Troady staggered, gasping as the smoke-laden wind stung his lungs. His knees buckled, the unfamiliar weight of the world pressing down on him. The battlefield stretched endlessly—corpses of warriors who clearly didn't belong to his world lay scattered, their broken weapons glinting faintly under a crimson sky.
"Where… am I now?" he muttered, clutching his chest. The fragment inside him pulsed with irregular beats, like a second heart. Each pulse sent waves of nausea through him, but also… something else. A raw, alien power.
The mist thickened. Shapes moved within it—long, jagged limbs, eyes glowing like embers in the dark. One of the monsters stepped forward, its grotesque form half-shadow, half-beast. Its jaw cracked open unnaturally wide as it let out a guttural roar.
Troady froze, heart hammering. His entire body screamed to run. I don't belong here. I'll die again. Just like always…
But then, the shard flared. His curse awakened.
The ground beneath his feet cracked without warning. The monster lunged—yet stumbled instantly as the earth shifted, a jagged stone piercing up through its leg. Another creature behind it slipped on blood-soaked mud that hadn't been there a moment before, its body crashing into its ally.
Troady blinked in disbelief. "What… did I just—?!"
The fragment throbbed harder. Each beat radiated chaos, bending fate itself. Blades from fallen warriors snapped loose and ricocheted wildly, skewering enemies by sheer accident. A broken siege engine toppled in the distance, crushing another wave of monsters before they could even approach.
His cursed luck… was dragging his enemies into ruin.
But the blessing was double-edged. A spear from nowhere shot past and nicked his shoulder—luck didn't discriminate. He stumbled back, blood staining his sleeve. His knees buckled.
This power… it's insane. It doesn't just curse me anymore—it curses everything around me.
The monsters, enraged and panicked by the erratic chaos, encircled him. Troady's breath quickened. His legs screamed at him to collapse, but the shard burned hotter. His vision blurred—voices whispered in his head.
"Fate is fragile. Misfortune is your blade. Yield to it, or perish."
Troady's lips trembled, but he clenched his fists. "If this curse is all I have… then let it damn everything that stands in my way!"
The battlefield roared alive as the shard burst, arcs of distorted reality tearing through the air. Enemies fell, accidents chained, chaos spiraled.
And through the carnage, a figure appeared on the horizon. Not a monster—no, a warrior clad in silver armor, eyes sharp as steel. The stranger raised their blade toward Troady.
"So you're the new vessel," the warrior's voice cut through the chaos. "Then you're mine to test."
Troady froze. A rival…? Or executioner?
The real trial had only just begun.
To be continued…