In a quiet corner room, Kemi sat on the edge of a wide bed near Wisdom, who was lying motionless, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Kemi pulled her knees tight against her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs as her shoulders trembled.
She stared down at the polished floor, her eyes swollen and red from hours of holding back tears.
“Tunde…” her voice was barely a whisper, frail and broken.
“Should we…
should we really trust what he said?
Or did Karl just say all that to give us hope…
so we do their dirty work and go kill those Monarchs for them?” Tunde, sitting on the floor with his back pressed against the wall, looked up.
His knuckles were raw and bruised from where he had slammed his fists into the stone earlier.
Seeing Kemi—the girl who always tried to stay sharp and collected—looking so fragile shattered whatever strength he had left.
He stood up, walked over to the bed, and sat beside her.
Without a word, he pulled her into a firm, grounding embrace.
Kemi didn’t pull away.
She buried her face into his shoulder, her fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt as a quiet sob finally escaped her throat.
“I don’t know,” Tunde murmured, resting his chin on her head, his own voice thick with emotion.
“I don’t trust Karl.
I no even trust any of these Shepherds.
But right now, we don’t have a choice.” He tightened his grip slightly, his gaze hardening as he stared into the dim room.
“So let’s just get stronger and find out the truth ourselves.
If Adesewa and Ayomide can still be saved, we will save them.
And if Karl and his people are lying to us…” Tunde let out a low, bitter breath, “…we’re too weak right now to do anything about it anyway.
Don’t worry.
They go soon dey die mysteriously.” A tiny, breathless puff of laughter slipped from Kemi’s lips despite her grief.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, looking at him with a weary smile.
“You’re still talking like a street boy even in another world.” “I’m serious,” Tunde said softly, though a slight smirk touched his face before fading back into sadness.
Kemi’s expression softened, but then her eyes darkened with a sudden, painful memory.
She pulled back slightly, looking into Tunde’s eyes.
“You know…” she whispered, her voice tightening with a mixture of grief and anger, “my best friend died back there because of *your* friend.” Tunde flinched as if struck.
He knew she was talking about Ayomide.
“If Ayomide hadn’t turned back for Success…
Adesewa wouldn’t have followed him,” Kemi said, tears welling in her eyes again.
“She only went because he went.
She died following *him*.” Tunde opened his mouth, wanting to defend Ayomide, but the words caught in his throat.
He looked away, his chest heaving.
“Ayomide didn’t ask her to follow him, Kemi.
You know how he is.
But…
I know.
I know why you’re angry.” Before the tension between them could turn into a rift, a soft knock echoed at the door.
The door creaked open, and Zara stepped into the room.
She was still clutching her rusted spear, her eyes red-rimmed, looking lost and hesitant.
“Am I…
disturbing?” Zara asked softly, standing near the threshold.
Kemi wiped her cheek quickly, shaking her head.
“No.
Come in.” For a few heavy seconds, none of them spoke.
A dense, suffocating silence settled over the room as the three of them simply sat there in the quiet gloom.
No one knew what to say.
The crushing realization of what they had lost hung between them like an unbreakable weight.
Zara took a quiet, shuddering breath, her hands tightening around her spear handle until her knuckles turned white.
“I want you guys to add me,” Zara said, her voice shaking with quiet, desperate conviction.
“I want to get stronger with you.
I need to repay them…
and save them.” Kemi looked at her, surprised by the sheer resolve in the usually timid girl’s eyes.
Zara stepped closer, lowering her voice.
“When I was coming down the hallway just now, I heard some of the Shepherds talking.
They said two students who belong to a Worldwalker member are going to the academy they’re sending us to.
We’re going to be put in a special class because we’re ‘heroes’ from the trial…
and those two are going to be the ones teaching us.” Tunde sat up straighter.
“Teaching us?” “Yes,” Zara continued, her tone growing serious.
“And…
there’s something else.
Out of the fifty-four of us who survived the Forsaken Dreamland, they tested our soul manifestations and Authorities while you were resting.
Only twenty-five of us can actually fight for now.
We’re the ones being sent to the academy.” “What about the rest?” Kemi asked.
