The world was ending.
The Nexus a crystalline bridge that chained together thousands of realms split apart like a shattered sky. Its fragments rained down, each shard pulsing with a different Law: flame that could burn rivers dry, steel that could pierce mountains, storms that could tear worlds in half.
To cultivators, each fragment was worth a kingdom.
To heirs of the great sects, it was worth slaughter.
The clearing had become a battlefield. Young prodigies fought like rabid beasts, wielding freshly awakened Laws with arrogance. Elders hovered in the skies, eyes sharp with greed. Whoever seized the most fragments today would step into the future as sovereigns.
And at the edge of that battlefield — Ragnar lay in the dirt, broken.
Blood dripped from his chin. His ribs jabbed with every breath. His limbs shook like dry twigs. He had no sect. No master. No destiny.
Only a label carved into him since birth.
Trash.
That word had followed him like a curse: whispers in clan halls, mockery on training grounds, laughter from heirs who stood on pedestals he could never reach. Trash was meant to crawl, to die unseen.
And here, at the end of the world, trash was about to be trampled.
But his shadow disagreed.
Darkness writhed beneath him. Tendrils slithered out, curling like serpents tasting blood. A voice slid into his mind, smooth as poison, intimate as breath.
"Get up."
Ragnar coughed blood. His body refused. He was nothing compared to them
"Reach," the shadow urged. "Take what they hoard. Tear it from their hands."
He couldn't. He had always been powerless
.
The world cracked again.
Symbols blazed across his vision. His pulse hammered like war drums.
[NEXUS CORE: ONLINE]
[INITIALIZATION COMPLETE. UNIQUE FUNCTION DETECTED: LAW EXTRACTION & FUSION]
Ragnar froze.
A fragment of Flame Law plummeted nearby, blazing like a newborn sun. One heir sprinted for it, laughter curling his lips. Victory seemed already his..
Until Ragnar's shadow struck first.
Ssshhkk!
Black tendrils lashed outward, seizing the fragment mid-air and yanking it into the abyss beneath Ragnar's body. Fire hissed as darkness devoured it.
[FRAGMENT OF LAW: FLAME GRASP — ACQUIRED]
[ FUSION: SHADOW + FLAME = ABYSSAL BLACKFIRE]
The heir staggered to a stop, his face drained of color.
Ragnar's palm rose. Black fire bloomed within it hungry, endless, devouring light itself. The ground smoked and cracked beneath his hand, glassing over in the heat.
The battlefield froze.
Gasps ripped through the clearing.
"Impossible!"
"He stole it — he stole a Law fragment!"
"No one can do that!"
Even the elders shifted in their sky-perches, eyes narrowing with lethal intent.
Ragnar stared at his hand. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts. Terror warred with awe. For the first time in his cursed existence, he wasn't beneath them. He wasn't prey.
Inside his head, the shadow laughed a sound like chains breaking.
"See? Even trash can plunder the heavens."
Ragnar's lips split into a bloody grin.