It was a long-standing tradition within the Dracknum family never to reveal the details of the Hunter’s Judgment. The records spoke of the judgment lethality, the skills required, and the centuries of tribulations that had forged the lineage’s leaders… but nowhere was there any mention of what the trial actually entailed.

This had led many to theorize that the judgment either varied from person to person or changed with each generation. Yet, since no one was allowed to reveal its contents, no answers were ever found.

The only certainty—agreed upon by all who had undergone it before the decline three centuries ago—was this: it was hell.

“One thing I can tell you is that, on average, it takes five years to complete,” Galdric continued, his voice indifferent. “The most talented finish in two or three. The truly exceptional, in a single year. And the anomalies… in a matter of months.”

That was the moment I stopped listening.

‘Five years?... Five years stuck here?’ My mind raced, searching for possibilities. I had already spent six months in the Demon Forest, surviving among beasts and unrelenting dangers. Six months away from civilization—and, more than anything, from my precious books.

And now… at least five more years?

I refused to accept that. “I don’t have time for this,” I growled, my fists clenching, my expression hardening. “Isn’t there a faster way?”

Galdric watched me in silence, his ancient eyes—full of secrets I couldn’t begin to fathom—fixated on me, studying me with the patience only an immortal could possess.

Seconds dragged on. A minute… two minutes… three…. four… five.

My anxiety mounted, but he remained unmoving. The silence stretched until the only things I could hear were the sound of my own breath, the faint hum of the air around me, and the increasingly loud pounding of my heart.

Then, after ten long minutes, he finally spoke.

“Alexander… let’s do this.” His voice cut through the silence like a blade. Slowly, he raised a hand, and the wall beside us began to crumble into dust. The solid stone dissolved like sand blown by the wind, revealing a cavernous passageway in its place.

A dark corridor, formed of pure, impenetrable blackness. 

A shiver ran down my spine as I realized something was… wrong.

The entrance was surrounded by a transparent film, resembling a distorted, liquid glass. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer rippled across its surface, like the reflection of an unseen world on the surface of a lake of black water.

My instincts screamed at me, this was no ordinary passageway.

Galdric turned to me, his expression as unreadable as ever.

“I will give you two choices.”

I swallowed hard.

“The first: remain here and undergo the Hunter’s Judgment. If you do this, and truly push yourself—until you can go no further, and yet somehow still find the strength to move forward—then, like all those who came before you, you will emerge from this place as a true Dracknum.”

He paused, letting his words settle. “The second…” His eyes gleamed in the dim light. “Cross the Demon Mirror of Erebus.”

My entire body tensed.

“If you make it through successfully, you’ll return to where you came from. It’s a direct path—one way, no return.”

My breath caught in my throat, a cold chill crept down my spine.

“If you pass through it and emerge on the other side, you will have proven yourself a Dracknum… or, at the very least, that you possess the bare minimum qualifications to be considered one.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off it. So this was the shortcut? At first glance, it seemed like the better option. But it wasn’t. It was a death sentence.

“You must be joking…” I muttered.

The Demon Mirror of Erebus. One of the most terrifying and dangerous relics in history.

Erebus had once been an ancient demonic kingdom that existed on the material plane over seven hundred years ago. Unlike other infernal domains, Erebus did not reside within the demon realm but rather in the very reality that Allythéon now stood upon.

Erebus. A shadow-cloaked empire, a kingdom that wavered between the real and the illusory—a land where the line between existence and oblivion was dangerously thin.

For those who dared to cross its borders unprepared, there was no return.

The darkness of Erebus was not merely the absence of light—it was a veil of despair, a web of illusions that wove themselves into one’s very perception, distorting reality until the victim no longer knew if they even existed at all.

At the heart of this forsaken domain stood its ruler: Azrael, the Lord of Perpetual Night.

The Demon King of Despair.

Among demons, where power was often measured by sheer brutality, Azrael was an exception. He wasn’t just powerful—he understood the nature of the mind, the soul, and fear itself. It was said that a single glance from him could condemn a person to death—not by blade or magic, but through the sheer collapse of their will. His illusions were so vivid they rooted themselves in reality, some unraveling the mind until it fractured beyond repair, others consuming the body until all that remained was an empty husk.

Some believed that if he had wished, Azrael could have risen to the very pinnacle of the demonic hierarchy. His power rivaled that of the great kings and overlords of the demon realm, and yet… he remained in Erebus.

Not out of ambition. Not for conquest. What drove Azrael was something else—something subtler, more enigmatic. And it was that very enigma that led to his downfall.