“The rest are staying here in the Sonya Kingdom,” Zara answered.
“They’re being assigned to do administrative chores or assist in the background preparations for the coming war against the Ash Monarch.” Silence fell over the room once more, but the air felt different now.
The shock had passed.
The cold reality of Aetheris had set in.
Far away, deep beneath the surface of the world…
The world continued falling.
Ayomide’s body spun helplessly through the endless dark shaft as the roaring wind tore past him.
Around him, massive chunks of the shattered stone bridge tumbled into the darkness, accompanied by the desperate, blood-curdling screams of the background students who had failed to reach the ledge.
“AAAHHH!” “Help!” “I don’t want to die!” “Somebody save me!” Fear swallowed every voice.
The students who had survived countless horrors inside the Forsaken Dreamland—that absolute hell zone—finally understood something they had desperately refused to believe until this very moment.
There was no miracle waiting for them.
One after another, they stretched out their trembling hands, desperately trying to grab onto anything.
Another student.
A tumbling piece of stone.
Even empty air.
Nothing answered them.
Far below…
a deep, crimson glow continued growing larger.
This was no ordinary magma or molten stone.
The Crimson River was an ancient, primordial essence that had flowed quietly through the deepest heart of the Forsaken Dreamland for uncounted ages—a concentrated reservoir of primordial life and destruction.
The heat reached them long before they arrived.
At first, it was only uncomfortable.
Then it became absolute agony.
The air shimmering around them looked as though the world itself had turned into a furnace.
Every breath scorched their lungs like swallowing broken glass.
Their skin blistered under the intense heat, and the scalding air forced bitter tears from their eyes that vaporized before they could even fall.
“It hurts!” “I can’t breathe!” Several students instinctively covered their faces.
Others curled into themselves, desperately trying to escape the suffocating heat, while a few lost consciousness entirely before they ever reached the bottom.
None of it mattered.
The crimson glow beneath them swallowed the sky.
Success slowly opened her eyes.
Everything around her was spinning violently.
Her vision blurred as the burning air stung her eyes.
For a brief, disorienting moment…
she didn’t understand where she was.
Then, the flood of memories hit her like a sledgehammer.
The bridge.
The Guardian.
Ayomide.
Adesewa.
Her Authority breaking.
The collapse.
Her heart stopped.
She forced her head to turn against the crushing wind pressure.
Not far away…
she saw them.
Ayomide and Adesewa.
Both of them were still falling, unconscious, drifting side by side through the burning air.
Tears instantly gathered in Success’s eyes as she stared at Ayomide’s limp form.
Her trembling voice disappeared completely into the roaring wind.
She turned her gaze toward Adesewa.
“…You guys…” No one answered.
Fresh tears escaped her eyes, burning against her cheeks.
“…I’m sorry…” she sobbed, her body trembling uncontrollably.
“…I’m…
I’m so sorry…” She bit her lip so hard that blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, instantly singing in the heat.
“If…
if I didn’t collapse…” her voice broke into a desperate weep, “…you two wouldn’t have come back for me!” The crimson glow beneath them became blinding as the heat grew even more terrifying.
Success’s breathing turned into shallow, agonizing gasps, her eyelids growing heavier with every passing second.
“…Please…” she whispered into the void.
“I didn’t want this…
I didn’t want…
to drag you both down with me…” The unbearable heat invaded her lungs, and her consciousness began to fade into black.
The last thing her fading vision caught…
was Ayomide and Adesewa still falling beside her into the red light.
Then…
darkness claimed her once again.
BOOM!
The Crimson River rushed up to meet them, and in the next instant—the abyss swallowed everything.
Silence.
The terrifying screams that had filled the air only moments ago vanished completely.
No wind.
No voices.
No sound.
Only the endless Crimson River flowing quietly through the heart of the Forsaken Dreamland.
Ayomide’s unconscious body drifted beneath the glowing surface as the thick, essence-heavy current slowly carried him forward.
Not far away, Adesewa floated in the same direction, her long black hair spreading gently around her like dark silk as the crimson water passed through it.
Several meters away, Success remained completely motionless, carried deeper into the endless depths.
