Leon Knox, in his addled and sleep-starved state, did not realise the importance of being the first warrior to have a recorded killing of the Oceanic Apex, the Proving Ground’s Megalodon.

Shikni, Matriarch of The Stolen Lands, did.

In her capacity as a Tutorial guide, she had access to unfiltered video feeds and a position to strike up a cordial relationship with President Zerasos.

She’d gotten the footage early; the devil had practically thrown it at anyone who’d spoken to him about the blackout on his instance’s feed, crowing about how a nascent Worldbreaker held him as a mentor.

Worldbreaker.

A title thrown around all too often in Shikni’s experience, used for every upstart with a little potential and an impressive kill or two to their name.

She’d been sceptical until she’d finished watching the footage.

Watching that man wade into a beast’s territory, one three times his level and then walk out through its cold dead jaws, with little more than a few acid burns on his skin?

That changed her mind.

Already the signs were there.

She pitied any who’d foolishly staked claim to that monster’s territory.

Her own instance’s strongest watched over Shikni’s shoulder, crimson hair bound tightly, her normal dresses of the same flowing crimson substituted for a functional assortment of mage armour.

A flagrant violation of the rules, the admins forbade participants from viewing the feeds.

One her top participant had blackmailed Shikni into breaking

Shikni’s thoughts faced an interruption by the unruly woman.

“Gods, he’s such a savage brute! I love it! As expected from the man who I, Octavia Caesar, recognise as an ally!”

Shikni’s teeth ground together almost subconsciously.

Every time.

Every time this blasted woman spoke, she found a way to insert her own name.

“Oh, Shikni dear, your legs are writhing again. Whatever is the matter?”

That smug self-satisfied smile she hid behind one of her omnipresent fans did little to improve Shikni’s mood.

“Nothing Octavia-“

“Mistress! Or Madame. I, Octavia Caesar, accept either, as you should well know by now! Bad girl Shikni!”

Shikni’s teeth ached from the constant grinding she put them through.

She spat out her reply, scorn undisguised.

“My apologies, mistress. Will your exalted self be attempting to slay the Oceanic Apex?”

The stupid little bitch laughed at that, as though Shikni had told her a joke.

“Of course not! I, Octavia Caesar, need not the adulation of the unwashed masses!”

She paused, having seen the anger in Shikni’s eyes.

“You’re plotting my death, aren’t you? Silly little spider. I’ll be at the [F] Grade before you even work off a third of your sentence. Now, tell me more of the top performers in this Tutorial. I will require capable hands on my return to Earth.”

As Octavia Caesar, bane of spider matriarchs, plotted her course, a future coloniser of Earth despaired.

Luis Salathazar’s father, Sergiorno Salathazar, had been dead from the day he’d set foot on that accursed dirt ball.

No one survived an admin kill order.

Even [A] Grades got off their almighty asses for the loot a kill order offered- Sergiorno had at least died peacefully if his informant had been truthful.

Luis had gotten over it after a day of grieving and debauchery. His harem knew his struggles and did their best to advise him.

So, The Hedonic Path had hit the Green Belt, looted more than they could ever spend and sold a planet while they were at it.

Just when it seemed like things were looking up, the only god that didn’t take bribes had slapped him down.

“Congratulations! Your faction [The Hedonic Path] have been granted an opportunity for official System recognition! Recognition will be rewarded for completion of the following quest:

Vengeance On Earth- Your faction’s founder died because of this planet. Conquer it, in his honour.

Reward- System recognition.”

With all the eyeballs on the Tutorial, Luis had no shot at quietly taking over Earth.

Every mover and shaker in their universe wanted a slice of that pie.

Hell, Zerasos alone would be reason enough to avoid the place.

He’d had a sulphur devil plaything and hadn’t known who she’d been until it was too late.

A day after Zerasos’ visit, he’d found her burnt to ashes in her bed.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

That devil had been a Worldbreaker once upon a time- no reason to poke the sleeping dragon.

Still, not going wasn’t an option either.

System recognition opened so many doors for The Hedonic Path- he’d be killed if he rejected this opportunity and that fact leaked to the wrong people.

While he deliberated, footage from the Tutorial played, commentated over by those idiots, Griswold and Grag.

“Fresh off the presses, folks! Held under an information blackout until tonight! The first recorded Megalodon kill by our old friend, the Stormbound Swordsman!”

Luis watched.

In abject horror, he watched a baby Worldbreaker at work.

One mentored by Zerasos.

One he’d antagonised to get the devil’s attention.

Alone in his chambers, the Scion of Hedonism let out a whimper.

“Fuck.”

While Luis Salathazar despaired, an ornate cathedral’s congregation erupted with cheers.

Their pope, a normally austere and reserved man, bellowed a cry to the heavens, eyes affixed to the savage fury of the swordsman from the latest Tutorial.

“The Fiend Reborn! The prophecies spoke true, brothers! Take heart and take up your blades! Our Church Of The Fiend will be first to greet the lord! To Earth!”

Of course, the deceitful pope knew this whelp could not be the true Fiend Reborn. The boy merely supplied them with a pretext to invade his home world and plunder its resources.

A grand starship emblazoned with an eye enclosed within a pentagram arrived in Earth orbit, the mercenaries aboard unsure why they had travelled here.

Their oracle spoke again, eyes vanishing into the back of her head.

“He bears the name of the lion and wrestles the beast within. Once he masters himself, the Myriad Worlds will quake in fear. Strength is born to this soil.”

Luxuriating in his chair, their scarred commander relaxed.

“Good work Hermit. You all heard the lady. We wait until the terraforming finishes up, find this new Strength and then hightail it out of here. Last thing we need is to get in a fight with them.”

Jerking his thumb towards a dirt-brown mage vessel, seemingly made of earth and mud, the mercenary commander remained blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place within that vehicle.

