Snow crunched under him as he ran through Frostfang Forest with everything he had left.
His lungs burned. Each breath tore out of him in a ragged white cloud, and his legs felt like they belonged to someone else, someone slower, someone already caught. Blood seeped from deep cuts along his arms, dripping onto the snow and freezing almost the moment it landed, a dark trail marking exactly where he’d been.
Heavy chains hung from his wrists and ankles, biting into raw skin with every stride.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
The sound followed him like something alive, something that wanted him caught. His clothes hung off him in torn strips, offering nothing against the cold. An ancient seal burned across his back, the pain sharp and constant, blue symbols pulsing like a second heartbeat trying to drag him backward. Still, he ran.
Voices rose behind him, closer than he wanted to admit.
"Catch him!" one soldier bellowed, the words cracking with urgency.
"Don’t let him escape!" another shouted back, breathless from the chase.
"The future of the Empire depends on it!" a third roared, like the words themselves might slow him down.
Armored soldiers crashed through the trees, snapping branches, boots pounding the frozen ground. Battle mages lifted their staffs.
"Ice Spears!" one screamed, voice sharp with command.
The air screamed with them. Sharp shafts of ice tore past him, so close he felt the cold bite his cheek before they exploded into the snow. One spear sliced his shoulder open. Pain flared, white and blinding. Another struck his leg, and his knee buckled beneath him. He hit the ground hard, snow filling his mouth, his vision swimming.
For a moment, he almost stayed down.
"I... will not... be chained again," he whispered, each word dragged out like it cost him something. His eyes burned, not with tears, with something harder. He forced himself back up, one shaking hand pressed to his ruined shoulder.
He ran harder. The trees grew taller, older, the kind that had watched centuries pass without blinking. The air turned colder, so cold it hurt to breathe. He reached the edge of a darker woods, the Ancient Forest, and the world went silent around him. Thick black mist clung to the ground like it was breathing. The trees loomed overhead, patient and enormous, like sleeping giants who might wake at any second.
The captain of the guard skidded to a stop, throwing an arm out.
"Stop!" he barked, and it wasn’t a suggestion.
The soldiers froze mid-step. A young knight pointed, his hand trembling so badly he nearly dropped his sword.
"Captain..." His voice cracked. "He’s entering the Ancient Forest."
The captain’s face went the color of an old bone.
"No one goes in there." His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles white. "If we enter, none of us will come back alive."
They all knew the stories. SSS-class beasts. Horrors even Saint Rank warriors refused to face.
The man reached the first giant tree, chest heaving, blood dripping steadily from his fingertips. He looked back once, and despite everything, despite the pain screaming through every part of him, he smiled. Small. Fierce.
"So..." His voice was quiet, almost amused, like he was savoring the moment. "This is where your courage ends."
He reached behind his back and pressed two fingers to the glowing seal. Agony lanced through his spine, so violent his vision went white for a second.
Crack.
The seal shattered. Blue light splintered into a thousand shards, raining down around him like broken glass. Black feathers erupted across his skin, and his body folded inward, shrinking, twisting, until the wounded man was gone and a large black raven stood in his place. The bird beat its wings once, twice, and vanished into the dark of the Ancient Forest.
The guards stood frozen, unable to move. The captain lowered his sword slowly, like the weight of it had suddenly doubled.
"...We’ve lost him." He said it flat, defeated, like he already knew what it would cost him to admit that out loud later.
The raven flew until exhaustion nearly dragged it from the sky, and found a hidden cave tucked behind a waterfall. The feathers fell away in the dark. The man collapsed onto one knee, coughing blood onto the stone floor, his body shaking as he leaned against the cold wall. He pressed a trembling hand to his wounds and pushed slow, careful healing magic through himself until the worst of the bleeding finally stopped.
He let out a long breath, and then he laughed. It came out cracked and tired, but real.
"Haha... I actually escaped." A pause, like he still didn’t quite believe it. "For the first time... I’m finally free."
