Ash drifted from a blood-orange sky like dirty snow. The ground beneath him was hard-packed dirt, scorched black and sticky with soot. All around, chaos reigned—soldiers screamed, banners burned, and horned monstrosities surged across the fields like a living tide.
A wall loomed behind him—tall, ancient, cracked in a dozen places but still standing. Screams echoed from its parapets as defenders fired arrows and hurled boiling oil onto the attackers.
A dull, dented iron breastplate hung from his chest. A ragged leather belt. Greaves with one strap broken. In his hand: a longsword. Not balanced. Not crafted with care. Just a soldier's blade. Mass-produced. Replaceable.
A nameless soldier.
Arthur gritted his teeth, trying to make sense of the overwhelming input, not having time to take a look at his own Attributes
A beast surged toward him.
It looked like a warthog built from obsidian and bone, its tusks curved inward like meat hooks. It barreled across the charred earth, snarling. Around it, other soldiers screamed and fell—some trampled, some torn open by claws or tails. The tide was endless.
Arthur raised the sword with both hands. His body remembered the motion. Muscle memory kicked in. Left foot forward. Blade angled. Breathe.
The beast lunged.
He twisted to the side, just narrowly avoiding being gutted. The tusk grazed his arm, splitting the leather, drawing blood.
Pain surged through him—but so did focus.
He pivoted, brought the sword down with both hands—steel met bone—and with a loud CRACK, the blade bit deep into the creature's shoulder. Not enough to kill.
The beast reared back.
Arthur didn't give it the chance to strike again. He yanked the sword free, spun low, and drove the point into its throat. Hot blood—dark, almost black—splattered across his chest.
The beast gurgled. Twitched. Died.
For a moment, everything slowed,as the spells voice was heard once again.
[ You have slain a Awakened Monster, ..
Arthur didn't have time to look at the runes glowing infront of him.
Arthur stood there, panting, his body trembling—not from fear, but from the sheer effort it took to hold form in a place like this. His limbs burned, not from exhaustion, but more beasts approached.
Dozens.
Some ran on two legs, others on four. Some crawled. Some flew. All of them burned with the same hunger—the same mindless urge to destroy.
l
Around Arthur, the other soldiers continued to fall. None had survived. All were laying down on the ground shadows of their past self in armor—phantoms born to die. Only he felt real.
He realized the truth with grim clarity.
He was alone. The others were part of the trial. Tools. Background. He was the only soul here that mattered.
So be it.
He stepped forward.
Blade ready.
Mind clear.
And fought.
Time lost meaning
He didn't count how many beasts he killed.
Ten. Twenty. Forty.
[You have slain Awakend Monster,..]
[You have slain dormant beas..]
[You have slain..]
[You have slain..]
The sound of the nightmare spell kept echoing in my head but I didn't pay any mind to that, I have to admit I did train all my life yet training and real experience is completely different.
Every battle hurt. His arms were heavy. Blood pooled in his boots. His sword dulled with every blow until he had to pick up another from the fallen. The wall behind him cracked from the impact of some massive beast he never saw. Fire rained from the sky.
But Arthur stood.
He learned.
The beasts weren't mindless. Some followed leaders. Others worked in groups. Some baited the soldiers, drawing them into traps. The longer he survived, the more the Nightmare changed. Adapted. Grew stronger.
He learned to anticipate.
He used the terrain—leading one monster into the fallen debris of a siege engine, baiting another to charge over a spike trap left behind by dead engineers.
Each kill strengthened him—not just in body, but in understanding. He didn't just fight. He analyzed. Adapted. And endured.
At some point, a massive horn blared in the distance.
A howl split the air.
From the smoke emerged a figure.
Not a beast.
A knight
Its armor was scorched black and fused to its body. One eye burned with fire. In its hand was a two-handed axe, larger than Arthur's torso. but he was on his last breath with a quick glance in my direction the knight lay there on its last breath fightin whatever it was behind that wall.
Arthur didn't flinch.
He stepped forward, sword gripped tightly.
He had a decision to make based on his knowledge of the story if he killed this knight he would get a better reward a better chance for the future sure it might be morally wrong but in this nightmare nothing matter allies or enemys they where just soul shards to be collected and fill his core.
