The Arrival of Destiny
The Azure Star Academy was abuzz with a nervous energy that Kaelen Varrus found exquisitely irritating. The source of the excitement was the official arrival of the Hero Orion Keres and his adopted sister, the future Warrior, Seraphina. The pair were common-born, but Orion carried a natural charisma that was already turning the heads of the student body. He was broad-shouldered, radiating an aura of simple, honest strength, and his eyes held the clear, unwavering conviction of someone who genuinely believed in his destiny to save the world.
Arrogant fool, Kaelen thought, watching from the high balcony of his secluded dorm. He believes his goodness is strength. I will teach him that his goodness is a weakness, and his arrogance is a noose.
Kaelen had only one day left before Orion was scheduled to receive his first major power-up: the legendary Sunsteel Gauntlets. These Gauntlets were not only physically powerful, but they acted as a conduit, enhancing Orion's nascent Aura Amplification ability—the very power that allowed him to shatter the silver blade in Kaelen's chest in the last timeline. If Orion received the genuine Gauntlets, he would instantly become a threat too fast to manage.
Kaelen was not going to let that happen. His revenge required Orion to be strong, but strong using Kaelen's methods, on Kaelen's timetable.
The Crypt of Whispers
The Crypt of Whispers was a forbidden, forgotten ruin located deep beneath the Academy's oldest training grounds, accessible only via a hidden teleportation circle. It was treacherous, populated by high-tier Specters and Shadow Wraiths, but Kaelen knew the layout by heart. He had navigated it countless times in his Tyrant life, studying its structure to secure his own dark artifacts.
He activated the teleportation circle in the dead of night, using a specialized, Stygian-Mana-infused Rune Key—a miniature version of the keys he'd created as the Tyrant—that bypassed the Academy's monitoring wards entirely. The air shifted, and Kaelen found himself enveloped in the cold, dusty gloom of the Crypt.
The Dark Heart thrummed with excitement. This environment, steeped in death and latent chaos, was a feast for its power. Kaelen moved like a ghost, his Shadow-Weaving ability perfected to the point where he moved not through the shadows, but as them. The specters and wraiths, who were drawn to raw mana, ignored him entirely; the Stygian Mana was a signature of primordial darkness they feared to approach.
He reached the central vault, a place of ancient sacrifice where the Hero of the last epoch had sealed the Gauntlets. They rested on a pedestal, emitting a soft, golden light that was instantly offensive to Kaelen's senses.
The Sunsteel Gauntlets were beautiful, etched with prayers of courage and loyalty. Kaelen plucked them easily, the magical seals dissolving under the touch of the Dark Heart's superior, chaotic power.
He wrapped the genuine Gauntlets in a section of his dark coat, securing them in an extradimensional pocket. My property now, Orion. Your destiny is subject to my planning.
The Counterfeit and the Poison
Kaelen then reached into his pocket and pulled out his prepared decoy. It was a pair of gauntlets that looked identical to the Sunsteel set—he had spent the last week meticulously crafting them from enchanted iron and cheap illusion magic.
But the true poison was inside.
He injected the decoy Gauntlets with a refined, crystalline form of Controlled Abyssal Corruption. This wasn't the crude corruption he used on Garrus; this was subtle. The corrupted item would work. It would amplify Orion's Aura Amplification, even faster and more aggressively than the real Gauntlets, feeding the Hero's arrogance and hunger for quick power.
However, over time, the corruption would slowly but surely damage the Hero's mana channels and his Aura Core, making him dependent on the Gauntlets to sustain his power, rather than his inner strength. By the time Orion realized his error, he would be crippled without the tainted relics, his foundation hollowed out by Kaelen's silent, slow-acting venom.
Kaelen placed the counterfeit Sunsteel Gauntlets on the pedestal, the illusion making them glow with a convincing, fake light.
The Encounter
He returned to the surface just as dawn broke. Kaelen knew from the Temporal Echo that Orion was restless with a sense of destiny and would seek out the Crypt based on a vague dream and a hidden clue he found in an ancient text.
