Prologue

Blood.

It soaked the battlefield, pooling in deep, steaming puddles. The air was thick with the scent of iron, the acrid stench of burning flesh lingering in the wind.

Lucian’s body twisted mid-air—CRACK  bones snapping as he crashed into the ground with a thunderous impact. The earth beneath him cracked, forming a crater beneath his broken form.

His breath hitched. His ribs screamed. His vision blurred.

Move.

His fingers twitched. But that was all.

His body refused to obey.

A shadow fell over him, swallowing the world in darkness.

The dragon—a towering nightmare of abyssal power—strode forward. Each step sent tremors through the ground, the sheer weight of its presence distorting reality itself. Space rippled around it, the air twisting like a mirage, as if existence itself was rejecting the monster’s very being.

Lucian tried to lift his sword.

It felt heavier than it ever had before.

This thing… it’s a walking catastrophe.

His breath came in ragged, uneven gasps. His wounds refused to close. His body, battered and broken, was screaming at him. Stop. Give up. This is impossible.

"I'm going to die."

The words formed before he could stop them.

A bitter, ugly thought.

Is this really it?

Had all his training, all his battles, led to nothing but this? Lying in the dirt, unable to move, waiting for death? Like some nameless side character in a tragedy?

"No. No, I won’t accept this."

Lucian forced his fingers to move, to curl into a fist, but his body refused. His own strength was abandoning him. The sheer injustice of it all clawed at his mind.

"I made it this far. I bled for this."

"I won’t let it end here."

The dragon’s golden eyes gleamed, burning with amusement.

Lucian felt it.

The sheer mockery in that gaze.

Like he was just another insect. Another weakling who thought he could stand against the abyss.

No.

A cold fury surged through him, overriding the agony. His teeth clenched, his jaw tightening.

"I refuse—"

Pain. More than he had ever felt before.

His muscles were torn. His bones barely holding together. His mind teetered on the edge of collapse.

And yet—

"I refuse to lose…"

The dragon inhaled.

Abyssal flames crackled between its fangs, distorting space itself. A breath that would erase him from existence.

This thing doesn’t just want to kill me.

It wants to erase me.

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His grip tightened around his sword. The blade trembled.

Lucian sucked in a sharp breath.

"I refuse to die... to a freaking LIZARD!"

BOOM.

A pulse.

It didn’t come from his body. Or his mind. It came from somewhere deeper—buried in the fabric of his very being.

Like an unseen force stirring, dragging him into something vast, something infinite—

Something waiting to be unleashed. 

A whisper, ancient and infinite, coiled around his very soul.

Then—

Heat. A surge. A force beyond his understanding clawing its way to the surface.

The Cube did not awaken. It had never been asleep. It had been waiting.

DING!

[LIMIT BREAK has evolved into ASCEND.]

A shockwave exploded outward, tearing through the battlefield. The dragon flinched—its first reaction of genuine surprise.

Lucian's armor shattered, dissolving into fragments of light before something new—something greater—reformed in its place. A Regalia woven from abyssal and celestial power enveloped him, its form shifting with an untamed energy that made the very air tremble.

His sword sang.

The edge gleamed with an impossible sharpness, cutting through the fabric of the world itself.

Lucian flexed his fingers, testing his strength. Power pulsed beneath his skin—wild, untamed, absolute. 

If I was the kind to believe in fate... I'd say it just handed me the ultimate loot.

He exhaled, slow and controlled.

Then, he smirked.

Lucian stood.

The weight of his wounds—gone.

The exhaustion—vanished.

The pain—irrelevant.

The battlefield, once suffocating beneath the dragon’s presence, was his now.

Lucian let out a slow breath, rolling his shoulders, testing his reborn body.

A slow grin tugged at his lips. 

"Round two, you overgrown lizard."

BOOM. The battlefield shattered beneath him—no, he shattered it. The air twisted violently as he reappeared in an instant—already mid-swing.

The dragon barely had time to react before—

SLASH.

A streak of light tore through the battlefield, shattering fate itself.

The battlefield was his domain. 

The war? 

Already decided.

And yet—

Before fate turned its gaze upon him… Lucian Rengoku had once lived in a world untouched by gods and monsters.

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