"To master the world, you must first master your death."
—Slaughtermoon Doctrine, Verse I
Darkness.
That was the first thing Kael Erebus felt—thick, eternal, pressing in like a coffin made of memory. He floated in a sea without light, without time, without warmth.
Then came the pain.
It wasn't the pain of a sword through flesh or the searing agony of divine fire. No, this pain was deeper. It was the ache of existence returning after too long in the grave. Of a soul torn free of Oblivion by force.
Kael gasped, lungs screaming as air poured into a chest that had not breathed in decades. He sat up abruptly, body slick with sweat—and blood that was not entirely his.
Around him: stone walls, iron collars, screaming voices, and the heavy stench of fear.
Chains rattled. Doors groaned. The light above was an artificial sun—a fake god watching slaves scurry like ants.
Slaughtermoon Academy.
He remembered now.
This was where the "dead" were reborn. Where condemned souls, cursed bloodlines, and forgotten monsters were forged into assassins, champions… or corpses.
He looked down at his arms. Younger. Scarred. Burned. A black rune etched across his chest pulsed faintly.
His thirty-fourth life.
"Number 9999," a deep voice barked. "On your feet."
Kael turned.
A man built like a tower stood over him, armored in black steel with an executioner's axe slung across his back. The others in the chamber—boys and girls, slaves and killers—stood in silent terror.
Only Kael smiled.
Because he remembered everything.
His thirty-three deaths.
The day Hades had cast him into Tartarus.
The moment he'd consumed a fragment of Nyx, the Primordial of Night.
The time he'd been hunted in the Time-Folded Arena by timeless assassins.
And the Dream Realm—the place where nightmares had bled into his bones and turned him into something… inhuman.
A shadow squirmed beneath him. It writhed like a pet eager to be fed.
"Stand, slave!" the instructor growled.
Kael stood. Slowly. Proudly.
"I'm no slave," he said.
The room went still. Whispers of fear. Shock. No one defied the handlers.
The instructor sneered. "No? Then earn the right to speak. Welcome to Trial Day."
A wall collapsed to reveal a pit of sand and bone.
"Fifty of you enter. Ten walk out. No weapons. No rules."
Kael stepped forward, eyes glowing faintly with a darkness that was older than gods.
Let them come, he thought.
Let them try to kill me again.
And this time, I'll remember how to kill back.