The village of Thaloria was the kind of place that felt like it had been forgotten by time. Hills rolled like waves of emerald, and the sun always lingered—like it was stalling, unwilling to leave such a peaceful place. But for a boy named Arius, peace had never been enough.
He wasn't royalty. Not a chosen knight. Not even an apprentice to the village blacksmith. He was just a farm boy with calloused hands and wild dreams too big for the boundaries of his world.
But every time his blade—a rusted, ancestral thing barely fit for weeds—sliced through the air, he saw something else. An arena, vast and shining under a blood-red sky. A crowd of gods, silent and watching. And himself... standing alone, sword raised, defiant.
"One day," he'd whisper to the stars, lying in the fields with dirt in his hair and fire in his heart. "I'll fight them. I'll make them see me."
The villagers mocked him—called him cloud-dreamer, sky-boy, mad Arius. His parents just sighed. "You were born to till the earth, not chase lightning," his father would grumble. But the fire inside Arius didn't care.
And then—that night happened.
He'd just finished practicing, breath heavy, sweat on his brow. The sky was ink and starlight. And then...
The ground trembled.
Arius froze.
Out of the shadows stepped a figure cloaked in silver armor, a walking eclipse, his eyes glowing like twin moons.
"I've come for you, Arius," he said, voice like thunder rumbling across a storm-lit sky. "You've been chosen."
Arius's mouth went dry. Chosen? This had to be a dream. Or madness. Or maybe both.
"For what?"
"To fight in the Arena of Gods."