[: Daniel POV :]
I always believed that pain would sharpen the will, and they said what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
But what if it breaks you?
What if it burns so deep that you forget your own name just to survive another day?
You might think that someone could endure or even last for years, but for me, it wasn't even 1 year or even 10 years, but only one month.
One month.
That's how long I lasted under House Alburn before my mind began to blur between dream and reality.
Lord Velroth's son, Reven, didn't see me as a person or even as a human.
Even worse, he didn't even see me as a beast, all i was to him was a training log with a heartbeat.
And House Alburn… was a furnace of agony.
It started on the very first day I came into this house.
I was stripped of everything, my clothes, my name, even the tiny dignity I managed to protect in the slave pits.
And over the days, I was treated like a 'thing'.
In the wide courtyard of House Alburn, they chained me to a stone post, shirtless in the winter wind.
Servants lined up in the shadows, heads down.
Some of them didn't dare to look at me because of how cruel it was.
Some closed their eyes, but among them were Caelira, Rika, Marnok, and Kiel, who refused to turn their heads away.
They were forced to watch not because anyone asked them to, but rather, they couldn't do anything to help aside from witnessing this cruel treatment.
I was the only one who was treated this way, and nobody else was.
At this moment, I was being chained, and the life within my eyes was losing its light.
I didn't lose any hope, but because I have yet to awaken my powers, I could only feel nothing but hopeless.
Even then, Revan stepped forward, draped in noble garments of crimson-gold, a flame-shaped pendant gleaming on his chest.
His eyes were alight—not with passion, but madness.
"This is the one, Father'' He declared with excitement in his voice.
"He's a perfect dummy for me and unlike any other dummies, he managed to last long," he said.
Lord Velroth stood to the side, hands behind his back, nodding.
"I agree as well, son. Well,at least I didn't waste my money on this product since it's quite hard to acquire a slave nowadays'' Velroth exclaimed with a smile.
To them, I was nothing but a non-living thing that was meant to be thrown away once I had lost my durability.
''Watch this, father!'' Revan was about to test his powers, and he used his Bloodline Ability first.
It was a fire, but not just any ordinary fire, but a devouring fire.
He conjured blades made of searing heat that slashed across my chest.
Each time they hit, they didn't just burn, they burrowed into my nerves and stayed there, smouldering.
When I had lost my consciousness, he laughed.
"Oops''
''Perhaps I was a bit too excited to show you, Father, that I may have used a little bit too much'' Revan said as though he had made a small, ordinary mistake.
''No worries, son, continue as usual,'' Velroth laughed.
In the next few minutes, the burned wounds had recovered, and it was due to the fact that one of Revan guards had used his abilities to heal me.
Even then, the pain didn't disappear, nor would Revan stop testing his skills.
The next thing, he used his class skills.
One of them turned his body into magma, and he punched me in the ribs until they cracked.
Another summoned a chain of molten flames that wrapped around my legs, cooking the flesh as I hung upside down.
I screamed, and the more I screamed, the more alive he became.
"Your voice is ugly," he said once. "I wonder how long it'll take to make you mute?"
He questioned with eyes of madness as though he was enjoying the sound of my screams.
Despite the pain I was experiencing, it wasn't the end.
After all, he still had his soul weapon, and the moment he summoned his soul weapon, I didn't scream anymore.
Not because I was strong, but because I couldn't.
My throat was torn, my voice broken from days of endless cries.
Revan's Soul Weapon, Infernal Brand, had finally manifested.
It was a lance of pure fire that didn't pierce flesh… it consumed the soul.
When he drove it through my chest, time didn't slow; it stopped.
It wasn't a pain in the body.
It was deeper.
It dug through the deepest part of my flesh and bones, and it had pained my entire existence.
It had clawed through my soul, and I felt a kind of pain that shouldn't have existed.
It was worse than anything I had endured, worse than the countless lashes, the freezing nights, the bleeding hands, or the hollow gnawing of hunger.
