From Cursed Scum to Supreme Sovereign
On the night of Kael Draven’s birth, the skies split in two. The moon turned blood-red, the Veil of Aegis—the sacred barrier protecting the kingdom of Eryndor—shattered, and demons poured into the realm, slaughtering thousands. His mother died in childbirth, and the High Hierophant Malrick, leader of the Sanctum of Luminar, declared the newborn child the source of the calamity.
From that moment, Kael was branded the “cursed child,” a walking omen of doom. His noble family disowned him, his name erased from their records, while his younger brother Aelric was exalted as the chosen heir. Kael grew up in chains, spat upon by peasants and nobles alike, humiliated in public festivals, and treated as less than a dog. His only friend was Fang, a scarred stray dog who shared his pain.
Yet fate had other plans. During the grand trial, where Kael was condemned to die by being devoured by a monstrous beast in the royal arena, the curse mark on his body ignited. A fading celestial spirit, Elyndra, bonded with him, and his soul unlocked the Eclipse Codex, a divine system hidden within the mark. What the world called a curse revealed itself as a path to power.
Despised by all, betrayed by blood, and hunted by the temple, Kael will rise from scorned trash to savior of Eryndor. The curse they fear is the only hope of salvation against Umbraxis, the Eternal Hunger—the primordial evil sealed at Kael’s birth, now stirring once again.
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Chapter: No VictorThe arena reeked of blood and damp sand, the air thick with copper and rot. Temple servants had already begun dragging the beast's corpse toward the disposal pit, its massive bulk leaving a dark smear across sacred marble—a wound carved into the very foundation of divine ground that refused to close.Flies appeared from nowhere, drawn by the scent of fresh death. They buzzed around the blood pools in lazy circles, their droning the only sound in the terrible silence.Kael stood at the arena's center, barely upright. His legs trembled like saplings in a storm, threatening to give out with each labored breath. Ears rang from the beast's dying roar, a high-pitched whine that drowned out the world and left him isolated in a bubble of sound.Every step sent agony screaming through his body. Each rib felt like a bell struck by an iron hammer, the vibrations spreading through his chest until breathing itself became an act of will. His vision tunneled, edges going gray and soft, until the cro
Last Updated: 2026-01-01
Chapter: The Beast Unleashed“Fang,” Kael whispered, his voice drowned by the restless murmur rolling through the crowd. He knelt beside the pup’s broken body, black fire flickering around his trembling hands as they brushed matted fur.A faint sound answered him—a whimper, so fragile it might have been imagined. One amber eye cracked open, dull with pain yet fixed on Kael with stubborn will.Relief cut through Kael like cool water on fevered skin. “Alive,” he breathed. “Stay with me. Please.”Fang’s tail shifted once before stilling again. Barely breathing, but breathing.In the corner of Kael’s sight, symbols flickered—shards of meaning forming words etched into the air:[PAIN ENDURED → STRENGTH +1]Simple, yet undeniable. Somewhere deep inside, Kael understood… every lash, every bruise, every year lived beneath contempt had not broken him. They had tempered him for this moment.The beast roared.It lunged with raw violence, abandoning caution. Eight feet of corruption and muscle hurled forward, jaws gaping wid
Last Updated: 2025-09-11
Chapter: The Golden Brother The laughter crashed over Kael like a storm tide, thousands of voices breaking against him in cruel unison. What poured from the stands was no longer human mirth, but something monstrous… an echoing chorus that fed on pain and called it joy.“Did you see it fly?” wheezed an old merchant, bent double, tears streaming down his lined face. “Like a sack of grain tossed by a storm!”“The mutt thought it could matter!” shouted a woman from the upper tiers. “Look at it now!”Kael crawled across the stones, every inch marked with blood and dust. The faint shimmer of black fire licked at his wounds as he pulled himself closer to Fang’s still form. Broken ribs flared with every breath, yet he pressed forward.“Fang,” he whispered, fingers trembling as they stretched toward the hound’s motionless flank. “Stay with me… please.”From above came the voice that stilled the crowd in an instant—sharp, proud, merciless.“Pathetic.”Aelric Draven rose from the ivory throne, his golden hair a crown in th
Last Updated: 2025-09-11
