The memories were still coming.
They spilled in not like a flood, but a slow-dripping wound—constant, dull, and inescapable. Each thought crept into Lucien's mind, uninvited and half-formed, dragging emotions that weren't his. Hunger. Cold. Regret. Duty. Faces he didn't know, places he had never stood. It was disorienting, and yet... somehow steadying.
With every step through the forest, Lucien felt less lost.
More assured in his direction.
Not certain, but steady—like the road beneath his feet might shift, but he wouldn't.
He now knew with a clarity that only memory could bring that the only true shelter in this region was the land of Viscount Ravelin. The vessel—his vessel, the boy who once held this body—had only set foot there once. One short visit, little more than a stop. And not for trade, not for diplomacy. Just to avoid being seen as a coward.
A clan rite, Lucien recalled distantly. Some ceremonial nonsense about honor and representation. The vessel had no real standing, just the fragile pride of a forgotten lineage. Not that any of it mattered now.
Lucien sighed as he stepped around a fallen log, brushing aside a hanging vine.
Must've been hard, he thought. Living your whole life pretending it meant something.
There was no heat in the thought. No venom. Only a cold kind of pity.
All those hours training, patrolling, enduring. For what? A funeral pyre nobody bothered to light.
He felt the memories like bruises beneath his skin—scars on the mind rather than the body. They weren't painful. Just... heavy.
He glanced down at his hands.
They were steady now. Strong. His footing no longer slipped. His eyes adjusted fast in the dark. His body, despite everything, was adapting.
The vessel must've been sad, Lucien thought, his mouth curling into a tired smirk. Living all your years not knowing how unimportant you really were. It just seems so pathetic.
Then he paused.
"What do I care?" he muttered aloud.
The forest said nothing.
"You were fake. And your life was, too."
A pause.
"I guess we're alike in that."
He stepped over a shallow stream, its water dark with silt and unreflective beneath the blackened branches above.
"Both our lives ended pitiful."
The words were quiet now, his voice nearly a whisper.
He stopped walking.
"I don't even have firm goals yet."
He looked up toward the canopy. Lightless. Empty. Still that same cursed black moon hanging somewhere above the clouds, like a god watching from behind a sheet of ash.
"But I can't let someone like me die a death that disgusting."
The smirk returned, sharper now.
"I'm too talented for that."
That single thought—prideful, absurd, blunt—hit harder than he expected.
Lucien blinked.
Then laughed, once. A short, breathless sound.
What am I saying?
His hand touched his chest—his heart, beating hard under his ribs.
What am I thinking?
"I didn't realize it," he said, slower now, "but I think I've mentally rejuvenated."
He said it aloud because he needed to hear it. The words were real, weighty, satisfying.
"I can praise myself with no caveats."
He let that truth settle in his chest.
It felt good.
More than good—solid.
As he moved forward again, something shifted inside him. Not just in thought. His mana responded.
He hadn't noticed until now, but it was there—settled. Stable.
Fully recovered.
Every moment spent walking, breathing, thinking—absorbing what the vessel left behind—it hadn't been wasted. It had grounded him. Reminded his body what it was.
He stopped and looked around. The trees were dripping with dew. The forest's scent had changed. The air was dense. Wet. But beneath it—energy. The mana in this place clung to everything, unshaped and wild.
He could see it now.
Not with his eyes, but with sense.
He could smell it in the bark. Hear it in the crunch of soil beneath his boots. Like his entire body had shifted into a higher state of awareness.
Lucien closed his eyes.
Centered himself.
He breathed once, long and deep.
And then—like a knife piercing through the fog—a memory hit.
It wasn't the vessel's.
It was his.
The battlefield. The mud. The broken tents and the endless noise.
"We're just moving supplies," someone had said. "They won't hit us."
They were wrong.
He remembered arguing. Demanding security. Begging for a defensive squad to escort them.
Command dismissed him. Too loud, too stubborn, too troublesome. Too many questions.
So they punished him.
Not officially. But they let him know.
Stripped the unit's food.
Publicly shamed him. Said he was selfish. Immature. Difficult.
Painted him as a brat.
And the others believed it.
Even the ones who had once agreed with him turned away.
He didn't eat for days.
But he remembered watching them—all of them—die.
Because they hadn't listened.
Because they chose silence.
Lucien opened his eyes.
Something inside him moved.
Then the light came—black, cold, and absolute. It spiraled out from his chest, threading through the forest, drawing in the air, the earth, the mana clinging to the world like a second skin.
Tyrant's Wrath responded.
it formed into existence piece by piece. And then
It exploded into being.
