In the wide, desolate field behind the Vartis Castle—where dying ash-grass crumbled with every step and the sky bled with falling stars—chaos unfolded like a cursed symphony.
Swords howled as they slashed the cold air.
Unknown chants twisted through the wind, sharp and hungry.
Essence surged in pulses, sometimes exploding violently and sometimes humming in a steady, haunting rhythm.
This was the Training Ground of the Vartis children.
A place where mortal screams replaced wooden dummies.
Where slaves—exhausted, starved, trembling—were considered the perfect instruments for young nobles to polish their lineage talents.
Bodies littered the edges of the field.
Some charred into unrecognizable lumps.
Some sliced open with organs spilling onto the soil.
Some missing limbs—still twitching as if unwilling to die.
All shared one truth:
Humans killed them.
Young nobles killed them.
Children born of stars killed them.
Ryanis was one of the few still alive.
Barely.
His chest heaved as he dodged a blade infused with erratic starlight. The sword hummed wildly, flickering in and out of existence like a moon caught in cloudburst.
Sweat, blood, and dirt streaked his face, forming a grim mask of survival. His black overgrown hair clung to his forehead until he pushed it aside, revealing two exhausted yet fiercely aware eyes.
He ducked beneath another slash—just barely.
A few strands of his hair drifted down, cut cleanly in the air.
"Stay still, slave!"
A young feminine voice rang out, sharp and dripping with malice. She sounded like she was just crossing into adolescence—still childish, but already rotten with entitlement.
"Why do you keep running? I need more points. The more slaves I kill today, the higher I climb!"
Her star-shaped pupils shone with naked bloodlust.
Ryanis rolled across the ash-grass and leapt to his feet, glaring coldly at her.
"You talk like that because you're holding a sword and a spoonful of divinity," he spat. "If not for that scrap of lineage in you, you wouldn't even be here—you'd be among the rejects in the inner courtyard."
Silence.
Then—
"Shut it!"
Her shout cracked through the field like lightning.
Starlight exploded beneath her feet.
In a blink—
She vanished.
"What—?"
Ryanis barely finished thinking before she reappeared right in front of him, sword already mid-swing.
A horizontal slash carved through the air, blazing with burning starlight that warped the very air around it.
She was far from me a second ago…
How did she cross that distance?
No—
What I saw wasn't movement.
It was displacement.
A starlight step technique.
Ryanis realized too late.
"Die—die—DIEEE!"
The noble girl screamed, hazel hair whipping around wildly as her blade traced a deadly arc.
Her dark-blue armor glowed with a soft azure light, boosting her agility until she moved like a phantom.
"Damn it—!"
Ryanis raised his arms in a desperate cross-guard, bracing for impact.
The blade sliced through him.
A thin line first—clean and precise.
Then the heat surged from within his flesh, rupturing outward in a violent burst.
Blood sprayed like ink from a torn manuscript.
"ARGHHHHH— YOU BITCH!"
The entire field froze.
Dozens of noble children and slaves stopped mid-movement.
Eyes widened.
Mouths hung open.
A slave…
Had just insulted a noble.
The girl's expression twisted.
Her star-pupils darkened—
from childish cruelty
into something far colder, darker…
Murderous.
Her voice dropped to a chilling whisper:
"…What… did you just call me?"