As Kyle watched his sister burn alive, her screams shaking the depths of his soul.
Twelve-year-old Izel sat at the dining table.
The delicious aroma of the luxurious food rose, teasing her nose, yet all she did was lower her head and stare at her bowl filled with soup.
There, she saw the reflection of her face.
Empty eyes with dark bags beneath them, lips frozen in a blank expression as if every trace of emotion had vanished.
The little girl looked as though she had lost hope in life at such an early age.
Around her, there was no one.
Literally no one.
Just her and this lonely emptiness.
An emptiness that gnawed at her from within like a disease.
Little Izel remained frozen like this for a while before the spoon slipped from her hand as she placed it on the table, then pushed herself back along with the chair.
The chair scraped against the floor as Izel got down from it.
Whether it was her laughter or her gentle smile, they had long since disappeared, and all that remained was emptiness...
The little girl walked through the corridors of her empty home...
Her father was gone, and her mother was gone... only she remained here.
Here, listening to those screams echoing through the walls.
Her mother’s screams... the screams of a small child.
Those sounds burrowed into her head, spreading an unbearable feeling.
Izel didn’t know why she was still walking here.
But the more she walked, the louder and louder the sounds became...
Soon, walking turned into running... she ran and ran through her home, calling out in a torn voice.
"Mom... Dad..."
"Mom... Mom... Dad... Dad... no... don’t leave me."
It was true that wounds were painful... and losing someone you cared about was even more painful.
Having your view of someone shatter was terrifying as well.
But for Izel, this was pain... her pain...
The little girl fell in the middle of that empty mansion, her knees hitting the ground.
Tears streamed down, soaking the marble floor as her arms wrapped around herself, hugging tightly in search of some warmth.
The sound of her sobbing echoed in the emptiness, and around her, beautiful blue flowers sprouted, blooming fully and illuminating the place with a heavenly blue light.
...
In a vast hall, pillars rose from the sides, supporting the high ceiling, while a path stretched across the marble floor, connecting the entrance to the stairs leading to the throne.
The throne of the Solaria Empire.
The throne carried by Asterval and inherited for generations.
And also the cause of all their problems.
Normally, beautiful paintings depicting stories of the past could be seen upon that marble floor, but today they were hidden beneath a sticky red liquid.
That liquid flowed from the corpses scattered at the edges of the hall... the corpses of the other Asterval members and its branches.
And even from the body lying before the throne itself.
Amid all of this stood Ellen, who had witnessed the massacre... a massacre that had taken her entire family...
Beneath the stairs and within all that blood, she knelt on her knees, all strength leaving her body as her trembling eyes stared upward, despair taking over her expression.
There, above, sat the one who caused all of this.
Zen Asterval... with the same cheerful smile and confident gaze filled with madness.
He smiled as he leaned slightly forward, staring at Ellen.
"Do you see, my dear sister... this is only the beginning."
"The beginning?" a broken murmur escaped her lips.
Through the blood around her, blue flowers grew, blooming more than ever before, their blue radiance filling the world in an instant.
An instant enough for Ellen to change just as her surroundings did.
The world rebuilt itself, and Ellen found herself somewhere else.
Around her, the sound of explosions rose from everywhere as she felt the ground trembling beneath her feet.
Even among those loud noises, screams could be heard... but one was different...
Before her and all around her, buildings and houses collapsed while pillars of smoke rose from everywhere into the sky itself.
A sky that had once been blue... but was now dyed with suffocating gray smoke.
Everywhere, battles erupted and blood was spilled while souls rose and left this world forever.
Her trembling red eye caught sight of civilians running everywhere, trying to escape this disaster that had fallen upon them.
A disaster called war.
A war waged against the neighboring empire without prior warning.
Instigated by a single person.
The new emperor... Zen Asterval.
...
Caius’s POV.
Damn this rain.
Out of all times, it chose to fall now... now when my dear companions had fallen into the trap of an annoying creature.
At least it could have done so on a bright day.
The only sound I could hear was the wind blowing fiercely against me, and it only got worse as I ran at full speed while the torrent of rain struck me relentlessly.
It felt as if someone was directing a pressurized water hose at me without stopping.
Beside me, Elliot was going through the same thing.
Every piece of ground our feet landed on was either extremely slippery or filled with water that sometimes reached our waists.
I barely avoided us falling into a deep ravine thanks to my senses... that would have been really troublesome.
An hour had already passed since I began sweeping the area around our camp.
We circled our resting spot at a distance of about a kilometer, allowing me to scan the largest possible area in the shortest time before moving farther away and doing the same.
Of course, Elliot was with me.
"Didn’t find anything?"
His shout pierced through the storm.
I gritted my teeth in annoyance. "You know... I’ll tell you when I find it, so stop asking every five minutes."
"I know... it’s just a habit."
I was about to curse him, but I stopped.
Because I soon found what we were looking for.
About a kilometer away from us, and dozens of meters underground, there was a powerful spirit.
Even if it was only at the beginning of Rank 5, it was still several times stronger than us... at least in its specialty.
And unfortunately for the flower, we weren’t under the influence of its cursed power... at least not yet.
I turned my head toward Elliot, speaking loudly so he could hear me through the storm. "Found it... it’s a kilometer to our right."
"Great." He seemed happy that we finally found what we were looking for, though I doubted that was the reaction he was supposed to show.
We quickly changed direction, heading straight toward the location of the Flower of Nightmares.
As we ran through the storm, I gave Elliot some instructions on how he should deal with this creature...
"Be careful, no matter what, don’t let it touch you directly... and of course, don’t touch it either, or you’ll return to the beautiful dream world."
"But this time, directly under its mercy."
"Got it." Elliot nodded.
This was what I had read while researching the Demon of Dreams.
There were many monsters of this type.
Some of them, like the Demon of Dreams that doesn’t exist in the physical world, were much weaker physically.
Unfortunately, this flower existed here, which meant it would be stronger than the Demon of Dreams.
We continued moving through the rain, and with every passing moment, we got closer to the Flower of Nightmares until only a hundred meters remained.
"Get ready... there’s a big pit ahead, and it’s below." My shout echoed, warning Elliot beside me. He nodded as a massive hole appeared before us.
Or more precisely, it seemed the concrete ground had collapsed, connecting to the basements and tunnels below.
There, torrents of water formed by the rain poured downward.
We quickly reached the edge and were able to see what lay there...
At the bottom of that deep pit, the rushing water fell before dispersing into the tunnels and disappearing somewhere... showing that the infrastructure of this place was still functioning.
But more importantly, at the center of that pit, on a raised piece of debris among the falling torrents, was what we were looking for.
A massive flower several meters wide, its large petals blooming, each the size of an adult human, revealing its heavenly blue color while shining with a beautiful ethereal light.
Amid the darkness of the storm, it was like a beautiful angel.
"I feel sleepy..." Elliot’s voice slipped into my ear, sounding lazy as if he was truly about to fall asleep.
But only for a moment.
The next instant, I stepped back, extending my hand and pulling Elliot with me.
In front of us, from where we were standing, a thick wooden root rose up, shattering the concrete floor as if it were nothing.
Debris scattered under the rain as we drew our swords in response to this welcome.