The flickering torches outside Asvard's chamber cast shadows along the cracked stone walls. Even with the heat, a chill lingered in the air. Not from cold-
but from change. From the weight of things shifting beneath the surface.
Asvard sat alone, breathing slow. Every muscle in his body still ached. His skin burned faintly, like embers still buried under ash. But the deeper pain came from within.
His fingers curled into fists.
Abyssborn.
The word refused to leave his head. Not human. Not demon. Something else.
His eyes drifted to the wound along his side, slowly healing. The skin knit itself back together, dark veins pulsing beneath. He didn't understand it. But it was real.
A faint scuffling came from outside. Zephyra's voice echoed low.
"Let him be. He's not ready for more."
"He's already been through too much" Varnak replied.
Then silence again.
Asvard stood. The ground felt uneven beneath him, like the world itself didn't know how to hold him anymore. His boots scraped across the cave floor. He walked, slow, steady.
He didn't know where he was going.
But something inside was pulling him.
The path led outside the ruined hideout and into a narrow canyon carved by black winds. Hell's sky above was painted in sick reds and deep purples, glowing with veins of burning cracks. Nothing here looked alive. Nothing here looked safe.
But Asvard walked anyway.
He followed the whisper. Not a voice, but a feeling. A current in the air. Like something watching, something remembering.
After hours, he found himself standing before a crumbled shrine. The structure was half-swallowed by the land-pillars broken, steps cracked. But something about it felt... ancient.
A man sat at the top of the steps.
Long white hair, tied behind his head. Robes of black and gold, torn at the edges. His eyes were closed. A thin scar ran down one cheek.
Asvard stopped.
The man opened his eyes.
Golden. Calm.
"Took you long enough." the man said.
Asvard's body tensed. "Who are you?"
"Someone."
Asvard blinked.
"Someone?"
"Few were blessed to inherit his wisdom, the first king's, i inherited a bit too."
"You knew him?"
The man nodded. "Not well. Not enough. But more than most. He left pieces of himself behind. Not just in shards-but in people. In memory. In me."
He stood slowly, brushing dust from his robes.
"Name's Prwyer. I was a student of one of his students. Learned enough to know how little I actually knew."
"Why are you here?." Asvard asked
"Because the others are fools" Prwyer said, his gaze intense, unblinking. "The Thundering Hollow Masters, the Bladeborn who cling to Infernal Steel, the Void Dancers who think they've grasped emptiness, they all forgot the core of what he taught. They forgot the truth that could break fate itself"
Asvard watched his movements. Calm. Measured. There was something heavy about his presence-like the ground respected him.
Prwyer walked past him, then stopped.
"You're the one with the shard, aren't you? The Abyssborn."
Asvard's jaw clenched. "So everyone knows now?"
"Not everyone" Prwyer replied. "Only those who remember."
He turned. "Walk with me."
Asvard followed, slow.
"The thrones… they're starting to stir," Prwyer said. "Not because of you. Not yet. But because the elites, the so-called champions, they're closing in on their final duels. They want to claim the vacant thrones."
Asvard narrowed his eyes. "So?"
"So" Prwyer said, "those seats have been empty for eons. And no one cared. Not until now. Hell's balance is tipping."
They stopped at a cliff's edge.
Below, a barren wasteland stretched for miles. Craters, bones, broken weapons. Like a battlefield long forgotten.
"And then you appeared" Prwyer said.
"I didn't ask for this."
"Doesn't matter. It found you."
Asvard didn't reply.
Prwyer looked at him.
"You want to live, don't you?"
Asvard turned his gaze to the horizon. "Yeah. I do."
Prwyer nodded slowly.
"Then let me teach you. I wasn't taught blade, or fist, or shadow" Prwyer said, stepping forward. "I was taught Threadbreaking. The most ancient of the First King's secrets. The one even the Thrones couldn't understand. They called it madness"
Asvard's eyes widened. "You have that?"
"A piece of it. Taught to me in silence. Everyone thought it was useless. But the first king never wasted words."
He stepped closer.
"If you're truly an Abyssborn… then your path isn't survival. It's change. You don't just endure. You rewrite the rules."
Asvard's heart thudded.
"Come. If you want to live, if you want to become more than a wandering freak, then let me show you what he gave me. And let me see if it still lives on… in you."
Prwyer didn't chose to teach Asvard out of the blue. He knew it was the only right thing, to pass down his knowledge, To an abyssborn.
Ever since the first king vanished, the battle for the thrones and the throne where he once sat begun. With him vanishing, the nine thrones parted, reigning their respective territories. Those who climbed the ranks, who proved their existence, through sheer strength, The elites, are moving. With Asvards appearance, the hell begun changing, shifting, twisting.
Time. It didn't mean anything here in hell. But now, time itself had shifted, Asvard, he doesn't have much time, Prwyer knew this.
The training ground was nothing more than a flat space surrounded by jagged stone pillars. But to Asvard, it felt different. The air shifted the moment they stepped into it.
"This place remembers him" Prwyer said. "It's where I first saw him fight. Where I first saw fear lose its meaning."
Asvard looked around. "What do I do?"
Prwyer smiled. "Forget what you know."
Then he struck.
A fist slammed into Asvard's chest before he even saw it coming. He flew back, crashing against the pillar.
Pain burst through his ribs.
"You think you're strong because you survived?" Prwyer shouted. "Survival isn't strength. It's instinct. Strength is choice."
Asvard growled and stood.
He rushed forward, fist raised, but Prwyer sidestepped with ease, tapping his wrist. Asvard stumbled forward.
"Stop trying to fight like them. You are not them."
