An owl perched quietly on the frame of the ornate bed, its white feathers blending with the pale light filtering through the frosted window. The snowy owl tilted its head before letting out a low, echoing hoot.
"Hoot… Hoot…"
The sound stirred the boy sleeping beneath the thick furs.
He shifted slightly, his brows knitting together before his eyes slowly opened. For a moment he stared at the ceiling, still caught between sleep and waking, before the cold air biting at his skin forced him fully awake.
The owl hooted again.
He groaned softly and pushed himself upright, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. His silver hair was a mess, loose strands falling over his crimson eyes as he blinked the sleep away.
The room was quiet.
After a moment he slid off the bed, his bare feet touching the freezing stone floor. He wobbled slightly—his body was still weak as always—but steadied himself and slowly made his way toward the massive wooden door at the far end of the chamber.
The door alone was nearly twice his height, reinforced with iron bands like something meant to hold back an army rather than keep a sickly child inside.
CLANG.
The sound of a bell echoed through the inner castle corridors.
He waited.
Footsteps hurried somewhere beyond the door, muffled through the thick wood.
A servant's voice followed, breathless from rushing.
"Wake up… Lord Lux."
A short pause.
Then the words that made the air feel heavier.
"Lord Darius Axwyn has returned from the expedition."
He stood still.
For a moment he simply stared at the door.
Then he let out a quiet sigh.
"My name… was Oliver," he murmured under his breath.
Before I became this guy.
Before I woke up in this freezing fortress with a body that felt like it might break at any moment.
Until three days ago, I had been nothing special.
Just another office worker trapped in a routine that never seemed to end.
Wake up.
Commute through crowded trains packed with half-awake people.
Sit under flickering office lights.
Work from nine in the morning until nine at night, staring at spreadsheets, reports, and emails that multiplied faster than they could be answered.
Day after day.
Week after week.
It was the kind of job that slowly drained the life out of you without you even noticing.
But bills didn't pay themselves.
Rent didn't disappear just because you hated your job.
So quitting wasn't really an option.
So I endured it.
The only thing that made those endless days bearable was gaming.
The moment I got home, I would turn on my computer and disappear into another world.
Among all the games I had played over the years, only one had completely taken over my life.
Swords Painting.
A dark fantasy RPG known for its brutal difficulty, complex lore, and hidden storylines that most players never discovered.
What started as simple entertainment slowly turned into something closer to obsession.
I poured hours into it.
Then hundreds.
Then thousands.
Weekdays after work.
Entire weekends.
Late nights where I promised myself just one more quest, only to end up playing until sunrise.
If I added everything together…
It had to be well over three thousand hours.
I knew that world better than my own city.
To me, the game's lore felt as familiar as history.
Every hidden quest.
Every kingdom.
Every major character.
Every boss.
Especially the ones most players never even knew about—because many of them quit long before reaching that point.
The Seven Calamity-Class Nightmares.
The disasters that shaped the darkest parts of the story.
And somehow…
I had become one of them.
My crimson eyes reflected faintly in the frost-covered window.
The First Calamity.
The one that swallowed the northern kingdom in darkness.
The nightmare players feared the most when it first appeared in the game's timeline.
The calamity known as—
Despair of the North.
The name alone was enough to make veteran players tense up.
I remembered it very clearly.
In Swords Painting, the calamities didn't appear all at once. Their awakenings were scattered throughout the story, each one marking a major turning point in the world.
And the very first one players ever faced…
Was him.
The opening calamity of the entire nightmare arc.
It happened during the northern campaign, when the story shifted from political intrigue to outright survival.
At that point in the game, players believed the northern frontier to be the safest region in the world. It was humanity's shield against the Nightmare Realm—a brutal but stable military stronghold guarded by veteran armies and ancient defenses.
The North was supposed to be the impregnable bastion.
Then the calamity awakened.
Not from beyond the Wall.
But from inside it.
The source of the disaster was a character most players barely paid attention to.
Lux Axwyn.
The sickly son of the Northern General.
A pale noble boy who almost never appeared in the early chapters. In most scenes he was only mentioned in passing—someone who rarely left the inner castle.
The lore never explained much about him.
No childhood stories.
No training arcs.
No heroic achievements.
Even when players dug through hidden dialogue and rare lore entries, Lux remained mostly a mystery.
Almost nothing was known about Lux Axwyn when he was still human.
Players only knew that he existed somewhere inside the Axwyn fortress long before the disaster began.
What players did know about was the Axwyn family.
The house itself was famous throughout the northern territories.
Not just because the family produced some of the strongest generals in the kingdom—but because of a relic that symbolized their legacy.
Sword Mountain.
A massive black stone formation standing within the Axwyn domain.
The stone was enormous, jagged like a shard of night rising from the earth.
And embedded within it were countless swords.
Blades from different eras.
Weapons once carried by legendary knights, generals, war heroes, and wandering champions.
Whenever a great warrior of the Axwyn dukedom died, their sword was brought to the mountain and driven into the stone.
Over generations, the mountain had become a graveyard of blades.
A monument to centuries of battles fought in the North.
Players loved that bit of lore.
It made the Axwyn family feel ancient and powerful.
Ironically…
None of that prestige mattered when the calamity awakened.
Because the one who destroyed the North came from that very bloodline.
Lux Axwyn.
The quiet noble who spent most of his life hidden deep inside the inner castle.
The boy nobody knew.
The boy nobody expected.
When his power finally broke loose, the game never showed the exact moment it happened.
There was no cinematic revealing his transformation.
Players only saw the aftermath.
The inner castle collapsed.
Suppression seals shattered.
Mana storms consumed the fortress.
And when the smoke cleared…
Lux Axwyn was gone.
In his place stood the first nightmare.
The Despair of the North.
I remembered that boss fight very well.
Because it had traumatized an entire generation of players.
The moment the raid opened, forums exploded with complaints.
Guilds wiped for days.
Some players joked that the fight gave them literal depression.
Others simply rage-quit the game entirely.
The boss mechanics were merciless.
Healing became nearly impossible during certain phases.
And when players finally thought they were close to winning…
The last phase triggered.
The boss's HP stopped decreasing.
The battlefield itself began collapsing as the nightmare domain spread across the arena.
It was the kind of fight that required dozens of perfectly coordinated players just to survive.
Back then, it had been thrilling.
A brutal challenge.
One of the most memorable bosses in the entire game.
He slowly lowered his gaze to his pale hands.
Now…
Now he was him.
The boy who, according to the story of Swords Painting, would one day become the calamity that plunged the North into darkness.