Kaelen waited by the obscured entrance to the teleportation circle. He didn't have to wait long.
Orion arrived, dressed in simple training leathers, his face taut with youthful anticipation. He stopped dead when he saw Kaelen—the Academy's most notorious aristocratic degenerate—standing guard over what Orion instinctively knew was his destiny.
"Varrus?" Orion asked, his voice ringing with a natural authority that made Kaelen want to crush him instantly. "What are you doing here? This area is restricted."
Kaelen's smile was wide, slow, and full of contemptuous pity. "Ah, the Hero. I was wondering when destiny would drag you down into the dirt, Orion."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Orion said, placing his hand on the hilt of his basic training sword.
"Oh, but you do," Kaelen countered, stepping away from the hidden entrance. "You've felt it, haven't you? That hollow fear? You're the Hero, destined to wield the Blade of Destiny, yet you're secretly terrified that you are not enough. That your natural talent is too slow, too weak, too common."
Orion's eyes flashed with genuine fury, proving Kaelen's words were precise daggers targeting the Hero's hidden shame. Orion, unlike Lyra and Elara, had no past trauma Kaelen could exploit—only his immense, secret fear of failure.
"You know nothing of me, Varrus. Get out of my way."
Kaelen laughed, a harsh, low sound. "I know everything. I know that beneath the holy symbols and the grand destiny, you crave raw, fast power. And I know that the 'treasure' you seek down there will disappoint you. It will be too slow, too pure, too weak to satisfy the ambition that truly drives you."
Kaelen reached into his coat and produced a small, leather-bound scroll—a genuine, ancient text he had salvaged. He tossed it carelessly at Orion's feet.
"The Sunsteel Gauntlets are a myth for children. Real power is attained through sacrifice and dark acceleration. That scroll," Kaelen pointed down at the text, which lay innocuously near the teleportation circle, "contains the true, forgotten key to Aura Overdrive. A technique to force the very life energy of your core to amplify your strength tenfold, instantly."
The technique Kaelen described was a corrupted, unstable derivative of his own Stygian Mana Synthesis. It wasn't the answer Orion was looking for, but it was the shortcut his arrogance demanded.
"It's a forbidden text," Orion spat, glaring down at the scroll with suspicion, yet Kaelen saw the greedy, hungry flicker in his eyes.
"Of course, it's forbidden. Only those too weak to resist temptation rely on purity, Orion. You are a Hero; you need absolute power, faster than anyone else. Why wait decades for the world to catch up when you can take your destiny by the throat now?" Kaelen's voice was seductive, dark, playing directly to Orion's pride.
"Take the bait, Hero. Go retrieve your 'destined' trinkets, and when you realize they are insufficient—when you are left behind by those who truly seek power—you will return to that scroll, desperate to know the dark secrets that separate the weak from the truly invincible. You will choose the faster path."
Kaelen turned, the Dark Heart radiating contemptuous amusement. He didn't need Orion to use the scroll immediately. He just needed to ensure the Hero knew that Kaelen was the source of forbidden knowledge and rapid power—knowledge that the pure path would never offer.
"Enjoy your fate, Orion," Kaelen called over his shoulder, walking away and leaving the stunned Hero alone with the conflicting lure of the Crypt and the corrupting promise of the scroll.
Orion, filled with wounded pride and the crushing pressure of destiny, would enter the Crypt, find the counterfeit Gauntlets, and believe they were the real deal, yet still feel unsatisfied by their initially limited boost. His arrogance, coupled with Kaelen's subtle poison, would ensure he eventually turned to the dangerous, dark secrets offered in the discarded scroll.
The Hero is not compromised by debt, nor by guilt. He is compromised by his own insatiable pride. With the Hero's foundation now tainted, Kaelen's initial campaign was complete. He had secured three powerful assets—two willing (Garrus), two dependent (Lyra and Elara), and one self-destructing (Orion)—all before his official public appearance.
The world was entirely unaware that its end had already been decided by the Regressed Tyrant.