This pain was something deeper, more intimate.
It didn't just tear through my skin or shatter my bones.
No, it crept into my very mind, until I felt my thoughts being burned by fire, one by one, like paper tossed into flame.
In that unbearable blaze, the world around me began to unravel.
I saw flashes, my own memories flickering against the darkness like dying stars.
Kiel's loud, annoying laughter echoing through the cold slave quarters, Caelira's lullabies humming softly into my ear as she cleaned my wounds, Rika's voice yelling at me to stop being so selfless, and Marnok's silent strength, his calloused hand on my shoulder when I needed it most.
At this moment, I couldn't move, scream or even cry.
And I truly wondered, for the first time, if dying would be kinder?
[: 3rd POV :]
While Daniel was being tortured, his dear ones who he considers as family members were suffering as they watched Daniel.
Caelira stood still with her eyes lowered.
But inside, her soul screamed.
Every time Revan ignited Daniel's skin with those cursed flames, she felt her heart shatter again.
She clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms.
She couldn't use her healing magic.
The slave collar still pulsed a warning at every emotional surge.
But oh, how her old self...once a being that all elves worshipped would have burned this entire estate to ash for laying hands on her child.
'If only I have my powers...I would raze this entire domain in fire!' She thought with rage in her eyes.
"My little star," she whispered in the dark, weeping into the cloth used to wipe Daniel's blood.
"Please live. Please live."
Rika, who once clawed guards and spat curses, could only stare.
"Every time he screams, it kills something in me," she muttered to Kiel.
Her hand missing three fingers ached with helpless rage.
But if she took one step out of line, they'd punish Daniel for her defiance.
That was the rule that they had made now.
So she gritted her teeth and poured cold water over his wounds when Revan was done each day.
She whispered to him in the dark, "One day, I swear, I'll gut that noble freak with my claws."
'If only my powers are unsealed...all of them would nothing be prey in my eyes!' Rika screamed in hatred in her mind.
And Daniel… always smiled weakly at her.
Marnok said nothing.
But he watched. He watched everything.
The way Revan moved and the spells he used.
He carved every detail into memory like a war map.
One night, while bandaging Daniel's broken shoulder, he murmured,
"This is a war. You're losing battles now, boy. But one day… we strike. We erase their bloodline from history."
Kiel took it the worst.
He couldn't not speak.
Every time Daniel returned from the courtyard with a limp or burn, Kiel would talk louder, joke harder, try harder to make him smile.
But when they were alone, he cried beside him.
"Why you?" he'd ask, holding Daniel's trembling hands. "Why not me?"
Daniel never answered.
'If only I don't have this stupid seal, I would let them humans rot in hell!' Kiel roared in his mind.
[: Daniel POV :]
I lost count of the days.
Some nights, I woke in my cage with blood in my mouth and no memory of what hurt.
Other nights, Revan left burn marks in the shapes of letters on my back just to "sign" his training.
They mocked me and some of them were servants who were trying to get on Revan's good side.
They called me names like Ash Toy, Flame Rag or even dummy Boy.
On the 30th day, Revan stabbed me through the thigh with Infernal Brand, twisting it slowly.
He laughed and his father clapped.
"Splendid! You're improving, Revan. Your soul weapon is far more stable now. Soon you'll be worthy of a holding my position!"
"Thank you, Father. This toy's been useful."
He yanked the his weapon out and I collapsd.
My vision blurred and I couldn't move.
Everything in my eyes were burned and everything ached.
But when I turned my head, I saw them.
Caelira holding a bowl of water with shaking hands.
Rika clutching a bloody cloth to her chest.
Kiel crouching beside me, whispering
"Breathe, idiot, breathe…"
Marnok standing behind them all, fists trembling in silence.
They didn't abandon me.
Not even when I became nothing more than Revan's ash doll.
So I smiled even throughout the agony.
Because one year from now… I'll be twelve.
One year from now… I'll awaken.
And when that day comes—
I won't scream.
But the world will.