In the history books, it is told that in ancient times, when the sky burned with fire and the earth trembled under the weight of colossal creatures, Molten was the stage for a war that forever changed its face. Dragons, wings outstretched, darkened the sun as they descended onto the battlefield, cshing with humans and elves who fought desperately for survival. Dwarves and fairies formed a fragile alliance, while demons and creatures of the shadows sought to subjugate everything in their path.

  But what decided the fate of the war was neither sword nor brutality. It was the Eterna.

  Magic in Molten was not a mere gift nor an arcane art. It was the essence of the world, flowing through every living being, every rock, every star.

  The thirteen Consteltions, each ruled by a god, dictated the fate of the Bearers. Some were born with fierce command over the Eterna, while others could barely sense its flow. But regardless of lineage or willpower, the Eterna was not infinite. Those who abused it, those consumed by it, were eventually devoured by their own power.

  Time had blurred the details, but the scars of the Great War remained. The ruins surrounding Perseo as he was dragged against his will were silent witnesses to an age of chaos and glory. The ancient city walls, scarred by battle, echoed faintly with the legends his father once told.

  "The majestic dragons, demons, and shadow-creatures battled noble elves, brave humans, dwarves, and fairies… Dragons breathing fire upon elven armies, demons shrouding the skies in smoke," he remembered, his father’s voice and image resurfacing. "Now, all that remains are empty legends, like the rubble that decorates the nd."

  The causes of the conflict were as varied as the races that fought in it. The elves defended their ancestral nds, dragons cimed dominion over the skies, and demons, consumed by their hatred of mortals, brought chaos. Magic, bestowed by the thirteen great consteltions and dormant for eons in the less fortunate beings, awakened in their moment of greatest desperation, becoming the decisive weapon. Those who mastered this ancient force led their armies to victory; those who didn’t were doomed to fall.

  The stories Perseo heard as a child were now ashes. What once were heroic tales in his mind were now just ruins and dust.

  In the depths of the darkness, where shadows danced in a macabre ballet, fate was forged in a crucible of desotion. The air was thick with despair; every corner of the pce screamed with the tragedies of those who had fallen before him. His heart pounded like a war drum, marking the rhythm of his impending doom.

  Perseo, who once knew the opulence of Ophendosia, was now just a man in rags, pushed by the icy wind of fate.

  The rhythmic sound of hooves echoed like war drums against worn stone, each strike reverberating in his chest like an echo of fear.

  Will this be the st time I feel the wind on my face? he wondered as despair began to consume him.

  The carriage, old and rusted, slid toward a vile destination. Inside, every heartbeat was a warning he could not ignore. His kingdom, once radiant with splendor, was now a distant echo, a shadow of what it once was. How long has it been since I felt the warmth of the sun on my skin? he asked himself, torn apart by longing. The betrayals that led him here weighed like invisible chains, dragging him into a grim fate he had not chosen.

  The carriage stopped. The Dizaurian guards—a reptilian race born of legend—dragged him through damp corridors into his new home, where the walls oozed with moisture and each step echoed like the ment of lost souls. Flickering torches cast dancing shadows on the walls. Perseo, the exiled noble and st of his lineage, walked with his head bowed, his dignity stripped by misfortune.

  The shackles, worn by time and imbued with a spell that suppressed his magic, bit painfully into his wrists. Every step deeper into the dungeon was a step closer to the abyss.

  The voices of the crowd filtered through the stone walls. First a murmur. Then a roar. And finally, the announcer’s voice rang across the arena.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, people of Mornnosk! Today, the Coliseum of Shadows brings you a new spectacle of blood! A human! A fallen noble! How long before he becomes carrion?”

  He was shoved into the center of the amphitheater, where the rough sand stretched out like a macabre canvas, waiting for new tragedies to add to its collection of corpses...

  From the opposite gate, his opponent emerged: a colossal warrior, wrapped in heavy brown robes. His face, gaunt and skeletal, hid any trace of humanity, but his dull yellow eyes burned with a remnant of ancient fierceness.

  "Look what they brought today," the beast murmured in a hoarse and dry voice, tinged with bitterness. "Another dog of the gods, chained like all the others."

  The crowd roared with bestial fervor as the two fighters locked eyes. Perseo felt the tension in his muscles. His magic, sealed by the enchanted shackles, barely allowed him to sense the flow of the Eterna within him. He knew that, without his connection to the Astrion Consteltion, his speed and perception were limited.

  "Who are you?" Perseo asked, analyzing his opponent’s slow yet firm movements.

  "A shadow of what I once was," the colossus growled, his gaze both empty and heavy with sorrow. "I once had a name, a home… a father. But the Coliseum leaves no room for such things."

