Chapter 112: Birth of a Hero
The silence stretched, heavy as lead, until Jack finally forced the words out.
"How did you end up here?" His voice echoed through the cavernous throne room, a small defiance against the oppressive cold.
Ren’s star-bright eyes narrowed slightly, the faintest sign of acknowledgment. "Straight to the heart of it," he said, voice a low rumble that resonated in Jack’s chest. "I appreciate that."
The Patriarch, this ancient being who had summoned him, shifted on the black-silver throne. Frost cracked beneath his boots as he leaned forward, elbows on knees. The silver veins in the stone pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
"I was born in the Prosperity Kingdoms," Ren began. "Five realms bound by treaty and ambition. To them, I was a prophecy. A child blessed with power enough to turn the tide of every war. They named me hero before I could even lift a sword."
Jack listened, the low hum of the System faint in the back of his skull. Corvin tilted his head, violet eyes unblinking.
Ren’s gaze drifted to the distant murals lining the walls, scenes of wars long ended. "I fulfilled every promise they placed upon me. When the Demon Lord rose, I led the armies. I closed every dungeon, quelled every rift. For twenty years I fought while others feasted. And when at last the Demon Lord fell, I believed my task complete."
A cold laugh scraped across the chamber like iron on stone. The sound made Jack’s teeth ache.
"Peace should have been my reward. Instead, peace bred fear. Kings who once called me savior began to whisper: What if the hero chooses to rule? What if he decides the crown belongs to him?"
His eyes sharpened, the light in them like distant lightning. The silver veins in the throne flared brighter, responding to his emotions. "Poisoned wine. Assassin’s blades. Spells meant to rupture my soul. I endured them all. I thought they were desperate men, grasping at shadows. I was wrong."
Ren rose to his full height, the temperature dropping with every measured step he took toward Jack. Each step cracked the frost beneath his boots, the sound echoing like breaking bones.
"They invited me to a summit, the five thrones, five kingdoms united in celebration of our victory. My oldest companions stood at my side. Friends I had bled with. Trusted."
The air thickened with each word. His fingers had gone numb, but whether from cold or fear, he couldn’t tell.
"They betrayed me," Ren said simply. "They had bargained with gods. Together they wove a curse older than the Spire itself. When their spell struck, it did not kill me. It unmade me. Tore the soul from the flesh and hurled it into this prison of endless stone."
His hand clenched, and the silver veins in the floor flared bright enough to hurt Jack’s eyes. The light cast harsh shadows that seemed to writhe and twist.
"The gods feared what they had forged. They gave my betrayers the key to my cage. And when their mortal lives ended, their names were sung as saviors while I rotted in legend."
"You’ve been here... how long?"
"Eight hundred years," Ren replied without hesitation. His voice carried the weight of every day, every hour of that imprisonment. "Eight centuries of silence. Of watching empires rise and crumble beyond these walls. I can shake the Spire itself, but I cannot leave. The gods made certain of that."
Jack exhaled slowly, his breath creating a small cloud in the frigid air. "And now you think I can."
"I know you can." Ren’s voice held no boast, only certainty carved from centuries of study and patience. "The Soul Warden is the one mortal the gods cannot chain. Your power reaches beyond the Spire. With you, the gates can be broken. I can walk free."
Ren stopped an arm’s length away. The pressure radiating from him made Jack’s bones ache. "Help me leave this tower, Jack Kaiser, and I will bind my strength to yours. I will fight beside you until your final breath. My sword, my knowledge, my centuries of power, are yours to command."
Jack’s heart thudded once, hard, the sound loud in his ears.
But Ren wasn’t finished.
"There is one condition." His voice cut sharper than any weapon, each word precisely measured. "When we are free, you will allow me to erase the bloodlines of the Prosperity Kingdoms. All who descend from those who betrayed me will be extinguished. Not one drop of their accursed lineage will remain."
The cold in the room turned to ice. Even Corvin shifted uneasily, feathers puffing against the pressure of the words, violet eyes darting between Jack and the ancient being before them.