Outside, the Ancient Forest stayed silent. But deep in the dark, pairs of eyes opened, glowing faintly like embers. Something had noticed the new visitor.
***
**Five hours earlier — the prison**
Deep beneath the Imperial Palace, where sunlight had never once reached, an old prison sat in silence so thick it felt solid. Stone walls were carved with faint blue runes, their glow weak and steady. Thick chains bound a man to the center of the room, his head hanging low, long black hair curtaining his face. He looked defeated. Broken, even.
Until he began to whisper, low and steady, in a language that shouldn’t have existed anymore.
The runes flickered.
Outside the cell, two guards argued in low voices about how dangerous the old man really was.
"He’s just some old prisoner. Look at him, he can barely lift his head," the younger one scoffed, waving a hand dismissively.
The older guard didn’t even look up from the corridor. "Because he is dangerous."
Something in the way he said it should have made the younger one nervous. It didn’t.
A rune dimmed. A hairline crack split across one chain link. The younger guard’s head snapped toward the sound.
"Did you hear that?" he asked, already reaching for his weapon.
Inside the cell, the prisoner’s eyes snapped open, gold and burning in the dark like something waking after a very long sleep.
Chains snapped. The runes flared bright, then died. Warning bells screamed through the tunnels.
"Intruder! The prison seal is breaking! Everyone move!" someone shouted, and the alarm spread like fire down the corridor.
Dozens of guards poured in. The prisoner rose slowly, unhurried, as broken chains clattered to the stone floor around his feet. Dark mana gathered at his fingertips, humming with pressure. With a single swing of his arm, the heavy prison door exploded outward. The shockwave threw guards against the walls. By the time anyone could stand, he was already gone.
"After him! He must not escape!" the captain screamed, voice raw.
He ran through the tunnels, armor clanging somewhere behind him, closing in fast. He raised a hand and shaped a spear of pure shadow.
"Shadow Strike," he murmured, almost casual, like the words cost him nothing.
The spear tore through stone, burying a wall of guards under rubble and buying himself precious seconds.
At the stairwell, the seal on his back flared hot, blue chains of light coiling around him, trying to yank him backward. He gritted his teeth against it and kept climbing. At the top, two elite knights blocked the gate, weapons raised. They struck fast. He dodged, snapped one spear clean in half, and drove his palm into a knight’s chest hard enough to send him flying. The second went silent after one precise strike to the neck.
He shoved the gate open, and cold air hit his face for the first time in years. Snow drifted down around him. He closed his eyes for just a moment, breathing it in.
"Freedom," he breathed, like the word itself was fragile enough to break.
Then the palace erupted with soldiers and mages pouring out behind him. Spells lit up the sky. He dove into Frostfang Forest as explosions tore up the ground at his heels.
No one saw the small, satisfied smile on his face. Everything was going exactly as he’d planned.
He moved between the trees faster than his chains should have allowed, blood scattering across the snow with every stride. The captain barked orders, driving the soldiers harder. A battle mage slammed his staff down.
"Ice Prison!" he roared, and the ground answered instantly.
Pillars of ice burst from the ground without warning. One caught his shoulder and threw him hard across the snow. Chains rattled violently as he skidded to a stop against a tree trunk, the impact knocking the air from his lungs.
The soldiers closed in, forming a tight circle around him. Swords drawn. Magic crackling in the cold air. He pushed himself up slowly, blood streaking his face, breath coming in uneven gasps.
Then he smiled.
"Why are you smiling?" the captain demanded, his voice tight, almost unsettled by it.
The man looked past him, past all of them, like the soldiers weren’t even the point anymore. "You should be asking yourselves..." He let the pause stretch, savoring it. "Why I came this way."
The captain’s eyes widened as he finally noticed the ancient, towering trees. The colder air. The mist curled around their boots.