So with that said he gently plunged the sword on the knights chest ending his suffering as the all familiar voice echoed once again in his ears as if praising him for what he did.
[You have slain a Transcendent Human,Thren Vallis]
[You have recieved a Memory..]
[Vow of the Fractured Oath]
The Beast that terrfying creatuer was behind those walls inside this castle and yet it didn't come out to kill the remaining survivors this is strange so with that in mind I made my way inside the castle my boots raddling everytime I took a step the blood splattered everywhere corpses everywhere the eye could see and a lone survivor making his way towards the throne room.
After walking for a few minutes I finally arrived at the highes point of the castle yet the quitness the eerie chillness around me made this place feel like a death warant.
But I still moved on and what lay before me wasnt what I was expecting in my wildes dream.
A creature lay broken upon the shattered stone, though "creature" felt too small a word for something so steeped in ruin. Its form was vaguely human—tall, gaunt, once perhaps regal—but now it was a monument to decay.
Its skin peeled and shriveled, but not from flame or blade—it was rotting from within, as if its very soul had turned toxic, eating its body from the core outward. Veins of black rot pulsed beneath parchment-thin flesh, twitching with slow, deliberate agony.
Chains—thick and barbed—were driven deep into its limbs, shoulders, even its jaw. Not wrapped around it, but embedded in its very body, like parasitic vines that had grown from inside. Every link shimmered faintly with ghostlight, pulsing in rhythm with its ragged, wheezing breath. Some chains dragged behind it, grinding over stone like iron serpents. Others simply vanished into the darkness above—as if it were still tethered to something… something far worse.
Its eyes were sealed shut with molten iron, though they wept black tears from beneath. And yet it turned its head toward Arthur, sensing him—not with sight, but with the raw hunger of a being that had not seen, touched, or been free in a thousand years.
When it shifted, the chains groaned—not in metal, but in grief.
This was no beast.
It was a prisoner.
A cursed soul, bound and buried beneath the weight of its own sin. Corruption has taken over its soul.
And it had not forgotten.
The moment I took a step inside the throne room an immense killing intent and dread filled my being I couldn't help but shiver at the feeling as I felt the grip reaper gripping me by the throat. yet as soon as it came it was gone instead replaced by a feeling of relief
After calming my self down I decided to look straight at the abomination
The chained creature stirred as Arthur stepped closer, his breath catching in the cold air. The rot in its body pulsed in quiet rhythm, like a diseased heart too stubborn to stop beating. Black ichor seeped slowly from beneath its skin, tracing the grooves where barbed chains were buried like roots in cracked soil.
The thing did not attack.
Instead, it raised its head—jerking with unnatural effort, as if each vertebra were snapping back into place with a scream. Its sealed eyes turned toward Arthur, and when it spoke, the voice came not from its mouth, but through the chains themselves, whispering like wind in rusted steel.
"You are… different."
The air around Arthur seemed to thicken, bending faintly—as if space mourned in the creature's presence.
"They bound me to remembrance. To rot.
To penance for a war none still recall.
I was once a king… but I broke the world to save it.
And for that… they erased me."
One of the chains twitched, rising of its own accord. At the end of it, half-buried in the stone floor, was a sword. Ancient. Blackened with age. Etched with runes long faded. The blade hummed softly—not with power, but with sorrow.
"The sword remembers me.
It will remember you."
The creature lowered its head, flesh sloughing from its shoulders like wet ash.
"Please.
End me."
For a moment, the silence was total. The chains held no tension. The blade pulsed once.
Arthur stepped forward.
No glory.
No hate.
Only mercy.
With a single motion—swift, clean—he severed the creature's suffering.
As its body fell still, the chains crumbled into dust… and the sword rose, hovering in the air for a breathless second before lowering gently into Arthur's hand.
As the voice of the nightmare spell once again whispered words to my ear
[You have slain a Cursed Terror, The Forgoten King]
[You have recieved a Memory]
[Sword of the Forgotten King]
[Wake up, Arthur! Your nightmare is Over]
[ Prepare for appraisal ]