A ribcage of jagged dark armor cracked into existence across his back, ribs forming like black iron fangs, enclosing his torso in a dead embrace. A long, sharp spine curled upward, lit faintly by flickers of mana that shimmered like dying stars.
Then came the arms.
Six of them. Thin, elongated, spectral. They hissed softly as they moved, like wind cutting through a canyon. Each one pulsed with restrained hunger—partial extensions, able to stretch and lash, crafted for precision and control
Last of all, the blade.
The odachi sheathed itself across his back, slipping between the ribs like it belonged there—silent, heavy, absolute.
Lucien stood still.
The wind didn't move.
The black moon still hung overhead, unseen but felt.
Its lightless presence pressed down on the world like a shroud.
And Lucien—wrapped in bone and shadow, reborn in silence—began to crawl along the forest's edge.
Even now, after everything, he felt no clear purpose.
But something in him knew this much:
He was alive.
Lucien moved like smoke through the treeline—low to the ground, six spectral arms adjusting his balance with each shift in terrain. The forest ahead was lit in brief pulses of flame, growing sharper and brighter with each step.
Then he heard it—combat, not chaos.
Precise.
Controlled.
Lucien froze at the edge of a ruined clearing and looked down.
The boy stood alone at the center.
His violet hair flicked like firelight, sweat gleaming on his skin. Mana surged around his body in waves—dense, refined, no wasted motion. Fire flared around him like a living aura, gold-edged and angry. His Rakai had taken the shape of a serpent—long, segmented flame with glowing eyes, coiled over his back like a burning warden.
Mortum closed in from every direction.
The first lunged.
The boy spun low, one palm out. Flame surged point-blank, piercing clean through the Mortum's chest, the beam so hot the flesh turned black and flaked before it hit the ground.
No pause.
He stepped back and twisted his wrist.
The serpent snapped forward, crashing through a second Mortum like a battering ram. The creature didn't scream. It didn't have time to. It disintegrated mid-air, flung aside in a scattering of ash.
He is incredible what kind of fight is this an anime or what he was far above the average that the vessel was. We might have the same level of mana but he would dominate he had practiced kendo kenjutsu and a myriad of other combat sports but he didn't think he would be able to move like this
Another Mortum came from behind—low to the ground, fast.
The boy ducked and countered instantly.
He extended both arms. Twin blasts roared out, crossing in front of him like shears of fire, catching the Mortum mid-leap. It hit the ground a scorched ruin, claws twitching once before going still.
There were more. At least a dozen. The glade pulsed with movement—Mortum in varying shapes and sizes crawling from shadow, charging from the brush, leaping from low branches.
They weren't waiting. They weren't testing him.
They were trying to tear him apart.
The boy planted his feet. Mana surged beneath him. The serpent shrieked.
And then he moved—fast.
Fire ignited around his arms, and he blurred across the clearing. Lucien's eyes narrowed—he was enhancing his physical body, layering raw force beneath his casting. Each movement ended in death.
A low beast with two split maws lunged. He stepped sideways and struck it with an open palm. Fire burst from his elbow to his fingertips like a piston. The Mortum exploded outward in molten chunks.
Behind him, another charged.
He didn't turn. Just raised one hand and snapped.
A ring of flame erupted at waist height. The Mortum tried to jump, but the serpent moved with him, slamming the beast downward mid-air. It hit the ring as it expanded, was caught mid-twist, and crushed in a collapsing spiral of fire.
Lucien hadn't blinked once.
He's brilliant, he thought. He doesn't just use his magic. He dominates the battlefield with it. Keeps it moving. Keeps them boxed.
But it wasn't enough.
Not for long.
Lucien could already see the strain— flickers frames where it should've roared smoothly. The serpent wavered. His footing slipped for half a second, and he had to overcompensate with a wild spin.
His stamina was draining. Mana running out
That Rakai wasn't meant to hold back hordes alone.
Lucien shifted his focus.
Just beyond the boy, a wounded guard stood braced behind a wide-bladed spear. His armor was cracked, his arm bloody, but he held the line—his body between a group of terrified girls and the slaughter ahead.
The girls—five, maybe six—looked barely older than children. Their faces were white. Their movements frozen. One girl clung to another's sleeve. Another had tears in her eyes but didn't blink.
This was a civilian team escorting the boy.
Lucien stayed low, unmoving in the brush.
He's holding them all up by himself.
And it won't last much longer.
A Mortum the size of a bear crashed through the glade, jaws wide, six limbs kicking up chunks of earth.
The boy growled and raised both arms.
This blast was different—slower to form, hotter at the core.
