FUNNY FATE
Twenty-One Years Ago
A frail, young boy sat huddled in the dark corner of a giant stone hall, weeping silently into his knees.
“How long do you intend to keep crying, Kiro?” a voice called out.
The boy who approached was around the same age, but his physical frame was massive, packed with dense, natural power. It was Ruken.
“I don't want to cry, Ruken...” Kiro whimpered, his small frame vibrating with raw stage fright and fear. “But those kids won't stop tormenting me. Tell me what to do. Please.”
Ruken stepped forward, gently resting a heavy, calloused hand on the weeping boy’s head.
“If you don't know how to respond to them, Kiro... then do absolutely nothing at all,” Ruken said, his young face deadpan. “If you don't know how to answer, don't answer. Don't look at them. Don't even listen to a single word they say.”
Turning on his heel, Ruken walked back out into the light.
That exact same night, Ruken returned to the orphanage church. His pristine robes were shredded, his face bruised, and his knuckles completely covered in fresh, wet blood.
The head sister gasped, rushing to his side with medical supplies. “What on earth happened to you, Ruken?!”
“I got into a small fight,” was his only reply.
Kiro watched from the shadows of the doorway, his chest tightening. He felt a profound wave of guilt, assuming Ruken was simply a violent, bad boy like the rest of the capital bullies.
The following morning, the atmosphere inside the church turned suffocatingly heavy. A loud contingent of wealthy noble parents had gathered in the reception hall, furiously demanding an audience with the head priest to complain about a monster child who had systematically beaten their sons until they bled.
Intrigued by the commotion, Kiro peeked out from behind the pillars to inspect the faces of the bleeding, bandaged children.
They were the exact same boys who had bullied him yesterday.
Realizing the truth, Kiro sprinted at full speed through the corridors, his heart hammering against his ribs. He burst open the door to the rear barracks, desperate to protect his savior.
Ruken was sitting quietly on his bed, applying clean linen bandages to the raw, bleeding lacerations on his back—the harsh physical punishment inflicted by the sister for fighting. Seeing Ruken in such pain, Kiro broke down, tears pouring down his cheeks.
Looking at the crying boy, Ruken understood everything. A faint, remarkably kind smile touched his lips.
“Don't cry, Kiro,” Ruken whispered softly. “They won't ever bully you again.”
“Why... why did you do something like this for me?” Kiro choked out, wiping his eyes.
“Because you are my very first friend.”
It was the kindest, most radiant smile Kiro had ever seen in his short life. From that fateful day forward, the two boys became completely inseparable. They prayed together, slept in adjacent cots, played in the dirt, and shared every single piece of bread they earned.
Eighteen Years Ago
A new orphan was brought into the church sanctuary. His skin was pale, his vibrant red hair a stark contrast against his tattered dark clothes. His parents had tragically perished in a sudden, catastrophic border fire. The boy was dead silent, always sitting alone in the library, buried beneath ancient texts.
Ruken walked up to his table, leaning over the massive volumes. “What is your name, kid?”
“Kenon,” the red-haired boy whispered, refusing to lift his eyes.
“What exactly are you reading, Kenon? Is it fun?”
Kenon lightly nodded his head, keeping his guard up.
“You know what's infinitely more amusing than reading a book?” Ruken asked, flashing a bright, infectious smile.
Kenon blinked, a flash of genuine curiosity breaking his blank expression. “What?”
“Reading it with someone else.”
From that fateful afternoon onward, Ruken—a wild, athletic prodigy who had never previously opened a single book in his life—sat down in the library every single day, reading line by line with Kenon. Kiro soon joined their circle, and the trio became an unbreakable, legendary brotherhood within the capital district.
Years later, the time arrived for the trio to graduate from the orphanage gates. Kenon stood at the stone archway, tears streaming down his face as he clutched his notes.
“Are you two truly going to leave me behind?” Kenon wept, his voice cracking with intense attachment anxiety.
“Don't worry, you dummy,” Ruken laughed, ruffling the red hair. “We’ll come back to visit you every single weekend.”
“And if we miss a scheduled visit, you have my full permission to kick our butts,” Kiro added with a confident grin.