  Perseo frowned. The warrior’s words carried an echo of tragedy, a story he did not yet understand.

  The first blow was not a mere attack. It was a hammer strike of pure brutality. The colossus moved with impossible speed for his size. His fist crashed into Perseo with the force of an avanche.

  A sharp crack. A fsh of pain.

  The world spun. The sand scraped his skin as he was hurled through the air. For a moment, he didn’t know where the ground ended or the sky began.

  The echo of battle awakened his restrained fury. His heart pounded like a war drum. And for a moment, the world slowed.

  The Eterna flowed through him, slipping between the shackles when his enemy, blinded by rage, struck them by mistake, breaking them.

  A shiver ran down his spine. Something was changing. The bracelets crackled, vibrating with an unfamiliar energy. And then, like a river bursting through a dam, the Eterna engulfed him. It was not just a flicker. It was a roar of power that surged through every fiber of his being. His eyes burned with the golden light of Astrion. For the first time in days, he felt like himself again.

  The Eterna was not merely a source of power; it was a living entity that responded to the fate of each Bearer. His abilities were tied to the stars that had watched over his birth, and the stronger his bond with them, the greater his control. But its use came at a cost. The abuse of the Eterna could weaken his body, unhinge his thoughts, or even steal his very soul.

  The crowd fell silent for a moment.

  The arena trembled at the manifestation of power. The bloodthirsty mob hesitated in their frenzy.

  That human, guided by an ancestral force, picked up a broken sword from among the corpses and, with a renewed look of defiance, challenged his enemy.

  The colossus, however, did not retreat. He licked his cracked lips and smiled with the confidence of a man who had known battle for more than a lifetime.

  "So the gods have not yet abandoned their favorites," he whispered, tilting his head like a wolf stalking its prey. "But tell me, boy, what will you do when the Eterna no longer sustains you? What will you do when you are alone, as I was?"

  The giant lunged at him. But the fallen noble, now channeling his power and seeing what others could not, dodged the strikes with supernatural grace. His enemy’s fists sshed through the air with divine brilliance, tracing a deadly dance.

  Each movement was faster, more precise. Magic pulsed around him, setting the rhythm of their combat. His senses sharpened. He could predict the colossus’s next strike before it happened, he could feel the energy pulsing in every corner of the coliseum.

  With a precise twist of his sword, Perseo sshed the colossus’s flesh, making him stagger.

  The crowd roared.

  The colossus let out a guttural growl, stumbling. Blood stained the sand, and for the first time, his eyes reflected doubt. But Perseo did not waver. The sword descended with lethal precision, striking its mark with a golden fsh of light. The giant fell to his knees, and the crowd went wild, divided between jubition and disbelief.

  The fallen noble took a deep breath, his body vibrating with the energy of the Eterna. Magic, fate, and blood intertwined in that cursed coliseum. And Perseo, the st of his lineage, was beginning to remember who he was.

  But the surprise was not over.

  Without the strength to continue, his opponent closed his eyes and deactivated his magic. The energy of Fangrel, the God of the Hunt’s consteltion, dissipated into the air, and his body began to shrink. His muscles withered, his skin tightened over frail bones, and what had once been an unstoppable force became a thin, hunched man, consumed by years of torment in that wretched pce.

  "What the hell…" Perseo muttered under his breath as he took in the sight.

  The creature that had inspired terror mere moments ago no longer existed.

  The crowd, which had been roaring in excitement a second earlier, fell into an expectant silence. It sted only a moment, just long enough for the echo of their own fury to remind them of what they truly wanted. And then, like an unstoppable wave, the chant erupted again.

  "Execute him! Finish him!"

  The air was heavy as lead. It was an insatiable cmor, a hunger for violence that lingered over the spectators like a thick mist.

  Perseo looked down at his frail, skeletal opponent. Before, he could have sworn those eyes burned with fury; now, only exhaustion remained… and something else. A kind of quiet surrender, a purity in acceptance that was almost inhuman. A small, trembling smile appeared on the man’s lips. It was not mockery nor defiance. It was something simpler.

  It was relief.

  A shiver ran down Perseo’s spine. His fingers tightened around the sword’s hilt. He knew what he was supposed to do. He knew what they expected of him.

  The coliseum roared. “Execute him! Execute him!” The cries hammered in his head. The demons in the stands demanded more blood.

  He raised the sword.

  One strike. Just one. And it would all be over.

  But then, he felt the true weight of his own soul. It wasn’t his arm that hesitated. It was something deeper. Something that, if he crossed that line, he would never return from.

  The sword trembled in his grip. And it never fell.

  His hand stopped.

  He couldn’t do it.

