Chapter 1: The Fall
The world was suffocating.
Sweat clung to the boy's skin as he moved through the endless fields, his every step heavy with the weight of unspoken years. His body, gaunt and worn, was a reflection of the world he had known—a world of iron shackles, harsh labor, and suffocating silence. The air was thick with dust, the kind that would never leave, a constant reminder that his life was one of captivity. He had never known freedom. He had never seen the sky.
His hands, raw and blistered from years of toil, clutched the worn, jagged edges of the tools that had become his companions. A simple hoe. A spade. The tools of a life meant to break him. Day after day, they forced him to work the fields under the watchful gaze of overseers who cared not for the boy's suffering, only the crops that grew. His back arched in exhaustion, each movement a silent cry for relief that would never come.
He was nameless. No one spoke his name—because he had none. A slave, born to work, born to suffer. His life was but a series of days strung together like beads on a thread, each one more identical than the last. There was no distinction. No purpose beyond surviving another hour, another day. His memories of life before the chains were distant, faded, as if they belonged to someone else. Who had he been? It didn't matter. All that remained was the pain, the sweat, the hunger. A cycle that would never end.
The overseers, clad in their hardened armor, stood like shadows at the edge of the field, watching, waiting for any excuse to lash out at the workers. Their faces were hidden behind cruel, emotionless masks, their only role to keep the slaves in line, to remind them that they were nothing more than tools, their lives meaningless.
His thoughts were cut short as the crack of a whip sliced through the air. A scream echoed across the field—one of the other slaves had faltered. The overseer was swift in his punishment, bringing the whip down again and again, the sound of the leather striking flesh like thunder. The boy didn't look. He had learned long ago to ignore the pain of others, for it was no different from his own.
The day dragged on, endless and heavy. The sun hung like a blazing orb overhead, relentless in its heat, draining the last vestiges of energy from his body. His muscles screamed for rest, but he had no choice. There was no rest. There was only the work.
His body ached, every movement an effort. His mind, numb and resigned, barely registered the passing hours. And then, as the sun began to sink below the horizon, casting long shadows across the barren landscape, he felt it. A tightness in his chest, subtle at first, like the faintest whisper of an impending storm.
It's nothing, he told himself. Just exhaustion.
But the tightness grew. His breath became shallow, jagged. His heart beat erratically, as though protesting the cruel abuse of his body. Sweat poured from his brow, his vision blurred. His legs wavered beneath him, and he dropped to his knees, gasping for air. The others around him continued their work, oblivious to his struggle.
The boy's hands clutched his chest, his breath ragged and desperate. He couldn't stand. He couldn't move. The world around him spun, a dizzying blur of colors and shapes. His heart, the one part of him that had never been chained, was failing him. He was dying, and in that moment, he knew it.
It wasn't fair. He had lived a life of torment, of endless suffering, and now, when it seemed there was a chance to be free from the chains of his existence, his body betrayed him. He fell to the ground, gasping, his chest seizing with each breath. His vision faded to darkness.
And then, just as the world seemed to slip away entirely, something strange happened. There was no peace, no comforting embrace of death. Instead, a sudden, raw surge of power erupted within him, an untamed force that seemed to ignite every fiber of his being. His body trembled, not with weakness, but with the wild promise of something greater. The darkness that had claimed him seemed to shift, warping into something far more profound.
For the first time in his life, he felt alive.
But the boy did not know what had happened. The world around him faded, the landscape around him growing distant, as though he were being pulled into another realm entirely. His mind, slipping in and out of consciousness, felt the stirrings of something ancient, something beyond his understanding.
And then… silence.
The boy's body, broken and battered, lay motionless in the field. But within him, something was awakening—something that would change the course of his fate forever. His life of chains, suffering, and endless toil was at an end. A new beginning had arrived, forged from the very depths of despair.
The boy had fallen. But the Supreme Ruler would rise.