“Best of luck to you both,” Kenon sniffled, trying to project strength. “Become the absolute greatest knights in the world.”
That year's capital Knight Exams were completely dominated by Ruken's unweighted, monstrous strength. He achieved such a flawless score that he was immediately granted a direct invitation into one of the highest-ranking elite squads in the realm. But Ruken flatly refused the mantle on a single condition: Kiro had to be scouted alongside him. Recognizing Kiro's hidden tactical potential, the captain agreed. They became an excellent, renowned vanguard pair.
Fifteen Years Ago
Kenon successfully passed his own Knight Exams, and under Vice-Captain Ruken's direct, personal proposal, the red-haired prodigy was fast-tracked into the exact same vanguard squad. The trio was finally reunited on the battlefield.
Soon after, a classified deployment order was assigned to their unit. The mission, led entirely by Ruken, was to explore a massive, deep underground cavern network rumored to be crawling with SSS-Rank apex predators.
Their squad captain had failed to secure the official permission ledger from the King due to royal bureaucratic gridlocks. Driven by youthful bravado and a desire to clear the border threat, Ruken made the final, reckless decision to launch the infiltration without an official seal. The only ones accompanying him into the abyss were his blood brothers, Kenon and Kiro. They all shared the exact same psychological calculation: at the worst-case scenario, we'll just get heavily scolded by the High Council upon our return.
They descended into the damp, dark cave. Yet, by the end of the grueling day, they found absolutely zero trace of magical beasts. There was only a massive, ancient stone double door hidden at the absolute bottom of the trench.
“Let us go inside,” Kenon suggested, his hand resting on the ancient carvings.
“Are you sure about this?” Kiro asked, his instincts flaring with a sudden prickle of cold danger.
“Let's move,” Ruken commanded, making the final executive choice.
Pushing open the heavy stone gates, they stepped into a colossal, vaulted chamber that completely defied the natural geology above. Standing in the center of the darkness was a towering, grotesque idol of an eldritch creature possessing two massive wings, curved horns, and jagged, razor-sharp nails.
A literal Devil.
Sensing movement, the three young knights immediately dived behind a massive stone table, masking their mana signatures. A lone figure lay sleeping soundly on a stone cot near the altar, completely under a magic-induced slumber.
“Is he the chosen vessel?” a booming, multi-resonant voice suddenly echoed directly from the stone idol, rattling the marrow in their bones.
“Yes, my Lord,” a smooth, highly aristocratic human voice replied from the altar. “I slipped into his private quarters during his sleep and administered the fated potion of eternal slumber.”
Crouched in the shadows, Kiro’s eyes strained against the darkness. His mind raced frantically, trying to map the profile of the human speaker. I know that voice. I’ve seen that silhouette somewhere in the high palace...
“Has he approved the trade?” the devil idol purred.
“Yes, my Lord. The rookie, Mucous Rigger, has officially signed the blood covenant. He swore he will serve the illusions of the Divine Soul for all eternity. And you, my Lord... one of the fourteen heavenly demons, and one of the four absolute rulers of the Sacred Soul.”
The pieces of the puzzle violently snapped together in Kiro’s brain. His face drained of all color, his skin turning ice-cold.
“It’s... it’s Lord Cros,” Kiro whispered, his voice incredibly low, yet the sheer terror caused it to lightly echo against the cavern walls. “The highest Sage of the realm...”
“Who goes there?!” Lord Cros violently whipped his head around, his holy aura flaring dangerously as his gaze locked onto their stone hiding spot.
Kiro was completely, utterly paralyzed by the god-like pressure, unable to move a single muscle. Realizing the unbridgeable chasm in power, Ruken acted with explosive reflex. He ruthlessly scooped the frozen Kiro over his shoulder, grabbed Kenon’s trembling hand with his left arm, and channeled his full physical pressure into a desperate, continuous sprint back toward the exit tunnels.
Lord Cros stood by the altar, staring into the dark corridor as their frantic footsteps faded. A slow, sinister smirk spread across his holy face.
