The darkness of this cell, hidden in the bowels of the Destiny Organization's West Asia Branch, wraps around me like a living thing, cold and suffocating.
The air is a rancid stew—mold festering in the corners, rust weeping from iron bars, and the sharp, coppery tang of my own blood stinging my nostrils.
My skeletal frame trembles, each bone pressing against skin so thin it feels like paper, draped in rags that cling like ghosts of the life I once knew…
lips, cracked and crusted with blood, twist into a grin that doesn't belong to me. It's a jagged, feral thing, born not of joy but of something unhinged, something clawing its way out from the depths of my soul. The silence hums with it—a low, electric pulse that makes the air feel alive, heavy with the promise of ruin.
I am not just Ling Ke anymore. The thought echoes in my skull, sharp and insistent, like a blade scraping bone. I was a boy from China, a transmigrator, a nobody caught in the wrong world.
But that was before. Before the voices. Before the power.
They whisper now, a thousand voices woven into one, a chorus of chaos surging through my veins.
The Herrscher of Domination.
The Herrscher of a Thousand.
Each syllable of that title burns in my chest, a wildfire stoked by rage, by betrayal, by the weight of a world that tried to chain me.
My fingers twitch, skeletal claws scraping against the cold stone floor, the texture rough and biting under my touch.
The sound is faint, a scratch in the dark, but it grounds me, keeps me tethered to this moment.
My breath rasps, shallow and uneven, each inhale tasting of dust and decay. My eyes, sunken and fever-bright, trace the faint cracks in the cell's walls, illuminated by the sickly flicker of a dying bulb overhead. The light sputters, casting shadows that dance like specters, mocking the frailty of this prison.
They thought they could break me. The thought is a snarl, raw and venomous. They thought they could cage me, strip me down to nothing, leave me to rot.
But they didn't see it coming.
They didn't know what I was becoming. My grin widens, splitting my lips until fresh blood trickles down my chin, warm and slick. The pain is distant, a faint echo compared to the inferno building inside me. This cell won't hold me. This world won't hold me.
I am the Tenth Herrscher, and my will is a thousand strong.
The voices chant it, a relentless tide crashing against the shores of my mind.
Burn it. Break it. Remake it.
My pulse hammers, a war drum synced to their rhythm, each beat flooding my body with power that feels too vast, too wild for this frail form to contain. The walls seem to shudder, or maybe it's just my vision blurring, the edges of reality fraying under the weight of what I am.
I lean forward, my ragged breaths stirring the dust at my feet.
The cold seeps into my bones, but it's nothing compared to the heat of my purpose. This world—its lies, its chains, its fragile order—it's kindling. My grin stretches wider, a silent promise to the shadows. I am ready. Ready to rise. Ready to unleash the thousand voices screaming for release.
And when I do, this world will burn to ash.