It was a cool winter night, the moon shining down on the world like a spotlight. Nothing seemed to be able to move under its petrifying color, yet the flow of the world continued.

Far under the veil of moonlight sat a deep forest, filled with so many trees that you could barely even see the sky.

And under one of these many trees sat a little boy, only about fourteen years old.

His face was average in terms of looks, and his figure should’ve been average as well.

However, at the moment, his skin was so pale that it could be said to be white, and there were black and purple spots all over it, as well as parts of his skin that had simply melted away, leaving him lightly bleeding and oozing pus from every wound on his body.

Even the blood that came out of his wounds was purple and black, and it was inky as well, as if his blood had been entirely replaced by poison.

As for his figure, his muscles had deteriorated so much that they were essentially nonexistent, and many of his bones were also broken, having collapsed under their own weight from being so weak.

Across his whole chest, spanning from the top of his left shoulder to his right hip, was a massive gash that went past his bones and into his organs. Even his heart had been hit a little bit.

All over this gash were bandages and wrappings to stop the bleeding, but it wasn’t enough.

The boy’s eyes, which were half opened, were usually a deep violet in color. However, at the moment they were also covered in black and purple spots, and his left eye had even partially dissolved, leaving it blinded.

The pulse through his body was so faint that it was essentially nonexistent, and his breathing was so shallow it couldn’t be seen.

By all accounts, this boy was about to be dead, and no doctor, no matter how great or powerful, could save him fast enough.

As he looked up at the sky, dying, he couldn’t help but wonder to himself how such a situation had happened.

He, the greatest genius on the continent, had been reduced to a pile of dying flesh under a canopy of trees in an unknown part of a random forest. In only a week since his fall, he had been reduced to such a state.

He didn’t even have the energy or breath to speak, but within his mind, he made a solemn vow.

‘I will find you, brother. Be it in this life or the next, I will find you… and I will kill you.’

With this, his body seemed to collapse in on itself, his bones finally becoming weak enough to shatter under their own weight.

At the same time, several chunks of those shattered bones pierced through his skin, allowing even more of his purple and black inky blood to spill out onto the ground, seeping into it and dying it black.

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In the end, as his consciousness faded, his sole functioning eye looked up at the sky, at the moon. He looked at it through the dense and endless branches, through the one place that a single beam of light managed to shine through.

It was so beautiful, yet filled with sorrow and loneliness. But just as that single beam of light reached his eye, he would grasp whatever small chance there was for his revenge.

And when that day came, hell would seem like a vacation in comparison…

“Hahhh…”

With his final breath drawn, his consciousness completely faded and his body died. His already faint heartbeat vanished, and his nonexistent breath was drawn for the final time.

With this, the life of the greatest genius the continent had ever known was wiped out.

Or at least… that was what was supposed to happen.

What really happened was something completely different.

As his heart stopped beating, the whole world suddenly went silent and still.

For several seconds, this silence and stillness was all there was. Nothing dared to move, nothing dared to make a sound.

Nothing had changed, and yet this had happened.

It was an ever-present stillness, something that came from the depth of all souls and even the world itself. Not a single being was conscious of the change, yet all beings were affected by it.

“Sigh… I hope you were right, old friend… for the sake of us all…”

An ancient voice that seemed to echo through time and space itself resounded through the world, and yet nobody could hear it.

And with this, the world returned back to normal, nobody the wiser to the change in the first place.

…

*The next morning*

The boy, whose name was Gray, groggily opened his eyes.

Wait… he opened his eyes? He was supposed to be dead.

‘I… can’t… move…’

Even his thoughts were extremely sluggish as not even his eyes would respond to his mind’s commands to move.

In fact, he didn’t even really open his eyes; they just happened to already be half-opened.

As he slowly figured out what was happening to him, he slowly began to realize that he couldn’t feel his body. He couldn’t feel any pain, he couldn’t feel any comfort, no warmth, no cold. All his senses aside from sight and hearing had entirely vanished, and even they were extremely dull.

In fact, if not for the fact that he could see and hear, even if only barely and blurrily, he would’ve figured that he was already dead.

He could still only see out of a single eye, and his ears were full of dried blood, making it incredibly difficult for him to hear.

He felt like he was trapped in his own body, unable to do anything except experience his own death.

And time went on… and on… and on.

There seemed to be no end to this torture as a whole week passed with him being conscious but dead the whole time.

And after this week had passed, he suddenly saw a change as his head fell to the side due to his body being shifted, and he saw beside him a group of four teenagers, all about eighteen or nineteen years old.

Among them, there were two girls and two boys.

‘Other… people... What… are… they… doing… here…’