The ancestors of the Dracknum family, along with warriors, mages, mercenaries, and adventurers, rose against him. What began as a territorial war quickly escalated into a cataclysmic conflict. The continent itself barely survived the devastation. Nature, kingdoms, civilizations—everything was swept into the war. The very land suffered, and even a millennium later, scars of that battle still marred the world.

But in the end, Azrael fell. His domain crumbled. His kingdom was banished to the demon plane.

His body was destroyed. And yet, even centuries later, his name was never forgotten. Whispered in legends, written in forbidden tomes, invoked in nightmares—Azrael had never truly ceased to exist.

But his soul? Azrael’s soul had been sealed within a Mirror—one that became a cursed artifact of unparalleled destruction. Since then, the Eye of Azrael had remained a relic of dread. A living portal, brimming with shadows of despair, a reflection of pure ruin.

‘Ninety percent of those who dared to cross it… were never seen again.’ My fingers clenched at my sides.

I knew the stories. The records claimed the Mirror had been destroyed the day of the demon invasion in Dracknum.

But… it wasn’t the first time today that those same records had been proven wrong.

I turned my gaze to the passage. What stood before me was not just a gateway. It was an abyss—one I knew with absolute certainty I would not survive.

And Galdric expected me to step into it?

It was common knowledge that no one should ever set foot inside that Mirror. Any fool who did was doomed to relive their worst days, months, or perhaps even years. Time within it was unstable, flowing unpredictably. Many who entered emerged long after, claiming they had spent an eternity trapped inside. Most returned broken, consumed by fear and despair. Some came back as mere shadows of what they once were—eyes vacant, as if their very souls had been stripped away.

And then, there were those who simply never returned—neither in body nor in spirit.

My breathing grew heavy. My heart pounded against my ribs as my gaze remained locked on that dark threshold, on that shimmering, distorted film that pulsed like a living thing, waiting to devour me. My hands were clammy. A shiver ran through me, unbidden.

I was afraid. And for the first time in a long, long time…

I had no idea what to do.

✦ ✦ ✦

While Alexander stood at the crossroads of fate, far away in Dracknum, the suffocating darkness of the dungeon swallowed everything.

The stench of damp stone and rusted iron filled the air, mingling with the bitter scent of dried blood that clung to the ancient walls. Distant droplets echoed through the corridors, the slow, rhythmic sound breaking the tense silence of the cell.

A young teen with messy black hair and golden eyes lay shackled to the cold floor, his slender frame marred with bruises. The chains binding his wrists and ankles were nothing but a formality—he wouldn’t be escaping, even without them.

Before him, four figures loomed like titanic shadows.

And at their center stood Baldwin Dracknum, vice-patriarch of the family and a living legend.

Israel Dracknum, Baldwin’s eldest son and one of the most promising young talents of the family, reached instinctively for something at his waist—only to grasp at empty air. He sighed, remembering that his beloved claymore was no longer at his side.

As the patriarch’s firstborn and heir to the Dracknum lineage, his expression was cold and meticulous. Yet, every so often, his gaze flickered toward the entrance, where César Dracknum lingered at a distance.

Standing just outside the open doorway of the cell, César observed the scene with clenched fists. He had been forbidden from approaching, his temper making him a liability. By his side lay the group's weapons—he had been tasked with guarding them.

But beyond them all, there was a fifth presence.

A man clad in black, his aura distinct from the others. He bore neither the commanding air of a noble nor the crushing presence of a warrior… yet something about him unsettled even the most seasoned Dracknum warriors.

He belonged to the Black Squadron.

The executioners of House Dracknum. Assassination, espionage, interrogation, torture… No task was too vile for them. And today, this man had only one job—to extract the truth from Ethan.

But before he could begin, Baldwin erupted in fury.

The vice-patriarch’s massive hand seized the teen by the collar, wrenching him from the floor in a single motion. The boy was lifted effortlessly into the air, like nothing more than a rag doll, the chains on his wrists clinking as they restricted his movements.

“Such insolence!” Baldwin’s voice boomed through the dungeon like rolling thunder. The stone walls trembled under the weight of his fury. “At first, I refused to believe the report… But to think that MY blood would commit such an act!”

Golden eyes flashed with defiance. the boy bared his teeth in a bitter smile.

“And so what if I’m your blood?” he spat, his words venomous. “It never meant a damn thing! Admit it. To you, I’m nothing but a bastard. A mistake. Just another one of the ‘incidents’ in the great Vice-Lord of Dracknum’s history!”

The weight of his words landed like a well-placed strike.

