Halric.
Barrier: He hides technique during defense forms.
Solution: Feint weakness. Observe angle shift in real time.
He paused.
Then turned the page.
Emotion check: 12% agitation.
Cause: One of the boys cried.
Reaction: Disgust.
He scratched that out. Rewrote:
Reaction: Discomfort.
He closed the book.
"Still too human," he muttered.
Then looked to the moon again.
But not for comfort.
For calculation.