“The Vice-Captain of the Thronged Tigers,” Cros muttered to himself, tracing the residual mana thread left in the air. “A pale-looking weakling... and a boy with vibrant red hair. How amusing.”
Bursting out into the cold night air of the surface world, the three boys collapsed onto the grass, panting heavily as their adrenaline crashed.
“What the hell was the highest-ranking Sage doing down there?!” Kenon screamed, clutching his red hair in absolute psychological shock.
“Why did you drag me away, Ruken?!” Kiro yelled, finally recovering his voice. “We should have confronted him! We should have demanded to know what he was doing!”
“You idiot!” Ruken barked, his face dead serious as he pinned Kiro down by the shoulders. “Don't you remember the exact texts we read in the library, Kenon? The entity Cros was conversing with... he referred to it as one of the Fourteen Devils. The exact primordial monsters that once reduced this continent to absolute ash!”
Kenon’s breath hitched, his scholarly mind validating the dark truth.
“We head straight back to the barracks tonight,” Ruken commanded, standing tall as the leader of the unit. “The moment dawn breaks, we report this treason directly to our Captain. He will escalate it to the King.”
They walked off into the moonless night, their arms slung over each other's shoulders. But what the three brothers failed to calculate... was that this was the absolute last walk they would ever take together.
That night, the three of us slept in the exact same room. We were veteran vanguard knights, yet the cosmic horror we had witnessed beneath the earth left us too thoroughly terrified to sleep alone.
CRASH!
In the dead of midnight, our heavy oak door was violently kicked off its hinges. A massive vanguard of elite knights flooded our quarters, their enchanted steel blades drawn and gleaming dangerously under the dim moonlight.
We leaped to our feet, completely blindsided.
“Capture them!” the lead officer bellowed, pointing a trembling finger at our unit.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Ruken shouted, stepping in front of Kenon and me, his natural physical pressure flaring. “On what charges are you invading a Vice-Captain’s quarters?!”
“Don't let him speak!” another knight screamed, his eyes wide with a manic, artificial panic. “He is a servant of the dark! He will use his forbidden heretical brainwashing on us if he opens his mouth!”
Realizing the psychological trap had already snapped shut, Ruken turned his head back to us, his expression dead serious. “Listen to me, Kiro! Kenon! I will hold the line here. Escape through the high window immediately! This is the Sages' doing!”
Before I could even reach for the glass sill, a heavy, magic-reinforced fist abruptly struck Ruken from his blind spot.
It was our own Captain. The man Ruken trusted implicitly.
Under the weight of the betrayal, Ruken’s vision blurred, and his massive frame collapsed heavily onto the floor, completely unconscious.
“Ruken... Ruken, wake up! Please!”
Ruken’s eyes violently snapped open. His mind was in absolute chaos, his body tightly bound to a freezing iron chair in the center of a pitch-black subterranean dungeon.
“Kiro...? Is that you? What happened? Why am I—” Ruken couldn't finish the sentence. The moment his vision adjusted to the dark, his breath completely locked in his throat.
I was tied to the pillar directly opposite him. My uniform was shredded, and my skin was a map of raw, bleeding lacerations. I was actively bleeding from every single inch of my body.
“The high council issued a royal decree,” I whispered, coughing up a thick spray of metallic blood. “They claimed you are a direct descendant of the primordial devils... and that you used forbidden mental arts to brainwash the two of us. When I told the inquisitors they were completely incorrect... they did this to me.”
Ruken’s jaw tightened, tears of pure, unadulterated rage welling in his eyes. “Where... where is Kenon?”
“They dragged him into the primary interrogation chamber for questioning,” I choked out. “I begged him to just tell the Sages whatever lies they wanted to hear to save his skin... but...”
“That stubborn idiot won't ever lie,” Ruken muttered, his heart breaking.
A few minutes later, the heavy iron gate groaned open. Two guards brutally threw Kenon back into the cell. His vibrant red hair was matted with sweat and dirt, his fingers broken, and his face heavily bruised. He had refused to back down from the truth.
“Enjoy your final night in the dark, heretics,” a jailer hissed from behind the iron bars, slamming the lock shut with a malicious click. It was one of the very rookies who had previously been inspired by Ruken’s valor. “Your public executions have been scheduled for dawn.”