Asvard gritted his teeth.
He charged again.
Another strike, this time a kick to his leg. Asvard collapsed.
Prwyer walked closer.
"What you are is dangerous. Unpredictable. The Abyssborn don't inherit power, they become it. But only if they stop imitating the damned."
Asvard coughed, blood spitting from his lips.
But he stood again.
Hours passed.
Then days.
Each lesson was harder than the last. No rest. No mercy.
But something began to change.
His strikes grew faster, not cleaner, but raw. His body responded before he thought. His wounds healed quicker. His breath came deeper.
Something inside him was waking up.
By the seventh day, Prwyer stood with his arms folded as Asvard moved through a strange stance, arms curved, body leaning forward, fists drawn inward like pulling something from the void.
"That's it" Prwyer muttered. "You feel it, don't you? The pull. The break. The shift."
Asvard opened his eyes. A faint ripple passed through the ground under his feet.
"What is this art called?" he asked.
Prwyer paused.
He looked to the sky, almost like remembering something long buried.
"It has no name. At least, not one anyone uses. He once called it, Mirage reversal."
The words hit like thunder.
"It burns away all falsehoods," Prwyer added. "And what's left… is truth. Pure and violent."
Asvard felt it. Like something old and cold and furious inside his veins.
One night, as they rested near a broken ruin, Asvard stared at his hand. The veins glowed faintly. His reflection in a pool nearby looked different. Sharper. His features more defined. The eyes, still red, but deeper, like pools of shadow.
Prwyer sat nearby, watching.
"Your body is adapting" he said.
"To what?"
"To you. To what you are."
Asvard turned to him.
Prwyer leaned forward. "The Abyssborn aren't cursed. They're... potential. Unbound. They alter reality not by desire, but by survival. Their power reflects their will."
Asvard lowered his hand.
"That's why no one's recognized me. I'm not like him. Not like the first king."
"No" Prwyer said. "You're something else. And that terrifies them."
Asvard looked to the sky.
"So what happens next?"
Prwyer stood. "The world finds you. You won't have to search for them. The scouts will come. The elites will whisper. And eventually, the thrones will notice."
Asvard clenched his fists.
"Then let them come."
Silence broke out. Asvards mind filled with unanswered questions. But he couldn't find them, not until he earns it. With a better understanding of himself, of his existence, he's changing, alongside the hell.
They started training again, but now Asvard sharper than before.
The days that followed were agony. And revelation.
Prwyer taught without structure, each lesson was a beating, a riddle, a contradiction. He spoke of "inverting momentum" "splitting cause from consequence" and "tangling time with intention."
"You're not learning to fight" Prwyer said once. "You're learning to undo."
Asvard began to feel it.
Not power.
Not speed.
But possibility.
He could feel the world loosening around him when he moved. Like reality blinked when he chose a path.
On the tenth day, Prwyer threw a blade at his heart.
Asvard didn't dodge.
He moved differently, like the air bent. The blade passed through him and shattered against the tree behind.
"You reversed the expected outcome" Prwyer said. "You saw the result, and you denied it. That's the foundation of Mirage Reversal."
"…you're learning" Prwyer muttered.
Asvard looked at his hands. "What the hell did I just do?"
"You reversed the expected outcome" Prwyer said. "You saw the result, and you denied it. That's the foundation of Mirage Reversal."
"But how…?"
Prwyer pointed at his chest. "Because your blood isn't part of this world's thread. You're an error. A rejection. The same as the First King."
Silence followed.
Then Prwyer asked:
"Do you still want to live, Asvard? Knowing what you are? Knowing what this path leads to?"
Asvard looked at him.
His voice was low, almost a whisper.
"I want to live. Even if I destroy everything trying."
Prwyer smiled sadly.
"Then it's time you meet the scouts."
They arrived the next day, cloaked figures riding beasts with no eyes, mouths stitched shut. Three of them. Scouts of the old Throne System.
One stepped forward. "The Abyssborn is active" it rasped. "The Thrones will feel it soon."
"And the Elites?" Prwyer asked.
"Already moving. The duel is near. The next heir to the throne will be chosen by combat. A new age is beginning."
The second scout spoke, this time to Asvard. "You carry what should never have been carried. Your presence is… unthreaded. We don't know what you are. But we've seen it once before."
"The First King?" Asvard asked.
The scout nodded. "He made the rules. Then broke them."
Then the third scout stepped forward, lowering his hood. His face was stitched in symbols, each one glowing faintly.
"We will monitor you" he said. "The Thrones may soon come for you, if they believe you are a threat. Or worse… if they believe you are an heir."
Prwyer stepped between them.
"Touch him before he's ready, and I'll end your thread myself."
The scouts didn't reply. They simply turned, mounted their beasts, and vanished into the fog.
That night, Asvard sat alone beneath the broken stars. The ancient arts of Mirage Reversal coursed through him like venom and fire. And in the back of his mind, something whispered.
A voice he couldn't name.
"You are me. But you are not yet me."
"I'm not you, neither will I be. Ever" Asvard muttered to himself"
Asvard's fists clenched.
The Thrones were stirring.
The Elites were nearing war.
And now… he had taken the first step on the path the First Demon King once walked alone.
Asvard, never wished to walk this path.
If he's to be the heir, what if he rejected? His fate would be sealed. What if he reigned on? His fate would be sealed.
The arts of Mirage Reversal was never woven in any of the threads...
Asvard forced a new thread. For his own path. He walks a different one, way different than the first king.
But Asvard wouldn't walk it alone.
He would burn the path behind him.
(To be continued...)