A woman, utterly, painfully nude with long blonde hair that trailed to her feet and pointed ears, trod on the backs of prone men, arriving on her throne of flesh, constructed of those she’d favoured in life and had served her well.

Her similarly nude butler, his role marked upon his flesh with a brand, presented the princess with the information she’d requested.

“Forgive my boldness my lady, but it seems this man will not willingly join you as consort. The word cult has certain negative connotations on this planet.”

She eyed her servant with disdain, then spoke, tone imperious.

“Forgiven. His opinions are irrelevant Servantes. Our informant claims he is mentally unstable. I will break him. Then build him up. Then break him again. Over and over until he lives only to serve and service me.”

A spasm of pleasure shot through her at the thought of the once proud swordsman, the first slayer of the Oceanic Apex, kneeling at her feet, eyes empty of anything but devotion to her majesty.

Reduced to a slavering toy, eager for nothing other than her favour.

“I ask forgiveness once more your ladyship, but is your father aware of this excursion?”

Snorting, the princess reluctantly returned to reality.

“Father knows the Five Elements Orthodoxy will send a detachment to claim this planet. We are ostensibly here to contest that. If I want to adopt a poor little doggie and housebreak him while I’m here, well, Father can hardly object, can he?”

Servantes made to speak, but a coy and knowing smile from his master stopped him. Her tone took on a mocking falsetto, while her violet irises flashed with a bestial hunger.

“Ah ah ah. I do not forgive you Servantes. Now, down. Earn my absolution with your actions, not words. Unless you want to be punished... our alchemists tell me my favourite potion now keeps a male sturdy and firm until their body gives out and dies.”

For a fleeting moment, Servantes entertained the idea of punishment, of a release from servitude, before a memory of his son crossed his mind. All this work would spare his kin a similar fate. Dropping to his knees, he ignored the groans of the men who comprised the floor as he spoke.

“At once my lady.”

While a poor butler endured what some men would have sacrificed lives to experience, a blacksmith paused her latest attempt to forge a weapon worth being proud of.

Layla hadn’t particularly liked Leon. A self-important brat who had no respect for the noble art of the forge.

She hadn’t disliked him either, which she supposed she could chalk up to his eventual successes in forging.

She’d never let him forget that he had cheated, no matter how long he lived.

Turning back to her work, Layla continued, unaware of the media frenzy sweeping the Myriad Worlds.

Her master, the Swordfiend surnamed Sha, took a hefty swig from his hip flask, watching as his sole surviving kin suffered a mental breakdown on the beach.

Very few would see this footage. The boy’s Tutorial guide, a sulphur devil if Sha remembered correctly, had paid out of his own pocket to keep it from being seen.

A most noble act- one worthy of recompense.

Sha would arrange something.

After he’d met the boy.

Soon, he reassured himself.

The boy would soon be done with those Proving Grounds.

Leon, while the world learned his title, the Stormbound Swordsman, slept like a baby and dreamt.

A familiar dream, of a sun-scorched battlefield and the mound of swords which a black-cloaked figure occupied.

This time, Leon felt no pressure from the foreign bloodline.

He walked to the top of the sword mound, each step even and unhurried.

The man atop the pile glanced at Leon over his shoulder, bone-deep pride visible in every movement.

Despite the man’s unassuming features, save for his silken black hair and pale complexion, Leon felt as though he stood before an emperor.

The man spoke as Leon drew level, voice halting and dry.

“You’ve faced death. You won. I’d congratulate you if I knew for certain you were one of ours.”

Leon answered by reflex, the words out before he’d considered them properly.

“I don’t deserve any congratulations. Wasn’t a good fight.”

Quizzically raising a brow, the emperor replied.

“Fool. All fights are good fights. You visited once before. You are the first to do so in ages. The pup stopped when he gave up using Quenchleaf. Told me often enough they had wiped us out. You are an aberration, an error.”

The iron conviction in the emperor when he’d declared all fights good fights stuck with Leon.

“Not all fights. Killing a defenceless child cannot ever be a good fight.”

Pity.

Leon hadn’t expected pity from a Swordfiend.

“It is your role as the elder to make it good. End it swiftly, spare the youngling undue pain. That alone can be called good. I will ask outright stranger, as it seems you will dance around my questions unto eternity otherwise. Do you carry my cursed blood?”

A curse.

Leon had never expected someone to call his boon a detriment.

A double-edged sword perhaps, but a curse?

He flared his aura in response.

The emperor sighed, his tattered black rags billowing in a sudden breeze.

“I’m sorry, child. No one should have to carry that burden. I have seen bright-eyed descendants die to their own hubris, promising talents who courted death too fiercely. The dark mistress from beyond the veil claimed them before their time. So many lives lost. For nothing. Our kind should have stayed dead.”

Shaking his head, the emperor met Leon’s eyes for the first time

“I am Auberon. In my time, they merely called me Swordfiend. Once, that name proved terrible enough. In yours, you would know me as the First Swordfiend, progenitor of our cursed bloodline, the founding patriarch of our destroyed clan. Though I am but a memory, a lingering will sealed within our shared lineage by the true Swordfiend, a slice of his own soul left to guide the inheritors of our blood. Tell me your name, descendant.”

Leon once more answered on reflex.

“Leon Knox, grandson of the Raging Dragon Swordfiend. I greet you, First Swordfiend.”

Auberon nodded.

“The pup always hoped his brother survived. We begin your training when next you dream. Hold this place in your mind as you fall to slumber and you will awaken here. For now, you must wake. Leon Knox, grandson of Darius Sha. I hope you live to see your thirtieth year.”

With that strange last word from the ghost of his ancestor, Leon awoke to a yelling devil who’d sprayed more paper around the room than Leon had thought possible.