The Prince Who Was Reborn as a Monster

A Hundred Years of Darkness

Darkness had weight.

It pressed against Kael from every direction, smothering his thoughts and dragging him through a bottomless silence. He tried to breathe, but his lungs refused to respond. He tried to move, but he could not feel his arms or legs.

Was this death?

He remembered the royal hall. Lucien's cold expression. Elara's silence. Garrick's blade entering his body.

Then the marble floor rushing toward him.

I died.

The realization came without panic. Perhaps some part of him had already accepted it.

But if he was dead, why could he still think?

A faint vibration passed through the darkness.

Something touched his face.

Kael tried to recoil. His body responded with a sharp, unfamiliar twitch.

Pain erupted through him.

He opened his eyes.

A dim blue glow illuminated a narrow chamber filled with broken stone and tangled roots. Water dripped from cracks in the ceiling. Thick cobwebs covered the walls, and a carpet of black moss spread across the floor.

For several seconds, he stared without understanding.

This was not the royal hall.

He pushed himself upright.

His hands stopped him.

They were not hands.

Four slender limbs ended in curved black claws. Dark scales covered his forearms, while faint silver markings ran beneath the surface like veins of frozen light. His fingers were longer than they should have been, and each movement produced a soft scraping sound against the stone.

Kael stared at them.

Then he looked down.

His body was low to the ground, covered in dark fur and overlapping scales. A narrow tail curled behind him. His chest was smaller than a human's, and his shoulders moved beneath a strange arrangement of bony plates.

He touched his face.

A long muzzle. Sharp teeth. No human nose.

He stumbled backward and struck the wall.

A growl escaped his throat.

The sound was deep, animalistic, and entirely unfamiliar.

Kael froze.

He tried to speak.

"Wh—"

What emerged was a rough rasp.

He tried again, forcing air through his throat.

Nothing recognizable came out.

His mind raced.

Illusion. Curse. Transformation.

He examined the chamber, searching for a spell circle or an object that might explain what had happened. He found only collapsed masonry, ancient carvings, and a broken statue whose face had been worn away by time.

Then he noticed the symbols carved into the opposite wall.

The crowned wolf.

The seven stars.

The royal crest of Aurelion.

Kael approached slowly. His claws clicked against the stone.

Someone had carved his family's emblem into this place.

Why?

He pressed one claw against the carving.

A faint silver light flickered beneath it.

A sudden pressure struck his skull.

Images flashed through his mind: a golden palace swallowed by fire, banners falling from towers, soldiers fleeing through streets filled with smoke. A crown lay broken beneath a stone archway.

Then the images vanished.

Kael staggered, gasping through his unfamiliar throat.

He had no answers.

Only the terrible certainty that something had happened to his body—and that the world outside this chamber might no longer be the one he remembered.

A sound interrupted his thoughts.

Scratching.

Something moved beyond the collapsed doorway.

Kael lowered his body instinctively.

A small creature crawled through the gap, dragging a long, segmented tail behind it. Its pale eyes reflected the blue light. It was roughly the size of a dog, with a mouth filled with needle-like teeth.

The creature sniffed the air.

Then it looked directly at Kael.

Its lips pulled back.

Kael did not know what it was, but he understood the expression.

It intended to kill him.

The creature lunged.

Kael moved without thinking.

He threw himself sideways, feeling claws rake across his flank. Pain flared through his body. The creature struck the wall and turned faster than expected.

Kael backed away.

His mind searched for options.

No weapon. No armor. An unfamiliar body. An unknown enemy.

He had faced worse situations as a human, but never like this.

The creature lunged again.

This time, Kael ducked beneath its jaws and drove his claws into the soft flesh under its neck.

The impact jolted his entire arm.

The creature shrieked and thrashed. Its tail struck Kael across the ribs, throwing him against a broken pillar.

He hit the ground hard.

For a moment, the chamber spun.

The creature turned toward him, blood dripping from its throat.

Kael forced himself to stand.

Think.

He was smaller than the creature, but the chamber was narrow. Its movements were limited. The broken pillar lay between them.

He could not overpower it.

So he would have to make it destroy itself.

Kael retreated toward the pillar, allowing the creature to follow. It charged with its head lowered, eager to finish the fight.

At the last moment, Kael sprang aside.

The creature struck the pillar.

Stone cracked.

Before it could recover, Kael seized its exposed tail and pulled with all his strength. The creature lost its balance. Kael drove his claws into the wound beneath its neck and held on until its movements weakened.

Then it went still.

Kael released it and stumbled away.