  The crowd erupted in fury. The Coliseum trembled under the wave of screams, demands, and pure hatred. Their faces, twisted by frustration, by their thirst for blood, were no different from the demons and shadow-creatures.

  The sword fell from his hands. It struck the sand with a hollow sound and shattered into pieces, as if reflecting the fracture within him. His magic, the force that had sustained him until that moment, began to dissipate, leaving his body heavy, empty.

  Slowly, he lifted his head.

  He looked at those who had dragged him there, his judges, his executioners.

  "I won’t give you the ending you want."

  His voice, though tired, carried firm resolve.

  "I will not become the monster you crave. You can beat me, you can break my bones, you can take everything from me…"

  His breath hitched.

  "But my soul will always be mine. And I will die as a man."

  The silence that followed was worse than any scream.

  And then, a soft sound broke through.

  A ugh.

  Weak, broken, almost inaudible amidst the crowd.

  Perseo lowered his gaze.

  His defeated opponent was smiling. Not with mockery, not with defiance. It was a small, trembling smile. The smile of someone who, at st, saw the end of their road.

  "Thank you," he whispered.

  His hand moved slowly to his side, where a sliver of metal barely peeked from the folds of his tattered robes.

  Perseo frowned. His instincts screamed before his mind could process what he was seeing.

  "Wait…!"

  The warrior gripped the hilt of the hidden knife.

  "I won’t let them keep me here again."

  The bde fshed as he raised it, his arm trembling from the effort. His gaze lifted to Perseo with a silent plea. Not for mercy, but for understanding.

  And Perseo understood.

  This man… this warrior… did not fear the fate that awaited him.

  He longed for it.

  Here, in this pce of blood and screams, that fate was not a tragedy.

  It was the only escape.

  "No—wait!" Perseo lunged toward him.

  But it was already too te.

  The warrior exhaled a final breath, and his body colpsed. Perseo caught him before he hit the ground.

  The roar of the crowd erupted once more, but this time it sounded different. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t disappointment.

  It was jubition.

  The fallen noble felt a burning sensation in his throat. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move. His hands, stained with another’s blood, clenched into trembling fists.

  Then, realization struck him like a hammer.

  His opponent… was just a boy.

  A young man nearly his age, whose years in this pce had twisted his body into something much older than it was.

  So young… and yet, Perseo had defeated him.

  He had led him to this.

  A thunderous sound shook the arena.

  Perseo barely had time to look up before the demonic guards swarmed him.

  The first blow dazed him. The second knocked the air from his lungs.

  Cwed hands grabbed him with brutal force, dragging him away from the still-warm corpse. His feet barely touched the ground as they hauled him through the stone corridors, damp and dark, where the roar of the Coliseum faded into a distant echo.

  The descent was endless. Stone staircases led into suffocating darkness, dimly illuminated by the torches carried by the Dizaurios.

  The air reeked of stale blood, of despair.

  A gate creaked open, its rusted hinges screaming as if they had been forgotten for a thousand years.

  They threw him inside.

  The impact knocked the breath out of him. He felt the cold, rough floor against his skin. His ribs protested, and his face burned from the beatings.

  The door smmed shut behind him with a deafening cng, and without the torchlight, he could barely make out his surroundings.

  Darkness.

  Silence.

  Slowly, his eyes began to adjust to the gloom. At first, everything was dense, impenetrable shadows. But as seconds passed, he started to discern shapes in the bckness.

  He was not alone.

  First, he saw a pair of eyes reflecting the faint light. Then, more. An old man with scars crisscrossing his face. A boy who couldn’t have been older than fifteen, with eyes as empty as a corpse’s. A hunched woman, whispering prayers to the consteltions.

  All of them trapped in a fate worse than death.

  A whisper cut through the stillness.

  "Another one…"

  The voice was barely a breath, dry and cracked.

  "He won’t st," another voice replied, deeper, devoid of emotion.

  Perseo swallowed hard.

  The air smelled of iron, of desperation, of something rotten that clung to the skin. He had seen prisons before, had known them from stories, but this…

  This was not just a cell.

  It was a tomb for the living.

  A faint sound caught his attention. A rustling. A figure closer to him shifted, stepping forward just slightly.

  "Are you… like us?"

  The question lingered in the air.

  He didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure what the answer was.

  Because deep down, he feared that he was.

  Then, the warrior’s voice echoed once more in his mind.

  "I won’t let them keep me here again."

  Perseo closed his eyes, his lips pressing into a thin line.

  Now, he understood what it meant to be trapped in this pce.

  This was not a dungeon. This was not a prison.

  His gaze dropped to his hands, still stained with the blood of the fallen.

  This pce was Mornnosk.

  The Abyss.

  A pce where hope came to die.