Desperation, Lucien realized.
And then—
Flame erupted. A roaring, spiraling beam like a cannon of molten glass. It swallowed the beast whole. The Mortum's body shattered, fire carving clean through until the back half of the glade was nothing but smoke and dirt.
The shockwave blew the serpent out of formation.
The boy staggered.
He dropped to one knee.
Still surrounded.
Still burning.
Lucien's fingers curled against the forest floor.
Then the guard saw him.
Eyes wide. Hope flaring. He pointed.
Shouted something.
Lucien didn't hear it.
He didn't need to.
He already knew what he was being asked.
The guard shouted again, voice ragged, pointing directly at Lucien.
Lucien didn't move—not right away. The girls behind the guard clung to each other, white-knuckled and silent. The fire-wielding boy, still surrounded by flames and monsters, turned slightly, catching Lucien in the corner of his eye.
The look he gave wasn't hope.
It was warning.
Stay out of this.
You'll only burn.
I have it handled.
But Lucien saw what the boy couldn't admit—his stance was slipping, shoulders sagging between attacks. The serpent behind him was beginning to crackle and flicker like a light on its last coil. His Rakai was overdrawn, his body overheated, and the Mortum weren't slowing down.
Lucien's hand clenched.
He didn't want to help. Not out of fear. Out of principle.
This isn't my fight. These aren't my people.
He could turn.
Walk away.
But the memory kept digging.
"Go through that pass. It's clear."
Lucien had said it without hesitation.
Rodin and Jel had believed him. They always did. Tired, scared, trusting—just two boys who thought he knew what he was doing.
He did.
He'd scouted it. Knew there were traps— . But the pass was faster. Cleaner. Safer for him, if not for them.
They went.
The first spike shot up through Rodin's chest. He didn't scream. Jel turned to run—triggered the second trap. Both were dead in seconds.
Lucien watched the whole thing.
Didn't flinch. Didn't report the truth. Just walked on.
That night, he didn't lose sleep. Not from guilt. But because no one had questioned him the only two who had trusted his judgement trusted him he had led to their deaths
Lucien stood, stepped into the open—and moved.
The air shifted as his presence surfaced, dark limbs forming from behind his shoulders. Tyrant's Wrath responded to his c, and this Rakai, this shape of rage and defense, was heavy.
He ignored the drag in his core.
No time to stabilize.
One of the Mortum broke off from the boy's front, saw Lucien charging in, and adjusted. It lunged toward the civilians.
Lucien reached it first.
His lower right arm intercepted the beast at the shoulder, slamming it backward into a tree. It didn't kill it. It just bought time.
He spun around the guard, four of his arms shielding the girls as another two reached down and grabbed two of them—light, terrified, wide-eyed—and yanked them up.
"Move," he said coldly.
The girls didn't ask questions.
He grabbed another by the collar and half-dragged, half-pushed them toward the treeline, the guard stumbling alongside him. One of the arms took a blow meant for the last girl in the back—its force sent mana rippling down his spine like ice.
He grunted but held.
"Keep close!" he muttered, voice low, sharp. "You fall behind, your deaths your own fault eh it would but I digress
One of the Mortum lunged through smoke—low and fast.
Lucien twisted his body, swung the odachi up from its sheathe—but he was too slow. His focus had split. It wasn't clean.
The fire boy turned.
In one fluid motion, he extended his hand—a blade of fire lashed through the Mortum, incinerating it mid-leap.
Lucien didn't waste breath. He kept pushing the group.
They moved as one now—Lucien blocking, dragging, bracing. The girls stumbled, the guard bled, but they moved. He shoved one of the arms out to parry a wild claw, turned and shoved another Mortum off balance with two of his weaker limbs. The weight of the armor and the spine slowed him—but his focus was ruthless.
He didn't fight to win.
He fought to survive.
To cover.
Another lunge.
Another block.
His ribs creaked with strain.
He could feel Tyrant's Wrath slipping—too much weight on a system still incomplete. His mana burned at the edges, threading pain into the corners of his mind.
But he didn't stop.
They reached the treeline.
Lucien turned.
The fire boy was still standing.
Breathing heavy, shoulders rising and falling, flames guttering around his fists. His Rakai serpent shimmered behind him, now half-transparent—but still alive. Still burning.
He glanced toward Lucien.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, neither said anything.
Then the boy turned back to the last Mortum and finished them off.
Lucien dropped to one knee beside a moss-coated tree, six arms flickering and retracting.
His body ached.
His breathing was shallow.
But they were alive.
And this time, Lucien thought, I didn't lie to anyone to get there.