The world narrowed to blood, steel, and fear.
The outlaws closed in, laughter twisted into something savage, their blades gleaming despite the rust. Their eyes were the eyes of hyenas circling a wounded lion—mocking, certain, hungry for an easy kill.
The prince's heart hammered against his ribs. His body trembled, his limbs heavy as if forged from stone. He had never killed before. He had never even raised a blade in earnest combat. His siblings had wielded swords since childhood, clashing in sparring yards while the court sneered at his frailty. He had been the shadow, the unwanted, the sacrifice.
And yet, here he stood, cornered among wolves.
The first outlaw lunged, teeth bared in a grin, his knife streaking toward the prince's throat. Reflex drove him—not training, not courage. His hand shot out, wild and desperate, catching the attacker's wrist. The steel missed its mark, grazing his collarbone instead. Pain flared, sharp and hot, but it was nothing compared to the fire roaring inside him.
Devour him, the Codex whispered, silky and inevitable.
Before he could think, the black veins along his arm flared. A rush of power surged into his hand, pulling, dragging—tearing.
The outlaw screamed. His body convulsed, eyes wide as a pale, smoky essence bled from his chest, drawn inexorably into the prince's palm. The sound was unholy, not merely pain but the shattering of something deeper—soul unraveling into nothingness.
When it ended, the man collapsed like an empty sack, skin sagging, eyes lifeless and glassy. A corpse, but more than that—a husk.
The prince staggered back, staring at his hand. His chest heaved, breath ragged. His stomach churned, nausea clawing up his throat. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to claw his own skin away.
But then the strength hit him.
It was like drowning one moment and breaking through the surface the next. Air rushed into his lungs. His trembling limbs steadied. His muscles, once thin and weak, tightened as if hammered anew by unseen forge-fires. The bleeding from his collarbone slowed, then stopped, flesh knitting itself closed with unnatural speed.
The horror was there—but so was the exhilaration.
Yes… the Codex's voice hummed with satisfaction, curling through his skull like smoke. Do you feel it? His essence is yours now. His strength, his life, feeding your hollow shell. This is survival. This is power.
Another outlaw shouted, fear cracking his bravado. "Demonspawn!"
The word stung. But something in the prince—something raw and buried for years—snapped at it.
He surged forward, not out of skill but desperation, slamming into the next man. The blade cut across his forearm, but the wound closed before blood had even time to spill. His hand gripped the man's throat, squeezing—until instinct gave way to hunger. The Codex pulled again. Essence flowed. The man's struggles weakened, then ceased, leaving only another husk on the dirt.
The others faltered. The certainty in their eyes cracked. Their jeers turned into frantic curses as they swarmed him, too panicked to retreat.
The prince fought like a cornered beast, striking, clawing, tearing—not with form, not with training, but with rage and survival's cruel instinct. Each kill sickened him. Each kill strengthened him. Souls poured into him, feeding the Codex and the cursed fire roaring in his veins.
He wanted to stop. He couldn't stop.
When the last outlaw fell, twitching as the life was ripped from his body, silence reigned once more. The borderland wind carried the stench of blood, the taste of iron heavy on the air.
The prince stood among the corpses, chest heaving, his pale skin glistening with sweat and blood not all his own. His eyes, reflected in a puddle beside him, glowed with fractured fire—inhuman, terrible, alive.
He dropped to his knees, fingers digging into the dirt. His breath shook, a sob tearing at his throat but refusing to leave. He had killed them all. He had devoured them.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to deny it. But beneath the horror, the shame, the nausea, something else stirred. Something undeniable.
Strength.
His limbs no longer trembled. His body no longer ached. He felt… whole, for the first time in his life. The years of weakness, of humiliation, of being the shadow beneath his siblings' brilliance—washed away by blood and stolen essence.
Do you see now? the Codex whispered, its voice low and patient, like a teacher soothing a frightened child. This is the truth of the world. To live, you must take. To rise, you must devour. They cast you out to die. But here, in the borderlands, you will feast. You will grow. You will endure.
