Baines awoke with a gasp, his eyes snapping open to an unfamiliar ceiling—stone, cracked, and ancient. then the memories surged like a tidal wave, drowning him in pain. His father's lifeless eyes. His mother's scream. His sister's final glance. His brothers, gone. Betrayal's bitter sting.
"ARGHHH!" He clutched his head, screaming until his throat burned raw, tears long spent. The weight of loss crushed him. Pain. Grief. Betrayal.
He couldn't go on—not like this, not alone.
The agony inside him was unbearable. His father. His mother. His brothers. His sister. His home. Everything was gone.
He couldn't do it. To stay here after losing everything?
With trembling fingers, he summoned a blade from his dimensional pouch, its edge gleaming coldly. Without hesitation, he drove it into his stomach, so hard its full blade sank deep in his stomach. Pain seared through him, sharp and blinding.
"Gurgh…" Blood soaked his robes, pooling on the bed as his vision dimmed. Darkness swallowed him.
Everything faded black.
...
His eyes fluttered open. The same ceiling above him. The same despair clawed at his chest. And the same despair.
He decided. If his stomach wouldn't end it, his throat would.
With trembling finger, he reached for the blade again—
"STOP!"
A voice thundered through the chamber, freezing his body mid-motion.
The sword hovered inches from his neck, but an invisible force locked his limbs. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move.
He didn't register the voice. All in his mind as it raged was one thought, to desperately finish what he'd started. To bring the blade just closer to his head.
After experiencing the betrayal of a supposed loyal subject and the death of his mother and sister, a thought came to him.
For what reason did those who took his brothers and father have to keep them alive?
He couldn't live with that thought. He would rather join them than continue his revenge; however, before that, he had to bypass this power holding him down
His chest heaved, breath ragged, eyes burning with unshed tears.
A figure materialized, cloaked in dark robes, their presence a weight that pressed against the air, overwhelming and commanding. They plucked the sword from his hand but held him in place.
Baines glared, defiant, and didn't seem to want to give up. The moment he was free, another blade would do the job.
Seeing that this wouldn't lead anywhere, the figure spoke, his voice low and certain.
"They aren't dead,"
Baines froze, his heart lurching, and his entire being jolted.
Noticing the large change in Baines, the invisible grip on him loosened, and the sword slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor.
His lips parted, but no words came out.
"Your sister suspected traitors among the family. So after you left, she vanished with your mother."
A tremor shook him.
His head bowed, hands gripping the bloodied sheets as a flicker of hope pierced his despair. Silence stretched, heavy with possibility, until he found his voice. He lifted his gaze and asked, "Where am I?"
The figure stepped closer, standing within a vast, open-air throne room, its towering pillars reaching into the sky. There was no roof or wall around.
"This," they said, "is Ashenfall."
Baines's breath caught.
Ashenfall.
A name he had only heard in whispers.
The Ashen family.
They were once the ruling dynasty of the Dominion of Ashen, which spanned a large part of the world of the past.
They were a force that could have founded an empire if they wished. And unlike most kingdoms that separated warriors and mages, the Ashen bloodline birthed hybrids, individuals who wielded both sword and spells with terrifying efficiency.
Founded over 3,000 years ago, the family's first patriarch, Vael Ashen, was a legendary warrior-sorcerer who was said to even defy the gods themselves.
His descendants, known as the Arcane Warlords, blended ancient aura cultivation with mana mastery, creating techniques that reshaped battlefields. During their reign, at least five Ashen rulers had reached or surpassed the Deity level.
But their ambition became their downfall.
In their pursuit to rule the world, they conducted forbidden experiments, attempting to fuse mana and aura into the body as one force.
The ritual failed.
The large empire crumbled, reduced to ruins. Afterwards, the Ashen family was believed to be extinct.
In the aftermath, large kingdoms and empires rushed in, eager to plunder their secrets.
But they found only eternal darkness. The sun never rose over the territory again. The land was left cursed with violent mana storms that drove intruders insane. The twisted creatures formed from the remnants of Ashenfall's people, Ruinborns, were all that was left of the territory.
This devastation earned it a dreaded name, Ashenfall.
Yet, rumors persisted.
Deep beneath the ruins lay the Ashen family's greatest treasure, their tome of secrets. If one could survive the storm, the Ruinborn, and the unknown horrors lurking within, unimaginable power awaited.
And now, Baines was here.
'I once heard mother talk about them.' Baines reminisced about those days when he could only pick up little words, and as a story he had repeatedly heard, he remembered it.
"I've heard the stories," Baines said, his voice quiet but firm. "But why am I here?"
The old man chuckled; his eyes filled with amusement. "That story isn't complete."
Before Baines could respond, an unseen force lifted him from the bed, his feet dangling as he was pulled through the throne room's pillars into open air.
His mind raced. 'Aura control at this level? He has to be at least 7th Star.'
They passed through the towering pillars of what remained of the throne room and stepped into open space.
Then Baines saw it.
Like the rumors, the sky was just darkness, no, it was just a void in the sky, and at the center of this void was a massive, black, and endless, mana storm that split the void sky and the blackened earth.
It was chaotic, twisting, alive with reckless energy and warping the very air around it into oblivion. It churned the air like a vortex of raw power stretching into oblivion.
This was Ashenfall.