Jack forced himself to meet Ren’s gaze, though it felt like staring into the heart of a dying star. "You want me to help you commit genocide."
"I want justice," Ren said evenly, his voice carrying the patience of stone. "Their descendants walk the world unpunished. The gods who aided them have long since turned away. Only I remember. Only I can finish what they began."
The silver veins along the floor pulsed again, echoing the steady thunder of Ren’s restrained fury.
Jack shook his head slowly, fighting against the supernatural pressure that made thinking difficult. "Your vengeance is... three centuries too late."
Ren’s eyes narrowed to starlit slits, the temperature dropping so fast that frost began forming on Jack’s clothes. "Explain."
"The Prosperity Kingdoms," Jack said carefully, "were wiped off the map three hundred years ago. A demon lord rose again. Nothing remains. No kings. No bloodlines. Just ruins swallowed by time."
For a long, breathless moment, silence reigned. The air itself seemed to freeze, and Jack could hear his own heartbeat thundering in the stillness. Ren stood perfectly still, the star-light in his eyes flickering like a dying constellation.
Then, to Jack’s shock, the ancient hero laughed. Not the brittle chuckle of bitterness, but a deep, resonant sound that filled the throne room like distant thunder.
The laughter echoed off the walls, seeming to come from everywhere at once. "So," he said at last, "the gods’ precious kingdoms fell without me. How fitting."
The laugh faded, leaving something colder in its wake. The temperature stabilized, though it remained frigid enough to see breath. "Their children’s children paid the price I could not exact. Perhaps the world has a sense of balance after all."
Jack swallowed hard, the weight of the revelation pressing down on him like a physical thing. "Then what do you want now?"
Ren’s expression softened, though the power behind it never wavered. "I still feel their bloodline on the surface. Someone, somewhere has survived, and I will extinguish their light."
The System stirred, its neutral chime loud in the heavy silence, cutting through the supernatural pressure like a blade.
[New Quest Available]
[The Forgotten Hero’s Oath]
[Objective: Take Ren outside the tower]
[Reward: ???]
[Warning: Choice will have permanent consequences.]
The glowing words hovered at the edge of Jack’s vision, a silent challenge that seemed to pulse in rhythm with his racing heartbeat.
Ren waited, patient as the centuries he had already endured, star-bright eyes fixed on Jack with the intensity of a predator that had learned infinite patience. The ancient being’s stillness was more unnerving than any threat could have been.
Jack’s mind raced, fragments of doubt and calculation colliding in his skull like shards of broken glass. The enormity of what Ren was asking pressed down on him.
An alliance with something this ancient, this powerful, it could change everything.
But at what cost?
His throat felt dry as sandpaper despite the moisture in the air.
The System couldn’t even read Ren’s level.
He couldn’t analyze his rank, his stats, nothing.
What did that mean? Was Ren beyond the System’s ability to measure, or was something actively blocking the scan?
Trust him? The thought tasted bitter as copper on his tongue. This was a being who had been betrayed by his closest friends, his most trusted companions, who had spent eight centuries nursing fury in a frozen tomb.
Even if the kingdoms that wronged him were dust, what would stop him from finding new targets for that rage?
What would prevent him from deciding that Jack, too, had outlived his usefulness the moment freedom was within reach?
Ren’s knowledge alone could be the difference between survival and death in this hostile world.
The difference between remaining weak and helpless or becoming something that could stand against the forces trying to kill him.
Jack’s hands trembled slightly, and he clenched them into fists until his knuckles went white.
The binding would protect him, wouldn’t it?
Soul-bound creatures couldn’t harm their master, that was the fundamental rule of the power.
But could those chains even hold something that gods had needed to trap? Something so powerful that divine intervention was required to contain it?
The frost continued to spread across the floor in delicate, intricate patterns, reaching toward Jack’s boots like grasping fingers.
’Can I really bind someone this powerful?
Would the soul binding even work on a Sovereign-class entity?
Can I trust him after what happened to him?
How strong is he really if even the System can’t read his stats?
What if he turns on me the moment he’s free? What if the binding fails?’
[DING...]