Behind them, the other falling students also drifted with the current, their bodies rising and falling slowly beneath the eerie crimson glow.
For a brief, deceptive moment…
everything looked peaceful.
Then…
one student’s arm suddenly twitched.
Tiny crimson lines appeared across his skin.
At first, they looked like harmless glowing veins.
Then they spread rapidly—across his shoulder, his chest, his neck, and his face.
Without a single sound…
his flesh slowly dissolved into countless glowing crimson particles.
The ancient river did not accept souls that were incompatible with its essence; it simply unwrote their bodies, dissolving them into basic elemental energy.
There was no blood.
No scream.
The river simply swallowed every trace of their physical existence.
Another student followed.
Then another.
One after another, the Crimson River quietly reclaimed every life that had fallen into its depths.
Some disappeared within seconds.
Others lasted a few moments longer.
None survived.
The river accepted them all without mercy.
Soon…
nothing remained behind them except millions of crimson particles drifting quietly with the current.
The river had returned them to nothingness.
Then…
the current surrounding Ayomide suddenly slowed.
Not just around him, but around Adesewa and Success as well.
The glowing crimson particles that had been flowing freely downstream suddenly changed direction.
Instead of continuing forward…
they gathered around the trio.
More and more primordial essence surged toward them from every direction.
Within moments, the three unconscious bodies were suspended inside a dense, swirling ocean of crimson light.
Unlike the others…
their bodies did not dissolve.
The Crimson River trembled as though it had finally found vessels capable of bearing its ancient essence.
It touched their skin…
and then quietly absorbed straight into their bodies.
Without resistance.
Without stopping.
The river itself seemed to shake.
Its once gentle current became restless as centuries of primordial power surged upward toward the trio—as though the river itself had waited countless ages for vessels worthy of receiving its power.
The current grew stronger, physically separating the three of them from where the other students had vanished, locking them in the center of the crimson flow.
Then…
Ayomide’s body violently shuddered.
Deep within the dark, suffocating chamber of his subconscious, Ayomide was not merely unconscious.
He was drowning in his past.
Memories he had tried so hard to bury came rushing back with agonizing clarity—the bitter weight of his previous life on Earth.
He remembered the endless grind, the cold sweat of working himself to exhaustion just to be discarded.
He remembered trusting people who smiled to his face while stepping on his back to get ahead.
He remembered being humiliated, cheated, used, and tossed aside like trash because he had tried to play by the rules.
He had tried to be a good person.
He had tried to be honest.
And what had it gotten him?
A pathetic, lonely death.
Then came his second chance—this life.
He had opened his eyes in a new world, hoping, praying for just one thing: a quiet, peaceful, ordinary life.
He didn’t want to be a hero.
He didn’t want to conquer empires.
He just wanted to live without fear.
And on the very day he thought he could start fresh…
he was dragged into this butcher shop of a trial.
Forced to watch people die.
Forced to bleed, to starve, to fight horrific monsters, to pull others along just to survive—only to end up plunged into a pit of fire and blood anyway.
Why?
A violent, guttural roar echoed in his soul.
WHY?!
The sheer, suffocating unfairness of it all broke something fundamental inside him.
His mind shattered, and from the jagged pieces, a cold, terrifying realization coalesced.
I tried being honest…
I was betrayed.
I tried being kind…
I suffered.
I tried trusting people…
I was disappointed.
I tried to just survive…
and you threw me into a pit to die.
His spirit screamed into the darkness, pointing his wrath not just at Karl, not just at the Shepherds, but at the very concept of fate—at the gods who treated human lives like disposable toys for their grand games.
No more.
I don tire The quiet, pragmatic boy died right then, buried beneath the weight of two lives worth of agony.
If I have to lie…
I’ll lie.
If I have to cheat…
I’ll cheat.
If I have to become a villain, a bastard, a coward, or a scumbag just to survive…
then so be it.
If I have to use people to get what I want…
then I’ll use them.
Because no one ever hesitated to use me.
I don’t care what they call me anymore.
As long as I reach the life I want…
as long as I can finally be satisfied…
I don’t care.
