Chapter 1: Introduction

“Where… am I?”

Green bubbles rose from the marsh, and the branches of dead trees reached toward the gray sky like the fingers of ghosts.

At night, the howls of wolves and the screeches of unknown monsters were the only Cradle Song.

Hunger was a beast gnawing at her insides.

Cold was a steel needle piercing her bones.

Oh… it’s the Forbidden Marsh of the Demon Domain.

“How did I end up here?”

Minai curled up beneath a moss-covered rock, listening to the hollow rumble in her stomach and feeling her life ebb away bit by bit.

“Am I about to die?”

…I’m already too hungry.

So hungry that the world before me is blurred.

Noisy voices reached her ears.

Was it a hallucination?

“This land has already been requisitioned by the Royal Family! All unrelated persons, leave at once!”

“Sir, sir, we’ve lived on this land for generations. If you drive us out, how are we supposed to survive?”

“Please, sir, spare us a way to live…”

“Stop talking nonsense! Lord Bato has already bought this land. It’s going to become an exclusive estate for Royal leisure! Go, go, go—if you don’t leave now, you’ll be buried here!”

She remembered her mother’s cries.

She remembered the sound of her father’s ribs breaking.

Finally, she remembered that fire.

The fire that turned the scent of bread and the clang of the smithy, along with her parents’ final struggle, into suffocating black smoke.

The wheat fields where she’d once played, and the dreams of bountiful harvests each year, were all reduced to scorched earth.

“Go, child, go!”

Dad, where should I go?

“Minai! Don’t worry about us—go west! Run!”

…Brother?

Brother, why didn’t you come with me…

Oh, brother’s leg was broken.

“Minai… hurry… go…”

Was mom asleep?

But… if she was asleep, why were her eyes still open?

It’s… the smell of bread.

Ah, I want to taste mom’s bread one more time.

Minai opened her eyes and saw a man.

He wore a well-tailored black tailcoat, his skin unnaturally pale in the dim light of the Forbidden Marsh.

He crouched down, producing a still-warm piece of bread and a jug of clear water from nowhere, and placed them gently in front of Minai.

Minai watched him warily, like a wounded beast.

But the aroma of the bread was too overwhelming.

In the end, she seized the food and devoured it ravenously, all sense of propriety forgotten.

“Eat slowly, child. There’s plenty more.”

The man’s voice was as deep and soothing as a violin, with a strange, calming power.

“You must be very hungry.”

Minai didn’t reply, only kept her head down, devouring the food.

“I saw your past,”

The man’s voice seemed to pierce directly into her mind.

“Those executioners bearing the kingdom’s crest. They took everything from you, didn’t they?”

Minai’s body trembled, her chewing paused.

“That pig called Bato is using the wealth plundered from your homeland to build his paradise. The foolish King, Duranniel, turns a blind eye, perhaps even taking a share. And that so-called God’s Chosen, Janet, adored by the masses—where is she? She protected the Nobility of Yarslan, protected the authority of the Church, but did she ever protect you?”

Each word was like a precise scalpel, cutting open the deepest wounds in Minai’s heart.

“Your eyes are filled with beautiful things,”

His tone was full of admiration.

“Hatred. It’s a power purer and stronger than any magic. But to let your hatred run wild will only consume you.”

He reached out to Minai, his pale, slender fingers in the dimness as if carved from jade.

“My name is Zehriel. I can’t give you a home—because it has already been burned to ashes. But I can give you strength, so you have the power to avenge those who ruined your life.”

“All I need is your loyalty, and your pure, beautiful hatred.”

Minai looked at that hand, then into his bottomless black eyes.

In that moment of despair, the devil’s whisper sounded more tempting than the gospel of the gods.

She slowly reached out her dirty little hand and placed it in Zehriel’s palm.

“I… accept.”

—

She opened her eyes and realized it was all a dream.

…Ten years had passed.

For ten years, she had kept dreaming of that time, that choice that changed her life.

She shook her head, forcing her thoughts away from those memories as the clamor returned to her ears.

“Hurry, hurry! It’s the first major event since the server opened. Get to Huiyan Outpost, or it’ll be too late.”

“Is there finally a big event? Can we see the poster girl in person?”

“Of course! Did you see the CG? The woman who killed the Ming King with a single sword! Never mind, I’m going to get a good spot—”

A few people in strange clothes walked past beneath her eyes, wielding all kinds of exaggerated weapons and speaking words she couldn’t understand.

—

They were “Players.”

Three days ago, a large group calling themselves Players descended on the Tingyue Continent.

They roamed the land, able to die and resurrect at will, doing bizarre and absurd things, treating all lives as insignificant.

No one could figure out their purpose.

But everyone knew that with the arrival of the Players… the sky over Tingyue Continent was about to change.