The heavy footsteps faded into the corridor.
“Why...?” Ruken wept in the silence, staring down at his bound wrists as the agonizing reality crushed his mind. “Why did this happen to us? We only wanted to protect the kingdom... Why?”
In the middle of the night, when the absolute physical exhaustion had forced Kenon and me into a light slumber, a sudden, blinding presence materialized inside the cell.
I forced my heavy eyelids open. Standing before the iron bars was a figure wrapped in an ethereal, glowing white light, his snowy hair cascading down his shoulders.
An Angel.
“Looks like... I am finally hallucinating from the blood loss,"Kiro let out a dry, delirious laugh.
SNAP.
Without the mysterious entity moving a single finger, a silent, absolute magical shockwave rippled through the cell. The heavy anti-magic chains binding our wrists instantaneously shattered into dust. The iron bars enclosing the cell exploded outward, turning into harmless powder. Outside, the entire guard vanguard lay unconscious across the stone corridor.
“Ruken! Ruken, wake up!” I scrambled to my feet, shaking his massive shoulders.
“What... what happened?” Ruken rubbed his eyes, looking at the broken cell in sheer disbelief.
“There’s no time! Let's escape!”
Realizing a miracle had just handed us a lifeline, Ruken didn't hesitate. He ruthlessly scooped the broken, semi-conscious Kenon over his back and sprinted down the corridor, with me running hot on his heels.
VREEEEEEEEM!
The high-security magical alarms instantly blared across the citadel grounds, lighting up the night sky.
“Run faster, Kiro!” Ruken roared over his shoulder, his long strides tearing down the stone steps.
SWISH!
A sharp, whistling sound sliced through the dark. A heavy, steel-tipped arrow flew from the guard towers, piercing cleanly straight through my left leg.
“Guh...!”
My knees buckled, and I crashed violently onto the stone courtyard, passing out from the sudden shock of the impact. The absolute last image my mind recorded before the darkness swallowed my sight... was Ruken dropping Kenon to the safety of the shadows, turning around, and standing entirely alone against a swarming mob of fifty fully armed royal guards.
When my eyes finally flickered open hours later, the morning sun was burning my retinas.
The air was thick with the suffocating, heavy stench of fresh copper. I looked around the fractured stone courtyard. It was a literal slaughterhouse. The corpses of all fifty elite royal soldiers lay scattered across the ground, their armor shredded and their bodies torn to pieces.
Standing at the center of the carnage was Ruken.
He was completely drenched from head to toe in blood—none of it his own. His eyes were entirely wide, filled with a hollow, terrifyingly detached expression.
“You’re finally awake, Kiro,” Ruken spoke, his voice completely hollowed out of all human emotion. He walked over to my broken frame, holding something in his wet palms. “Eat this. It will heal your wounds.”
I looked down at his offering, my mind completely freezing in horror.
It wasn't raw meat. It was Ruken's own right hand, ruthlessly severed from his arm. And right before my wide eyes, a bizarre, writhing cluster of black parasitic tendrils was already rapidly bursting from his bleeding wrist stump, violently regenerating a brand-new, monstrous limb of dense muscle and claws.
Traumatized, completely broken by the madness, and driven by a desperate instinct to survive, my brain ceased to function. I reached out with my shaking hands, took his severed flesh, and consumed it raw.
The moment the tissue hit my stomach, a catastrophic surge of dark energy exploded through my core, forcefully restructuring my broken leg and fusing a massive, monstrous right arm directly to my skeleton.
Ruken stood tall above me, looking down at the ruined capital with a cold, terrifyingly manic grin.
“From this day forward, Kiro... the old world is dead,” Ruken whispered, his words echoing like a demonic prophecy across the blood-soaked stones. “The entire continent will know me by a new name.”
“THE BLOOD TYRANT.”
This was the absolute beginning of the end.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE : if you have left any or all chapters to read kiro's past part 1 then as the author i shall humbly ask you to go back and read those chapters so you can understand every small detail of this chapter read them QUICKLY before the part 2 gets published