There was no name carved into the boy's skin, no whisper of a future, no lullabies, no soft hands to hold. Only the cold of stone walls, the rot of old blood, and the faint crackling of magic seals carved deep into the earth like forgotten curses. Each breath was a struggle against the stench of decay, and the air felt heavier, as though the very atmosphere of this place sought to suffocate the will to live.
He wasn't born here, but he might as well have been. This was his world. This was all he knew.
They called it The Lower Womb—a chamber buried under the edges of the Witch's Forest, where light was as rare as mercy, and the silence between screams was far more terrifying than the screams themselves. It was a place where even time felt twisted, as though the hours themselves bled together, indistinguishable and without meaning. It wasn't known to the world. Even the Queen of Witches turned a blind eye to it, because the people who operated here bore the Silver crest. Not the royal family themselves—no, something worse. A corrupted offshoot. A bloodline so obsessed with purity that they didn't discard failures—they hid them.
Down here, in this pit, was where failures went to die. Where the weak were discarded, where the cursed were born. And the boy, one of seven—or perhaps the last—had learned that this was his fate, as much as it was the others'.
He couldn't remember the others anymore. Their faces blurred together—sallow, sunken, trembling with silent agony. One by one, they were taken to the glowing circle etched in the center of the stone floor. Their bodies twitched, spasmed, convulsed. Then they stopped making sound at all. Not even a whisper. Not even a plea for mercy.
No one ever came back from the circle.
---
"Subject Seven," the voice echoed, its coldness crawling into the boy's skin.
He didn't flinch, didn't even acknowledge it. The chains around his neck rattled faintly, like dead wind chimes—a sound without purpose, like everything in this forsaken place. A witch in blue robes stood behind a translucent wall of spell-formed glass. Her face was pretty—young, even—but her eyes held the color of steel, and her lips were always pursed, as though disapproving of the world's very existence. A cold smile twisted her mouth.
"You are of no further use," she said, scribbling something onto a floating scroll. "Low potential. Mana channels corrupted. Psychic damage irreversible."
The boy didn't respond. His jaw was swollen, disfigured from the countless beatings. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken—nor could he remember what it felt like to speak without pain in his throat.
Behind the witch, a nobleman entered. His robe bore the inverted silver eagle, the symbol of the corrupted bloodline that had sentenced him to this hell. His gloves were stitched with fine red runes, and his mana flared casually, effortlessly dominating the stale air, as if the very atmosphere bent to his will. His presence suffocated the room, a reminder of the power that could do whatever it pleased with a life like his.
"Another defective," he sighed. "They keep breaking before the rituals even begin. Toss it into the deep zone."
"Alive?" the witch asked, her voice detached, clinical.
"Doesn't matter."
And that was that. No evil laughter. No monologue. No ceremonial execution. Just bureaucratic disposal. Another waste to be forgotten.
The boy was dragged like garbage by silent, rune-covered guards. His small limbs hung limp, incapable of resisting. One of his legs had stopped working last week. The bones were still cracked. It hadn't healed. No potions. No rest. Just rot.
The teleportation circle activated with a hiss, its light flickering like a dying flame. It swallowed the dark, pulling him through the air like a doll caught in a storm. The last thing he saw was the cold, unfeeling face of the witch—her eyes narrowing as if to savor the final moment before he disappeared.
And then—
---
He was falling.
The Grand Magic Zone welcomed him like a maw of hungry gods, a vast chasm of untamed energy. The wind was no longer wind—it was screaming, shrieking in fury. Magic thick in the air, wild and aimless, tore through his skin like sandpaper soaked in lightning. His body spasmed as he tumbled through the storm of raw, uncontrolled mana. He was nothing. Just a shard caught in the currents of a chaotic force that cared nothing for him.
Branches clawed at him as he plummeted through a web of twisted trees. One sliced across his face. Another dug into his shoulder, a cruel reminder of the world's indifference.
And finally—crack.
He hit the ground. Hard. The earth seemed to tremble beneath him as his bones shattered further, and the air left his lungs in a sickening rush. His vision dimmed. His body felt numb. Blood—too much blood—poured from his wounds. His own blood, thick and warm against the chill of the magic that surrounded him. He couldn't even cry. His mind was too far gone, too distant from the pain.
And yet—he was alive.
---
Time bled. There was no day or night in this hellish expanse of chaos magic. Just storms of wild mana and monstrous whispers echoing through the trees. The darkness never abated. The wind never ceased its unholy wail. There was no relief, no end.
He crawled. Not to escape. He'd long since given up on escape. His arms scraped against the jagged ground, torn and bloodied. His fingers dug into moss, into mud, into the bones of things long dead, their remains long forgotten by a world that had forsaken him.
Something growled once. Something big, something ancient. It didn't attack. Maybe it didn't see a point. Or perhaps it simply knew there was no need. The boy was already broken. What more could it do?
For three days, he dragged himself with a broken leg and shattered spirit through a forest that devoured kingdoms. His body screamed in agony, but the mind, it was worse. His thoughts were like fragments of glass, cutting through whatever was left of his soul. He wanted to die. He almost wished for it. But the cruel part of it all—he couldn't. Not yet. The magic still burned in his veins, a twisted reminder of the fate that kept him breathing.
No food. No fire. No safety.
He should have died.
But he didn't.
---
The fourth night, he found a corpse. An old traveler, half-devoured, but wrapped in a cloak that wasn't torn. He didn't hesitate. He stole it. The corpse didn't protest. It couldn't. Its hollow eyes stared sightlessly into the void, like so many others who had fallen victim to the forest's hunger.
He curled beneath the cloak and tried not to feel. But he did feel. For the first time in days. Not warmth. Not hope.
Hate.
Not for the people who threw him away. Not for the ones who experimented on him. But for something far more abstract, far more insidious.
The sky. The gods. The fate that had written him into existence as less than dirt. As nothing more than a disposable tool in some twisted game.
He stared up, eyes bloodshot, throat raw from the endless, silent screams he couldn't express. His mind was a storm of broken thoughts, disconnected and fragmented.
"If I live," he rasped, his voice a cracked whisper to no one, to nothing. "Then it means I was supposed to."
No stars answered.
But something else did.
A whisper. Not from outside—but from within.
Like a thought not born of his own mind. Not words. Not emotion. Just a pulse.
Cold. Liberating.
A flicker of freedom—and its opposite. The boy recoiled, but the feeling only grew stronger. It called to him. It was his, but not his. A freedom beyond all understanding, and yet—a shackle. A chain that pulled him forward, deeper into the darkness.
He didn't understand. He didn't care.
He just knew one thing:
He didn't want revenge. He didn't want justice. He just wanted to survive.
And one day… to stand above all. To be the one who looked down on the world that had cast him aside.
---
Far away, in a tower of marble and time, Lucius Zogratis opened his eyes.
A smirk touched his lips.
"No-leaf…" he whispered, his voice a breath of dark amusement. "So… it finally chooses."
And in that moment, something shifted. A new chapter had begun.
---
Don't compare the proluge with rest of the novel, it just gave you a glimpse nothing much.
1430 words ain't that bad for first chapter
Anyway keep up with the updates, hope you like the novel, have a nice read and great day.