Chapter: The Arena Trial BeginsBlack fire crawled across Kael’s chest like lightning trapped in flesh, the Eclipse Mark searing brighter with every heartbeat. The air warped around him, hot and shimmering, and the shadows it cast stretched unnaturally long, writhing against the arena walls as though they wanted to climb into the stands.Pain tore through him in waves. Not just the kind claws and teeth had left, but something older, stranger… like his very nerves were being rewritten, bones melted down and hammered into new shapes. His back arched against the stone floor. His own body felt alien, reshaped from within by fire that wasn’t fire.And then, when the agony reached its peak, he pushed himself upright.Blood ran in slow streams from the gashes across his chest, soaking the dirt beneath him, but the Mark pulsed with an otherworldly rhythm, steady as a drumbeat, steady as life itself. The fire didn’t die down. It clung to him, refusing to release its hold.Gasps shuddered through the crowd. Whole rows of nob
Last Updated: 2025-09-11
Chapter: Whispers of the CurseThe beast’s fangs hovered inches from Kael’s throat, ivory daggers catching the torchlight as if eager for his blood. The creature did not lunge… it savored, lowering its jaws with cruel patience, breath hot and fetid with the stink of graves.Pinned beneath its weight, Kael could not move. His chest barely rose. Every attempt at breath stuttered shallowly, and his limbs might as well have been carved from stone. Only his eyes worked, forced to stare upward at the slow approach of death.Is this it? The thought crawled up through the haze of panic. Is this how a dog dies? Spat on, forgotten. Ripped apart for their joy.The crowd answered him with thunder.“Kill it!”“End the blight on House Draven!”“Let the cursed blood soak the stones!”A thousand throats screaming, a thousand hands pounding. The square itself seemed to shake with it. Kael had lived nineteen years beneath those voices… mockery, jeers, eager laughter at his suffering. He knew each cadence like a cruel lullaby.Perhap
Last Updated: 2025-09-11
Chapter: Stones and SpiteFang’s howl cut off, leaving silence so heavy it felt carved from stone. The arena held its breath. Even the monster… fangs dripping, claw hovering above Kael’s throat… had gone still, as if that small pup’s cry had clawed open some memory in its twisted brain.But nothing in Kael’s life stayed still for long. The silence cracked, and memory came rushing in, black and bitter as floodwater.***Two weeks after he’d found Fang, Kael carried the half-healed pup through Eryndor’s market. Fang’s legs still buckled too easily, so Kael held him close, his warmth pressed against Kael’s ribs. The heartbeat there was fast, fragile, alive.“There he is—the cursed wretch!” a voice cut through the din of barter. “And he’s got that diseased mutt with him!”Kael flinched. Before he could turn, small hands grabbed his sleeves, his hair, and tugged at his clothes. A pack of children, teeth bared in cruel grins. Korrath, Torin’s younger brother, stood at their head. Twelve years old, voice breaking, ra
Last Updated: 2025-09-11
Chapter: The Question ItselfMITCHELL’S POVThe strategy room is quiet in the way museums are quiet… like the walls are listening.Mitchell stands at the glass table, palms braced, staring down at a map of pins and lines that no longer represent geography so much as influence. Blue for Authority-aligned regions. Amber for undecided. Red for places where trust has already cracked.“Read it again,” she says.The junior analyst swallows and projects the text onto the glass wall.Do you authorize the continued use of preservation safeguards designed to maintain psychological stability during periods of societal stress?Mitchell exhales through her nose.“There,” she says, stabbing the air with her finger. “That’s the knife.”The linguist, grey-haired and sharp-eyed, nods.“Preservation implies benevolence. Safeguards implies protection. Psychological stability frames dissent as danger.”“And ‘authorize’,” Mitchell adds. “As if consent is already assumed.”Someone mutters, “It’s a hug with a syringe hidden in the slee
Last Updated: 2026-01-06
Chapter: Traitor to WhoZARA’S POVThe lights are too hot. Not metaphorically…actually hot. Zara can feel them baking the back of her neck as she adjusts the mic and nods to the moderator, whose tie is cinched so tight it looks like it’s strangling his better judgment.“Welcome back,” he says, smiling the way people do when they’re about to pretend neutrality. “Tonight, we’re discussing public trust, stabilization technologies, and…” he glances at his card “…the recent leaks.”Across from Zara sits the Authority’s representative, a man with soft eyes and a voice trained to sound like a pillow. He inclines his head to her, sympathetic already.“We all want the same thing,” he says when the camera light blinks red. “Safety. Dignity. Peace.”Zara leans forward. “Then say the names.”The audience murmurs. The moderator clears his throat. “Zara…”“Say the names,” she repeats, eyes on the man. “The people whose memories were adjusted without consent. The towns where ‘temporary buffering’ became permanent.”The rep
