That thing—the entity—was born from an Advent. It was part of the very anomaly that tore his world apart. And who were the ones in every tale that slayed such things?
Not Adversaries.
Not Broken.
Not monsters.
No.
Worldforged.
Champions who forged their very names into the world. Beings not born into power, but risen through grafting their will to the world itself.
The logical side of his mind answered quickly.
You don't have the potential. You already failed the aptitude test back then.
Not even Nick had a chance.
You were meant for anything. You're not even wanted by the world.
But the rest of him—the part that had crawled out of that crater, that screamed at empty skies, that clawed at a lifeless Tome in his last moments—
That part?
It didn't care.
I shouldn't have survived as an Adversary either. But here I am. So maybe I can do something unreasonable.
Again.
His gaze fell to the Tome once more.
Empty.
Lifeless.
But not hopeless.
Not yet.
The way to become Worldforged was a rather well kept secret amongst the higher caste of the realms but there were vague rumors on how it worked.
And funnily enough he had what he needed to act out those rumors.
A book, and a desire.
And so, Kaelix did what no one in his world had ever done.
He prayed.
Not to the Emperor.
Not to any of the other gods.
Not to some abstract concept of fate.
No.
He prayed to himself.
If there's anybody listening to me... It's me.
It is only me.
I'm not asking for permission.
I'm not asking for mercy.
I'm asking for the impossible.
Even if it kills me.
Even if the world tries to rid itself of me the moment I do it.
Let me carve my name into this cursed realm.
Let me become... Worldforged.
The moment he said it—even if the words never reached the air—a shudder passed through the Tome.
A flicker.
A change.
Not the familiar multicolored glitching Runes of the Advents.
No.
Something new.
From the blood pooled on the pages, Runes began to rise.
Not chaotic.
Not distorted.
Simple.
Crude, yet simple.
Blood red, like dried fury, like seared iron.
They floated into the air with no dignity. They were smaller than the Advent's runes, weaker by comparison. But they carried a weight—a quiet defiance.
And from the Tome, they spoke. Not with voice, but with truth.
[Even if you will know no peace]
Kaelix smiled.
Bitter.
Cracked.
Still bleeding.
"I already never knew peace…" he whispered. "So I'll still seek such madness. In my own name."
And as his eyes fluttered shut—his consciousness fading completely—those blood-red Runes ignited with a surge of intent.
The prayer had been heard.
By himself.
**********************
Up above, the entity turned its gaze toward the horizon.
That odd presence—the one it couldn't comprehend—had grown more defined. It was preparing to move.
And yet—
Suddenly—
The entity froze mid-thought.
Something was wrong.
The entity scanned the area. There were no enemies remaining. No anomalies. No variables that hadn't already been subjugated. It had calculated every probability.
But something was wrong.
The Advent's runes—the magnificent, glitching streams of knowledge and command—began to stutter. They writhed mid-air, dragged by an unseen gravity. Some were violently shoved away, others pulled downward, as if caught in a vortex formed from raw denial.
It finally looked below itself.
And saw him.
Kaelix.
A body that should have been cold. Should have been empty. Should have been erased.
The boy lay in a crater of his own blood, unmoving, a hole where his heart had once beat. Beside him, the Tome, discarded like refuse, now vibrating softly with a light that should not exist. That could not exist.
But the distortion, the sheer pressure of will, was unmistakably originating from there.
He's dead. No, he should be dead. I felt his blood cool. I felt his spirit recoil and his body break. What is this?
The entity's thoughts raced. Its logic spiraled outward like webbing, seeking to map the disturbance, to comprehend it. And it found only contradiction. This was not a survival. It was a change.
An unwanted one.
The earth began to twist—not from replacement, like the Advent's warping, but from coercion. It bent inward. Not to accommodate a new rule, but to obey something brute and forceful, as if Kaelix's presence commanded reality itself to yield.
From his torn body, crimson runes began to leak, birthed not from the distortion of the Advent or rule of the world, but from blood and rage.
They were ugly. Imperfect. Simple.
But they were his.
They glowed, bathing the ruins in red as they surrounded him in a dome of flickering, living flame—an inverse sanctuary, not to keep the world out, but to keep his will in.
The entity tried to move, to stop this, but the runes resisted. They didn't push back—they burned back. These were not normal. These were forged in pain.
And then came the declarations.
[Your will has been recognized by no one but yourself]
[Your will stretches for chains to break in your existence, yet there are none]
[Your will searches for hidden power to unlock, yet there is none]
[Your will searches for something to forge into the world, yet there is none]
[So your will… forges itself]
Kaelix's eyes burst open.
He didn't awaken with grace. He didn't gasp for air like a miracle had happened. He screamed.
The sound was inhuman—jagged and full of bile and madness. Smoke poured from his mouth as his blood boiled beneath the surface. The black carapace that covered his Adversary-forged body shuddered in resistance—then began to crack.
The pain was apocalyptic. His mind split, his soul flayed, his very memories scattered under the pressure. Yet he held on. Not to a hope. Not to a higher purpose.