"We’re at the border..." His voice dropped, barely a whisper now. "Of the Ancient Forest."
Silence dropped over the clearing like a blade. The captain thrust out his hand.
"Stop!" he ordered, though it came out closer to a plea.
Nobody moved.
The prisoner laughed softly, the sound almost gentle. "So..." He shook his head, like he found something quietly funny in all of it. "You finally noticed." He turned and walked toward the black mist without looking back.
A young knight shouted that they could still catch him. The captain grabbed his arm hard enough to bruise.
"Don’t be a fool." His voice shook, just slightly. "One step inside that forest and you’ll never come back."
At the tree line, the prisoner reached behind his back and tore the seal free.
Crack.
Blue light shattered outward. Dark mana burst from his skin. Black feathers swallowed him whole, and he shrank down, wings replacing arms, until a giant raven lifted off the ground and vanished into the Ancient Forest.
The guards stood powerless, watching the space where he’d disappeared. The captain finally ordered the retreat, and one by one, they turned back toward the palace.
The raven found the hidden cave again, reverted to human, and collapsed against the stone. He healed himself in silence and let his body rest. Outside, in the dark beyond the waterfall, huge crimson eyes opened, unblinking. Something deep in the forest had noticed him, and it wasn’t leaving.
Heavy footsteps shook the cave floor. Enormous wolves, seven of them, stepped into a shaft of moonlight, silver fur glinting like frost, each one taller than four grown men. At the center stood a pure white Alpha, its crimson eyes calm and unreadable.
The man managed a tired smile. "So you’re the Alpha."
He raised both hands slowly, showing them empty. "I didn’t come to fight." A breath, steadying himself. "I only need a place to rest."
The Alpha stared at him for a long moment, saying nothing, needing nothing, then turned and led the pack back into the dark without a sound.
The man let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. "You’ve accepted my presence." A faint, tired smile. "I owe you one."
Outside, the moon climbed higher. Far away, morning finally reached the Imperial Palace.
Sunlight woke Theon before he was ready for it. He lay there for a moment, thinking of Lyra, the fire, the seal, the strange look that had passed between his father and Duke Aldric. He trained hard that morning, studied harder, and felt, not for the first time, the quiet sting of not being strong enough. So he decided to test his shadow magic properly.
At the edge of the forest, he opened his System screen and checked his stats.
Shadow Magic Lv.1 gave him two skills: Shadow Leap, which let him cross four meters in a blink,
Shadow Strike, a simple weapon made of shadow. He tested both. Shadow Leap worked exactly as promised. Shadow Strike formed into a black spear and punched clean through a tree trunk.
He smiled at that. Useful. But not enough. Not yet.
Fen, his SS+ class wolf, padded up beside him and pressed his massive head against Theon’s shoulder. Theon pulled up Fen’s Contract Skill: Shared Growth, every kill Fen made handed the same experience straight to Theon. He sent Fen off to hunt and watched notification after notification blink across his vision.
Level up: 10 → 11.
Theon grinned. "With this leveling up is going to be a piece of cake" .
Later that day. Duke Aldric summoned him to the Imperial Archive. And told him "In three days, you begin at the Imperial Academy," the Duke said, his tone leaving no room for questions. "A place of learning. And politics. Not everyone’s smile there will mean what it looks like."
He handed Theon an academy badge, his name engraved neatly across the metal. As Theon walked away, the World Archive flashed a sudden warning across his vision:
*An unknown individual has escaped from confinement. Threat Level: Extremely High.*
He tried to open the record. Access denied. A cold, unfamiliar feeling settled in his chest.
Far away, the Emperor received the same news, that the prisoner had vanished into the Ancient Forest, a place no army could survive. He gave the order to prepare the Imperial army.
"From this moment on..." His voice was low, certain, final. "The empire will never know peace again."
Theon stared up at the sky, and somewhere deep down, in a place he couldn’t quite explain, he felt it. That Soon, their paths would cross.