He waited for another attack.

Nothing moved.

He looked down at the dead creature.

He had killed before. He had ordered men into battle and watched enemies fall beneath his sword. Yet this felt different. His body had reacted with instincts he did not understand, and he had survived through desperation rather than skill.

He looked at his claws.

What have I become?

A strange sensation spread through his chest.

Something inside him pulsed once.

Then a voice sounded inside his mind.

Evolutionary conditions partially fulfilled.

Kael spun around.

There was nobody behind him.

The voice had not come from the chamber. It had appeared directly inside his thoughts—cold, emotionless, and unfamiliar.

More words followed.

Species: Gloomfang.

Classification: Lesser Monster.

Core condition: Unstable.

Kael stared into the darkness.

A Gloomfang.

The name meant nothing to him.

He waited for an explanation, but none came.

"Who are you?" he tried to ask.

Only a rasp escaped his throat.

The voice remained silent.

Kael lowered his head, struggling to control his breathing. Whatever had spoken to him had identified his new body as a monster.

He had been a prince.

Now he was prey.

He forced himself to examine his wounds. The cuts along his flank had already begun to close, though slowly. His body was healing, but he felt a deep exhaustion beneath his scales.

The dead creature lay nearby.

He did not want to touch it.

Then his stomach twisted with a hunger so fierce that his thoughts blurred.

Kael recoiled.

The hunger returned, sharper this time. His mouth filled with saliva. His gaze fixed on the creature's exposed flesh, and an instinct buried deep inside him urged him to feed.

He clenched his claws against the stone.

"No."

The word emerged as a low growl.

He would not surrender his mind to whatever instincts this body carried.

But his strength was fading, and the chamber offered nothing else.

Kael turned away from the corpse and began searching for another exit. He found a narrow passage behind the broken statue. Cold air drifted through it, carrying the smell of wet earth and unfamiliar vegetation.

He crawled into the passage.

The tunnel sloped upward. Roots tore at his scales, and loose stones scraped his limbs. Several times, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion, but he kept moving.

At last, a pale light appeared ahead.

Kael emerged through a crack in the ruins and stepped into the open air.

He stopped.

A forest stretched before him, its trees twisted and enormous. Their trunks were black, their leaves a deep shade of violet. Strange lights floated between the branches, and distant howls echoed across the hills.

Far beyond the forest, a ruined tower rose against the cloudy sky.

Kael recognized its shape.

He had seen that tower on maps of Aurelion. It had once stood beside the eastern royal road, guarding the approach to the capital.

But the tower was broken.

The road had disappeared beneath weeds and tangled roots. The distant hills were scarred with craters, and the remains of enormous walls stretched across the landscape.

He looked toward where the capital should have been.

There was no golden palace.

No banners.

No city.

Only a vast stretch of wilderness and the silhouettes of ruins.

Kael's chest tightened.

He stumbled toward a stone marker half-buried in the earth. Most of its inscription had been worn away, but a few letters remained.

He recognized the name carved into it.

AURELION.

Beneath it were several smaller symbols, followed by a date.

Kael could not understand the entire inscription, but one part was clear.

The number was impossible.

One hundred years.

He stared at it until the meaning became unavoidable.

A century had passed since his death.

His kingdom was gone.

His body was no longer human.

And somewhere beyond these ruins, a world he had never known continued without him.

Kael lowered his head.

For the first time since awakening, he felt something stronger than fear.

Rage.

Lucien had taken his throne. Garrick had betrayed him. Elara had abandoned him.

But whoever had destroyed Aurelion had not finished the job.

Kael lifted his head toward the distant ruins.

He did not know how he had returned, why he had become a monster, or what the strange voice wanted from him. He did not know whether Lucien's descendants still ruled the world or whether any trace of his family remained.

But he knew one thing.

He would find the truth.

And if the world had built itself upon his name, he would make it remember who he had been.

A howl sounded from the forest behind him.

Then another answered from the hills.

Kael turned.

Pairs of glowing eyes appeared between the trees.

The creatures were larger than the one he had killed in the ruins. Some moved on four legs. Others stood upright, their silhouettes twisted beneath the branches.

They had smelled blood.

And he was alone.

The voice returned inside his mind.

Warning: Hostile entities approaching.

Current classification: Lesser Monster.

Survival probability: Low.

Kael bared his teeth.

A hundred years had stolen his kingdom, his name, and his humanity.

It would not take his future.

"Then," he growled into the gathering darkness, "I suppose I must start at the bottom."

The monsters charged.

And the second life of Prince Kael Draven began.