The sky was wrong.
At first, Kael thought it was just another dream—one of those lingering nightmares from his old life, the one before he was reborn as the Seventh Prince of Eryndor. But dreams didn't usually tear the heavens open, or rain down fragments of entire worlds.
Above him, the Tower of Fates cracked like stained glass, its thousand layers collapsing one by one. Out of the fissures spilled impossible things: a giant serpent made of shadows, a girl in a school uniform wielding blue psychic flames, masked hunters with swords glowing like suns.
Stories. Worlds. Characters. All crashing down into one broken reality.
And Kael knew this scene.
He had read it before.
> "When the Tower shatters, the script begins anew. The reader must decide whether to follow the words… or burn the book."
Those were the words written in the Apothecary's Diary, a book Kael had stolen three nights ago from his father's forbidden library.
Now, watching destiny itself collapse, Kael understood: he wasn't just living in a kingdom. He was trapped inside a story.
---
Far below, on the shattered streets, Sanae rummaged through the wreckage. To everyone else, she was a weakling—a girl who survived by picking through trash and feeding half-dead animals. But when her trembling hand brushed against a broken sword hilt, something stirred.
The weapon whispered.
Its power had been discarded, abandoned by fate.
But she could hear it.
And she could awaken it.
The hilt shimmered in her palm, reforming into a blade of fractured light. Her eyes widened.
> "I… can make the useless shine."
Around her, survivors screamed as demons spilled from the cracks, their bodies crawling with blood-red script like living curses.
---
High above the chaos, Ryo adjusted his tie. He looked nothing like a warrior—just a weary instructor with a scar across his jaw. But the moment he stepped onto the Academy's ruined courtyard, the aura of a seasoned killer radiated from him.
> "Students," he muttered, his voice calm despite the carnage, "class is in session."
With a flick of his hand, knives materialized, each thrown faster than gunfire. Every blade struck a demon's core, dropping them before they could even roar. The students of Eclipse Academy, wide-eyed, realized this wasn't just a teacher. He was a mercenary built for war.
And their battlefield was only beginning.
---
On the stage of the collapsed auditorium, Liora stood trembling. Once, she had been a failed idol in a world where dreams meant nothing. But as the chaos spread, her star-shaped birthmark burned.
Her song—raw, desperate, filled with grief—spilled into the air.
And reality bent.
The monsters froze, trapped inside illusions of their own worst memories. Survivors rallied, their despair turning to courage.
It wasn't just music. It was power.
---
Kael watched all of it unfold—the girl who turned trash into treasures, the assassin hiding as a teacher, the idol who bent reality with her voice. He recognized their faces, their arcs, their destinies. He had read them before, in dozens of different stories.
And the script told him one thing clearly:
> They would all die here.
Unless he broke the story.
Kael clenched his fist, his princely robes torn, his magic thrumming like wildfire. For the first time, he ignored the script in his head.
"Not this time." His voice cut through the screams. "This story belongs to us now."
And with those words, the Seventh Prince raised his hand toward the broken sky.
Magic roared. Pages of fate burned.
The rebellion against destiny had begun.
---
End of Chapter 1