Israel remained still, the corners of his lips twitching slightly into a brief smirk before he regained composure. Luminus, on the other hand, frowned ever so slightly but remained impassive.

the teen gaze burned as he locked eyes with Baldwin.

“Look at me.” His voice was raw with anger and something else—something fractured. “Tell me, do you even know my name?”

A heavy silence settled over them.

He exhaled sharply, his expression caught between fury and something less defined—loneliness, perhaps.

“Of course, you do,” he scoffed bitterly. “At least, I assume you do. You must have read the damn report they put together on me. Or did you even bother?”

Baldwin remained silent.

The boy's laughter was dry, hollow.

“Did you ever, for even a moment, consider me your son? Did you ever care that I existed? That your other bastards exist?” His voice sharpened, dripping with scorn. “How many are there? Do you even know how they live? If they even eat?...” The boy was out of breath, but still continued “Tell me… Did you ever love my mother? Or did you just feed her sweet lies, the same way you did to so many others?”

Silence.

 Baldwin did not answer.

“Of course not.” The boy’s voice carried the weight of exhaustion—not just physical, but the kind that sank into the bones, into the soul. “The great Baldwin doesn’t need words, does he? What woman wouldn’t willingly fall into bed with a powerfull Dracknum? And yet, they call my mother and the others whores.”

He spat on the ground. “But in the end, you’re worse. Because at least they never pretended to be something they weren’t.”

A second passed. Then another. 

Then, Baldwin’s fingers loosened, and Ethan fell. He hit the cold floor with a dull thud, his breath coming in short, uneven gasps. He didn’t lift his head.

Israel's fists remained unclenched, yet a faint tremor betrayed his effort to suppress the slight upward twitch of his lips

Luminus kept his expression neutral, but his stance was rigid. And César…

César looked on the verge of an explosion. His jaw was locked, the vein in his neck pulsing violently.

And Baldwin? He simply stood there, unmoving, staring into nothing.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

Then, Israel took a step forward. His gaze fell upon the boy, cold and precise. Slowly, he crouched, lowering himself to Ethan’s level.

“Tell us, Ethan.” His voice was smooth, refined, every syllable carefully measured. He didn’t waste time with pretense.

“Why did you aid the mercenaries? What reason did you have to betray your own bloodline?”

Ethan didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at him.

Ethan's entire body began to tremble. A small smile flickered on Israel’s lips as he watched the boy's reaction. He attempted to question Ethan again, but was abruptly cut off.

“Hmph.” The member of the Black Squadron sighed, clearly unimpressed. Unlike the nobles around him, he had no patience for psychological games. “Why summon me if all you intend to do is chatter idly with the suspect?” His voice dripped with disdain.

Baldwin hesitated for a moment, his clenched fist twitching at his side. The words left his mouth before he had even fully formed them. “I thought perhaps reason, or even intimidation, might work… but…”

He left the sentence unfinished, his mind still weighed down by Ethan’s accusations.

The hooded man strode forward, each step echoing ominously against the cold stone walls. A thin, cruel smile crept across his lips as he knelt before the shackled boy.

he took off his hood and looked into Ethan's eyes “Boy…” he murmured, slipping a hand inside his robes. “I appreciate your silence. Otherwise, my fun would’ve been cut short.”

With slow, deliberate movements, he retrieved a dark leather case.

And opened it.

Inside lay an array of horrors—torture instruments of varying shapes and sizes, each one tainted with the remnants of dried blood.

Ethan broke out in a cold sweat but remained silent.

The man tilted his head slightly, studying him with eyes devoid of warmth or humanity.

“Don’t worry… They may be small, but they will make you suffer.”

And then… the screams began.

✦ ✦ ✦

Minutes dragged on.

The air in the dungeon grew thick, saturated with the suffocating echoes of Ethan’s muffled cries.

Israel, Baldwin, and Luminus had stepped away, leaving the torturer to his work. They now stood outside, joining César in the dimly lit corridor just outside the cell.

César leaned against the wall, eyes shut, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Then, light footsteps echoed through the corridor. A hooded figure approached, their slim silhouette wrapped in dark robes adorned with delicate golden embroidery. As they passed the nobles, they gave a slight nod before stepping into the chamber of torment.

"Yellow Squadron?" César's brow furrowed, already anticipating what awaited the boy.

The Yellow Squadron was known for its role in medical care, first aid, and healing in Dracknum.

But here?... The door shut behind them. And once more, the air was filled with screams—only this time, they were accompanied by the torturer’s gleeful laughter.