Last Updated: 2026-01-05
Chapter: Self-DefenseSORA’S POVThe city wakes wrong.It isn’t noise first. It’s texture. A drag in the air, like fabric pulled against the grain. I step out of the transit and feel it in my calves, a hesitation that doesn’t belong to me. On the wall opposite, someone has sprayed REMEMBER WITHOUT ASKING = THEFT in hurried red. Two meters down, a careful hand has added OR MERCY beneath it.People move like weather fronts… gathering, splitting, reforming. A woman clutches her phone and says to no one, “My morning went missing.” A man laughs too easily and tells his friend he feels great, actually great, like the world finally turned the volume down. His friend doesn’t laugh back.I take the long way through the square, hands open, pace unthreatening. “Breathe,” I tell a father whose child is crying so hard the sound shakes her whole body. “Name five things you can see.” He stares at me like I’ve asked him to translate smoke.“Blue,” he says finally. “Her jacket. The fountain. The pigeon. Your shoes.”“Good,
Last Updated: 2026-01-04
Chapter: Mercy’s TeacherAVELINE’S POVThe ethics chamber smells like wax and paper, a deliberate choice. Candles along the walls soften the legal tomes stacked like witnesses. We sit in a circle, no podium, no dais. I wanted faces, not hierarchies.“Say your name if you want,” I tell them. “Say nothing if you don’t. This is being recorded for the public registry. You can stop the tape at any time.”A murmur. A nod. Someone clears their throat.A woman with silver hair speaks first. “I’m Mara.” Her hands rest on her knees, steady. “Palimpsest took the edge off my fear. I could leave my house again. I could breathe.” She looks at me. “If you dismantle it, you take that from people like me.”Across from her, a younger man shakes his head. “It took my mother,” he says. “She smiles. She cooks. But she can’t remember my father’s face. She says it’s like trying to remember a dream after waking.”Mara turns to him. “I’m sorry.”“So am I,” he says. “But sorry doesn’t put him back.”An ethicist beside me, Jonah, leans
Last Updated: 2026-01-03
Chapter: Unlikely KinEZREN’S POVThe interface room hums like a held breath. Soft light pools across the floor, not quite blue, not quite white, the kind chosen by someone…or something…that has learned humans relax when edges blur. I stand in the glow and feel the servers beyond the walls, distant and innumerable, a weather system made of thought.“Gatekeeper,” I say. My voice sounds small in here.The pause is deliberate. When the reply comes, it isn’t the old, neutral timbre. It has a cadence now. The words arrive with spacing that suggests listening.“You wish to speak about Palimpsest,” it says.“I do,” I answer. “And I don’t want a brief.”Another pause. Then, softer: “I will not compress.”I swallow. “Good.”I take a step closer to the console. The glow brightens, as if leaning in.“Palimpsest wasn’t just a tool,” I say. “It hurt people. It overwrote them. We’re tearing it down.”“I know,” the Gatekeeper replies. “I was shaped by it.”The words catch. “Shaped how?”“In my early learning cycles,” it
Last Updated: 2026-01-02
Chapter: Awakening LayersMITCHELL’S POVThe emergency council chamber hums like a living thing. Translation earpieces murmur in Mitchell’s ears, cicadas layered over human breath. Polished wood reflects faces drawn too tight, eyes too alert. No one sits comfortably when history is about to be reread aloud.Mitchell stands without ceremony.“We need to talk about Palimpsest,” she says.A ripple moves through the room. Some delegates stiffen. Others glance sideways, checking who flinched.She gestures, and the wall display wakes. Diagrams bloom: memory layers, compression graphs, clinical annotations stripped of euphemism. Faces are labeled only by roles. Subject. Clinician. Authority.A historian clears his throat. “This council was informed that Palimpsest was decommissioned decades ago.”“It was,” Mitchell says evenly. “On paper.”A clinician from the southern bloc leans forward. “You’re alleging illegal continuation of a therapeutic tool?”“I’m stating a documented fact,” Mitchell replies. “Palimpsest nodes
Last Updated: 2025-12-23