Anyone who stands in my way…
I will erase them from existence.
He glared up at the dark void, his eyes burning with raw, unforgiving malice.
The world doesn’t reward good people.
The world only rewards those willing to take.
I never wanted power.
I never wanted to rule anyone.
I only wanted a peaceful, ordinary life.
But you wouldn’t let me have it.
So don’t blame me for what I become.
God…
Aetheris…
this world…
It wasn’t my fault.
It was yours.
You created this monster.
Because I’ve finally understood something…
Everything has a price.
And from today onward…
so will I.
Anyone who stands in my way…
will pay the price.
Anyone who tries to take my future from me…
will lose theirs.
Once you become my enemy…
don’t expect mercy.
From this day onward…
anyone who stands in my way will become another debt to collect.
Deep within his soul, his Collector soul manifestation trembled.
Hairline cracks spread across it before the old Authority quietly collapsed beneath the weight of his conviction.
In its place, a far older concept awakened.
Existence Debt.
The Debt Collector.
At that very moment, an ancient oath was etched into the deepest part of his soul.
The Debt Oath.
It was not spoken by any voice, nor bestowed by any god.
It simply existed, as though it had always been waiting for the moment his soul accepted the truth that everything has a price.
As the oath settled into his existence, the dormant core hidden within him stirred.
It did not awaken with thunderous flare—the Origin Core simply evolved into its second state: Origin Core Seed.
From that newly evolved core, his first innate capability was born: Debt Collector.
At the same time, deep within Success’s subconscious, her Necromancer soul manifestation dissolved like mist before reforming into Death Dominion (The Crimson Princess) —and from that reborn Authority, her profound innate capability, the Crimson Gate, naturally manifested.
Beside them, deep within Adesewa’s silent, unyielding heart, her Silent Sovereign did not shatter.
It simply expanded beyond its former limits before stopping abruptly, as though something had interrupted its evolution—locking her status as ED— (Silent Sovereign).
Outside, in the physical world, their bodies were being completely remade by fire.
Ayomide’s muscles tightened as veins bulged across his arms, and countless tiny, glowing crimson cracks spread over his skin.
The cracks reached his chest, his back, his neck, his legs—covering his entire body in a spiderweb of red light.
Not far away, the exact same crimson cracks appeared across Adesewa’s body.
Then Success’s.
Their muscles were being torn apart at a cellular level before knitting themselves back together, far denser, stronger, and purer than any normal human body could ever achieve.
Their bones fractured silently, breaking down before new, steel-like bone structure grew in their place.
The pathways carrying Aether throughout their bodies expanded violently, widening into thick channels capable of holding immense power.
The transformation continued.
Not once.
Not twice.
But until every trace of mortal weakness was stripped away.
Ayomide’s short black hair slowly grew longer, drifting like ink through the water until it rested around his shoulders.
Beneath his closed eyelids, a sharp, golden-crimson light faintly shimmered before locking into a steady, powerful pulse.
Beside him, Adesewa’s long black hair spread around her like flowing silk beneath the river.
Among the dark strands, several thin, radiant crimson streaks quietly appeared, weaving through her hair like living embers.
Beneath her eyelids, the same golden-crimson radiance gathered.
On the other side of the current, Success’s body glowed brighter than the rest as her dark hair slowly lost its color.
One strand turned pure snow-white.
Then another.
Until long, soft white hair flowed around her beneath the river, intertwined with natural crimson strands that looked as though they had belonged there since birth.
Beneath her closed eyes, a crimson-gold aura pulsed with life-and-death dominion.
The Crimson River trembled as the once endless current became noticeably weaker.
The glowing essence that had filled the river for countless years continued disappearing into the trio.
Little by little…
the river began to shrink as the powerful current slowed.
Then the crimson glow that illuminated the abyss gradually faded as it was as though the river itself was being consumed.
Only the three unconscious figures continued shining beneath the dark waters as the last trace of the Crimson River disappeared into their bodies.
The remaining current carried the trio through a narrow crimson passage.
Ahead…
The river ended.
Beyond it…
A land where even the Crimson River could not reach quietly awaited them.