Elian raised his sword and stepped into motion. The Human-Headed Snake lunged at him with its mouth stretching wide, but he didn't freeze.
He had trained for this. Every night in the slums he imagined this kind of moment and had told himself again and again that fear wasn't something to escape. It was something to move through.
So he moved.
With a short breath and a sharp step he move his body and swung the blade with all the strength he had. The cut landed clean to the weak monster.
The monster's head flew off its body and rolled across the ash-covered ground with blood spurting out. Its human face twitched once, then its lips parted and let out a rasped name that might've belonged to the person it used to be or the person's significant other, before falling still.
Elian stared at it. It was disturbing in a way that went beyond blood or death in the slums he used to.
The stories were true. These monsters didn't just wear human flesh. They still used parts of the people they had consumed like their voice, their name, their final breath, or their memories.
His pulse raced. His chest rose and fell with short panicked gasps. His hands trembled around the grip of the sword.
"You have to move now!"
He forced the word into his thoughts. Shouted it at himself in silence.
He activated the crystal light on his chest. A soft orange glow spread around him, it was small but steady light. He kept the sword raised and his eyes wide.
His body still shook and cold sweat dripped down his back but he kept moving. Just like he trained to.
He remembered what he told himself years ago: "You should never stop. Even if you're scared and hopeless. Especially when you're scared and hopeless!"
The sky above flashed with chaotic colors, lightning blooming across the clouds in green and red streaks. But none of it touched the land below.
The darkness here wasn't normal. It was thick, heavy and untouchable by light. As if the Grave Realm refused to let light live here.
Ahead, Elian spotted the jagged mouth of a cave. He didn't hesitate.
Screams echoed in the distance. Some filled with terror, other scream cut off too fast to tell.
Elian grit his teeth and pushed forward. The fear clawed at him with every step but he didn't let it stop him. They said that the cave were relatively safer than outside.
He ducked into the cave. His sword stayed firm in his hand and his body tense. The cave gave no promise of safety. Nothing in the Grave Realm ever did. But this place is better than outside. A little bit.
Once he was inside, Elian let out a long breath and slumped down against the cold stone wall.
His back hit the rough surface and his legs gave out beneath him. His heart was still pounding, hammering in his chest like it was trying to escape.
His hands trembled as they held the sword tight against his lap. He tried to grip harder and force the shaking to stop.
It didn't work.
He sat there in the dim orange glow of his crystal, eyes wide and chest rising fast, and for a moment he just let the fear run through him.
The fear of dying. The fear of being eaten or taken over. The fear of losing everything. Even though he barely had anything to begin with.
Then his thoughts drifted.
He remembered the slums of District 13. The stinking alleys, the rotten food, the cold nights where he curled up under broken metal sheets with hunger clawing at his gut. No home or safety and no one to protect him.
But if he could get a powerful Relic in this place… if he could find one strong enough, then everything could change.
Ashborne who returned with Relics were given homes. A place to live, food, Safety, and power.
The rank of the Relic determined everything—how strong they could grow, how much Aether they could absorb, what Aspect Marks they would awaken, and what abilities they would gain.
"I have to get a strong Relic. That's the only thing that will give me a decent life!" Elian said to himself.
Then, his eyes lit with something close to fire. The shaking in his hands lessened, though it didn't disappear completely. The fear was still there but something else joined it now, his determination.
He was the child of a slave woman and some unknown lord. Maybe. That's what the old man in the back of the metal shack used to say. But it didn't matter.
His mother died not long after his fifth birthday, in a way so horrible he stopped thinking about it.
His father had vanished and left him behind in the dirt.
So he stopped caring. He didn't have a family. He didn't have a future.
All he had was this moment and himself and he had to fight for it. Because no one else would.
Elian pushed himself up.
Screams still echoed from outside. They sounds distant, painful, and was their final voices. Another child torn apart, another soul lost in the Grave Realm.
He didn't care.
There was nothing he could do for them. Just like no one would have done anything for him. He moved forward with eyes sharp and sword in hand.
The cave tunnel stretched ahead with jagged and uneven walls. The deeper he walked, the more the path began to slope downward.
Step by step, he descended into the earth. The orange light from his crystal barely enough to cut through the gloom.
His footsteps were quiet but his breath was loud in his ears.
Then he reached a wide and hollow chamber carved naturally into the rock.
Elian stopped at the threshold. Nothing moved. No monsters or sound. But something clawed at his instinct and crawling sense along his spine. His instincts screamed that something was here.
But there were no way else forward except this one.
He tightened his grip on the sword and stepped in slowly, every muscle in his body tense.
The soft glow of his crystal spread across the stone floor in flickering light.
He scanned every corner and crevices. That's when it happened.
From a crack in the far wall, a small and thin figure emerged. Moving with caution.
It was a child who probably no older than ten.
Covered in ash and dirt. His face pale and his eyes wide. The child looked at Elian with a strange mix of fear and relief.
Elian stopped in his tracks.
"Is this child arrived here before me?" Elian asked himself.
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