The prince's hands clenched, nails biting into his palms. His stomach twisted with revulsion at the corpses, yet his body thrummed with the undeniable intoxication of power.
He whispered, hoarse, trembling, yet resolute:
"…I have to kill… to survive."
The Codex chuckled, pleased. And survive you shall, little vessel. For death itself has chosen to flee from you.
The boy who had been a forgotten shadow rose slowly from the corpses. His eyes burned brighter, his veins alive with black flame.
And though his body quivered with the aftershocks of horror, in his heart, he knew the path had already been chosen.
He was no longer just the forsaken prince.
He was something else.
Something that fed on death.
The silence pressed in, thicker than the blood-soaked soil beneath him.
The corpses lay sprawled at unnatural angles, their faces locked in masks of terror that would never fade. The prince forced himself to look away, but each time his eyes darted back, he felt their stares—accusations carved into death itself.
His hands would not stop trembling. No matter how tightly he clenched them, the phantom sensation remained—the memory of essence slipping into his veins, of souls unraveling at his touch.
He pressed his palms into the earth as if he could bury the feeling, bury the truth. The dirt smeared across his skin, mixing with sweat and blood, yet it did nothing to cleanse him.
I killed them.
The words circled in his head, relentless, deafening. He had slain men, stripped them of life, hollowed them out like shells. Not in battle, not in honor—but by something darker, something unnatural.
And yet, even as his gut twisted with revulsion, his body betrayed him. His limbs thrummed with strength, his chest burned with vigor he had never known. Wounds that should have crippled him were already gone, erased by the Codex's hunger.
It felt… good.
And that was what terrified him most.
The wind swept across the borderland, carrying with it the copper tang of blood and the faint wail of carrion birds circling overhead. They would come soon. Flesh never rotted long in these wastes.
"You are shaking," the Codex whispered, not without amusement. "Do you mourn them? Do you pity them? They would have carved your throat open and left you to rot with the crows."
"They were still… men," he whispered hoarsely, his voice barely a breath.
"Men?" The voice coiled like smoke. "Scavengers. Hyenas. Do you weep for the jackal when the lion tears out its throat? No… you only weep because you saw what you are. Because you tasted what it means to survive."
He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the voice to vanish, but it remained—patient, persistent.
"Do not mistake horror for weakness, little vessel. Horror is the skin of mortality peeling away. Beneath it, something greater waits. And you… you have already begun to shed."
His breath shuddered as he stood, legs unsteady, though not from exhaustion. The Codex was right. His body was stronger than it had ever been. His frail frame, once mocked by brothers and courtiers alike, felt alive, humming with raw vitality.
But it had come at a cost. A cost he could not ignore.
He glanced once more at the husks. Their empty eyes glared up at him, accusing, damning. He tore his gaze away, refusing to let their silence chain him.
"I didn't choose this," he muttered, though even as he spoke the words, doubt gnawed at him. Because when the moment had come, when the blade pressed against his throat, he hadn't refused. He had devoured.
The Codex chuckled, deep and pleased. "Choice is an illusion. They chose for you the moment they raised their blades. And now you choose to live, whether your heart admits it or not. Deny it if you wish, but with every breath, with every step, you will hunger again."
The prince turned his back on the corpses, his shadow stretching long across the barren earth. He felt the borderlands watching him—the cracked hills, the skeletal trees, the endless sky. This was no place for princes. This was a graveyard of forgotten things.
And now, he was one of them.
Still, as his steps carried him forward, a grim resolve coiled in his chest. He would not die nameless, not here in the wastes. If survival demanded blood, then blood he would take. If power demanded hunger, then he would feed.
The hushed voice of the Codex lingered, quiet but satisfied.
"Yes… walk, little vessel. Walk into the dark. You are no longer prey. You are the blade."
And with each step, the fear did not fade—it hardened, twisted, transformed into something far more dangerous.
The prince, once shadow and shame, walked into the desolation with the taste of death still burning in his veins.
And the borderlands seemed to shiver in welcome.