But to a grudge.
I'll bury my brother before I let that thing wear his face again.I'll carve my name into this world, not for glory… but so it chokes on it.
He roared, blood and flame erupting from his wounds, as more runes began to surface. This time, they were not the glitching ones belonging to the Advent but instead were stable and a serene blue.
This was the first time he had seen them, but he knew where they were from instinctively.
The World itself.
[Your existence is attempting to be forged in the nature of the world]
[You wield neither the potential nor the destiny to do so]
[Thus you will die]
Kaelix saw them flash before his eyes, and in that moment, despite the screaming of nerves and the shattering of bone, he scoffed.
You think I didn't know? You think I didn't plan for that? I already died once. So come on—try again.
And the crimson runes answered.
[Your will refuses to compromise]
[You have compromised enough]
With that, the red runes attacked the stable ones, consuming them in a frenzy of chaos. The World's rules withered, its glyphs burnt alive in the flame of Kaelix's rebellion.
The blood he had coughed onto the Tome ignited—not in fire, but in liquid defiance. It didn't burn to ash. It melted, turned molten, then surged into the hole in his chest, coalescing where his heart once was.
And it forged something new.
A heart, yes—but not of flesh.
A molten core, with vessels like branches of searing red light, spider-webbing through his torso and into his limbs. His body shook violently as it adapted—or rather, was forced to obey.
If he could see himself, he would've seen his black carapace igniting, as if drawn with lava through the cracks. The runes that once circled him now burned into his skin, marking him with statements instead of identities.
This wasn't like before.
The Adversary transformation had been cold, almost serene in its soul-voiding nature. A surrender into another mold.
This was the opposite.
A scream into the abyss, and the abyss screaming back.
New runes carved themselves into existence in the crimson light:
[Nexus Core has been melted down to create a temporary solution]
[Minor Nexus Rune has been melted to create a temporary solution]
[Obtain more Lorerunes to complete your transformation]
[But for now—your will has been forged]
Kaelix's eyes were glowing now—not with light, but with something worse.
Memory. Pain. Refusal.
He didn't just rise.
He rejected gravity.
And far above, the entity finally took a step back. Because for the first time since its birth...
It didn't understand what it was looking at.
The smoke cleared.
What rose from the crater was not a man, not anymore.
Kaelix's body—what was left of it—was caught in a storm of bloody red fire, flames licking along the seams of his warped carapace like a forge still mid-work. The armor of his previous Adversary form was still visible beneath, that blackened bone and jagged plating etched with remnants of void and silence.
But now it was fractured—corrupted by refusal.
Red fissures carved through it like molten veins. His chest glowed, not just with light, but with violent, pulsing purpose—a heart not beating for life, but to reject everything that had ever tried to define him.
This body was never meant to exist.
So what? It exists anyway.
The crimson runes didn't stop with his resurrection. They leaked from his skin, drifting like ash but alive, seeking out the glitching runes of the Advent with predatory rage. Every time one came near, it was either scorched into nothing or converted—violently rewritten in midair by Kaelix's bleeding will.
He wasn't stabilizing.
He was fighting to continue existing every second.
And yet, he stood.
His eyes did not blaze with energy. They weren't ethereal, divine, or composed.
They were bloodshot.
Red-rimmed.
Human—
—Or whatever he was now.
And they were locked—unyielding—on the entity above.
Not a single word had passed his lips since all of this began.
But now, the time for silence was over.
Above, the entity hovered, its form glimmering like glass reflecting too many skies at once. Its limbs twitched. Its focus, once fluid and divine, now shivered.
This was not the anomaly it had defeated.
This was something that broke rules simply by existing.
It searched its own memory. Its own nature. The instincts woven into its being when it had been birthed by the Advent.
What… is this?
The question felt poisonous.
This wasn't merely unknown—it was wrong. A paradox. A contradiction that defied every structure it had inherited from the world.
He was supposed to be dead.
He was supposed to be broken.
He was not supposed to come back like this.
For the first time since its manifestation, the entity faltered.
It did not attack.
It hesitated.
And that was when Kaelix spoke.
Not with a roar or a scream.
But with something worse.
Calm.
"I don't care what you are."
His voice came out raw, charred at the edges from flame and fury—but steady. It didn't echo with power. It didn't carry some divine aura.
But it had weight.
He took a step forward.
The ground cracked beneath his heel, red runes spreading from the contact like a disease.
"I'm not here to be understood."
"I'm not here to make sense."
Another step. The flames wrapped around his arms like blades waiting to be unsheathed.
"I'm here because I refuse to stop."
His gaze never left the entity's. It didn't waver. It didn't blink.
"I'm still here because I can't let you keep existing."
Then he moved.
Faster than expected.
The crater exploded behind him as he launched upward, his form a comet of crimson fire, the runes around him flaring into a streaking spearhead.
The force of his leap tore through the air, shattering it with sound, a sonic boom that echoed across the long destroyed graduation area like thunder shouting vengeance.
The entity didn't have time to react.
It had never needed to defend before.
But now?
Now, it was really needed to.