The exam hall was a cavernous space, designed to intimidate. High, vaulted ceilings were supported by pillars carved with scenes of legendary battles, each one a testament to the academy's long and bloody history. Rows of simple wooden desks—twelve in total, six on the left, six on the right—faced a single, imposing lectern at the front.
Lucien entered, and the nervous murmurs that had begun to fill the room died a sudden death. He didn't glance left or right. His golden eyes swept the room once, dismissing every other occupant. He walked straight to the front row and took the seat directly before the lectern, claiming it as his birthright. A few students exchanged uneasy looks. Those seats were supposed to be assigned, but no one dared to tell a Valehart what to do. The unspoken rule was simple: Lucien Valehart defined the rules around himself.
A moment later, the professor entered—a severe-looking man with a grimace permanently etched onto his face. He carried a stack of papers that seemed to weigh him down with their importance. He didn't speak as he moved through the rows, placing a single exam face-down on each desk. The only sound was the soft thump of paper on wood and the frantic beating of a thousand nervous hearts.
He reached the lectern and finally looked out at the students, his gaze lingering for a moment on Lucien, who met his eyes with unblinking arrogance.
Professor: You have one hour, the professor's voice boomed, flat and devoid of warmth. Answer all questions. Those who finish early may submit their paper and leave. That is all. He sat down, pulling out a timepiece and placing it on the lectern with a definitive click. Begin.
The room erupted into a symphony of frantic scratching. Pens flew across parchment, brows furrowed in concentration, and anxious sighs echoed in the vast space. All except one.
Lucien didn't even pick up his pen. He first turned over the paper and read through the questions, his expression one of bored indifference. Then, a slow, confident smile touched his lips. It was a smirk of pure superiority.
Most of the questions were about the Great Unification and the events leading up to the Schism of Year 453. They were questions about politics, battles, and the foundational principles of Art Styles.
This is child's play, he thought, the smirk never leaving his face. They're asking me to recite my own family's bedtime stories.
He finally picked up his pen, not with urgency, but with the leisurely grace of an artist about to sign a masterpiece.
The Past - A Lesson for the Exam
A thousand years ago, the world was a crucible of endless, bloody conflict. There was no peace, only the constant song of steel and the spillage of blood. Nations rose and fell, their borders drawn and redrawn by the edge of a katana. In this era, the katana was more than a weapon; it was the soul of the warrior, a symbol of pure, honed mastery. Victory went to the strong, the cunning, and the numerous. A lone warrior, no matter how skilled, could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Once surrounded, you were as good as dead.
This brutal status quo was shattered by one man.
The man, a true genius among peoples. His name has been lost to public history, erased by time and perhaps by design, known only in the most secret archives.
He discovered a force that flowed through the world, through the air, through living beings themselves. He named it Mana. But his true genius lay not in the discovery, but in the application. He learned to channel this raw, formless energy, to focus it and give it intent through the conduit of his blade. The first time he swung his katana and a crescent of pure fire scorched the earth, severing a line of a dozen armored soldiers, the very concept of warfare was rewritten.
This new power—which he named Art Style—was born.
He did not conquer alone. With his four closest friends—a brotherhood forged in battle and blood—he strode across the continents. The armies of nations, the empires of old with their thousands of soldiers, were rendered meaningless. A single, well-placed inferno could decimate a legion. A localized earthquake could swallow a cavalry charge. The world, overwhelmed by their sheer, unimaginable might, had no choice but to fall under their control.
Countless warriors fell before them. The five warriors became living legends, demigods walking the earth. The people, weary of war, accepted them as their new, ultimate rulers. They anointed them the Five Nobles. And from their bloodlines, the great noble houses were born, each carrying the potent blood and unique magic of those first conquerors.
For centuries, there was a fragile peace, an order maintained by the shadow of their power.
But the man, the architect of this new world, was not satisfied. The fire of ambition that had driven him to unite the world now threatened to consume it. His thirst for power grew into an obsession, a void that could not be filled. He began to seek a force beyond Art Styles, a power that predated mana itself.
He found it.
A terrifying, primordial power, one capable of unmaking the very world he had once shaped. Mastering an Art Style required discipline, training, and a deep connection to one's mana. But this new power was different. It was a pact, a corruption. It didn't matter how hard you trained. It didn't demand skill.
It demanded a price. A ************.
In his growing madness, the man looked upon the world he had built and saw only filth, chaos, and meaninglessness. He declared that the only path to true purity was to scour the world clean, to reduce it to ashes and rebuild it from zero. He chose absolute destruction.
The other four warriors, his brothers, were faced with an impossible choice. Bound by duty to the billions of lives they now ruled, and by a sorrow that threatened to break them, they raised their blades.
For the world, for the people, for the sake of a future, they raised their blades against their own brother.
The battle that followed was not a war. It was an apocalypse. It shook the heavens and scarred the earth so deeply that some lands are still blighted and uninhabitable to this day. More than a quarter of the world's population perished in the crossfire, collateral damage in a fight between gods. The histories say that in the end, the four, fighting with tears in their eyes and hearts of lead, struck down their founder.
To honor his memory and the unbroken bond of their brotherhood, the four victors made a vow. They would continue to call themselves the Five Nobles. They would ensure his name was remembered not as a monster, but as a fallen hero, a founding pillar. His place in history was secured, his legacy sanitized.
And so, the world moved on, under the stable, if heavy, rule of the Five.
The professor's voice cut through the hall, pulling Lucien from his thoughts.
Professor: Time! Pens down.
Lucien stood, his paper perfectly completed. He placed it on the lectern and was the first to leave the hall, the echo of his footsteps the only sound in the stunned silence.
But that's the story they tell. The official history. The lie woven into the tapestry of time to maintain order.
Beneath the polished surface of this history, in the deepest, darkest archives and in the whispered tales of those who live in the shadows, another truth remains.
A truth only a few ancient, terrified souls still remember.
A truth that, if revealed, would not just shatter the world, but break it beyond any hope of repair.
The man who was said to have died on the field of battle, struck down by his beloved brothers...
Did he really fall that day?
Or did something far worse awaken in his place? Something that sleeps, and waits?
The answer does not sleep in a tomb. It sleeps within the blood of the forgotten, in the outliers, in the ones who do not fit...
Waiting for the day it will be called upon to rise again.