Thunder crashed over the capital of the Aetherion Empire, as if the heavens themselves were protesting the injustice about to unfold.
Kaelion Vel'Rath, the 13th Prince of the Empire, stood shackled in the heart of the Grand Tribunal Hall.
His long silver hair clung to his forehead, matted with sweat and dried blood.
Once a symbol of nobility, his regal robes,woven from imperial silk and adorned with House Vel'Rath's crest, were now torn and muddied.
He had been dragged through the streets like a common traitor, a spectacle for all to witness.
Towering marble pillars loomed around him like judgmental deities, while at the highest point of an obsidian dais sat Emperor Vanyr the Absolute, the man Kaelion had once idolized.
The emperor's eyes, once warm with pride for his son, now shimmered with icy fury.
"Kaelion Vel'Rath," boomed the High Inquisitor's voice through the sacred hall. "You stand accused of high treason: conspiring in the murder of our Crown Prince, leaking military secrets to our enemies, and desecrating your imperial oath. How do you plead?"
With deliberate slowness, Kaelion raised his head. Fear was absent from his gaze; only pain lingered, a quiet storm of disappointment brewing within him.
"I plead not guilty," he declared firmly. "I have served this empire with unwavering loyalty. The evidence against me is forged! Ask yourselves, who truly benefits from my downfall?"
Gasps rippled through the hall like whispers among hungry vultures circling a fresh corpse.
From beside the dais stepped Prince Valerian, the Second Prince and Kaelion's most cunning rival,with a smirk etched across his face.
"He speaks of loyalty," Valerian sneered smoothly. "Yet who else but he had access to Crown Prince's chambers on that fateful night? Who dared criticize our noble houses openly? Who came from the womb of a servant yet aspired to greatness?"
Laughter and mockery erupted among the nobles, a cacophony that stung Kaelion's ears.
He ignored them, locking eyes with his father instead.
"Father," he said softly, emotion trembling in his voice. "You know what I've done for this empire: grain supply reforms, city defenses strengthened... battles won because of my strategies… lives saved...."
"Enough!" Emperor Vanyr interrupted coldly, each word slicing through Kaelion like winter steel. "Your talents cannot erase betrayal's shadow. I granted you my name despite your birthright, but treachery is something I will not endure."
Kaelion felt despair wash over him; he had known it would come to this the moment those forged scrolls appeared and court proceedings moved faster than law allowed. This trial was nothing more than theater; its verdict decided long before today.
"You will be banished from the Empire," the Emperor declared, each word slicing through the air like a blade.
"Stripped of all titles, lands, and honors. You are no longer a prince of Aetherion. Your soul shall not rest within our ancestral grounds. Your name will be erased from all imperial records."
Kaelion closed his eyes not out of fear, but to etch this moment into his very soul. This was the instant he realized he was truly, irrevocably abandoned.
He understood that mercy was never on the table.
"The Teleportation Gate is ready," announced the Archmage, stepping forward with an air of inevitability.
Armored knights dragged Kaelion through the dim western corridor.
Outside, on a raised obsidian platform adorned with ancient runes, the Teleportation Gate pulsed with an ethereal blue light, a relic from a forgotten civilization capable of sending someone across the Infinite World in mere moments.
It was reserved for two purposes: war or exile.
As Kaelion was shackled to the pedestal, Prince Valerian approached him with a sinister smile.
Leaning in close, he whispered mockingly, "You were always too clever for your own good, brother. Let's see if your so-called genius can save you now in the pits of oblivion."
Kaelion clenched his fists as anger surged within him.
The Archmage began to chant; runes brightened and formed a swirling dome of energy around them.
Suddenly, the portal twisted violently as magic surged beyond control.
A tremor shook the platform.
The Archmage frowned in confusion. "Something's... interfering...."
Kaelion felt a sickening pull deep within him.
Then light consumed him entirely.
From the shadows behind them, Valerian smiled wickedly.
"Let's see how you survive now, brother."
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He fell into darkness.
Pitch blackness enveloped him,endless and eternal.
He couldn't see or hear anything; breath escaped him like smoke in wind.
And just then agony struck like lightning.
A white-hot spike pierced through his chest followed by another through his spine, a thousand more burrowing through his nerves like razors made of pure pain.
It felt as though reality itself was tearing him apart molecule by molecule.
Kaelion's scream echoed in that void, but no one could hear it, not even himself.
And then,oblivion swallowed him whole.
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Arcove Forest awaited him, ,a twisted realm filled with gnarled trees shrouded in black mist and howling shadows.**
The Arcove Forest stretched for hundreds of miles wide and drenched in dark mana; this cursed ground claimed many who dared enter its depths, and here Kaelion crashed down into its embrace.
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Kaelion awoke to an unsettling blend of scents, damp earth mingling with the metallic tang of blood.
The rough grass grazed against his torn skin, a harsh reminder of his circumstances.
Above him, a sky shrouded in dark gray loomed ominously, while two crescent moons gazed down like forgotten deities.
"W-Where... am I?" he groaned, his voice barely above a whisper.
As he stirred to stand up, it hit him, a wave of pain that felt like nothing he had ever experienced before.
It was if it was agony itself incarnate.
His body ignited with fire, as if red-hot chains were constricting every bone and muscle, tearing and burning him from within.
His veins throbbed violently, bulging as if serpents writhed beneath his skin.
Blood streamed from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, a gruesome testament to his suffering.
His scream shattered the stillness of the forest air, echoing like a dying creature trapped in a predator's lair.
This wasn't just pain; it was obliteration.
He felt everything the snapping of muscles, the searing flames licking at his nerves, the grinding of bones as though millions of molten needles pierced every fiber of his being all at once. It was relentless.
His throat raw from screaming yet still the torment persisted.
He couldn't move not even a finger.
Paralyzed and violated by unseen forces, it felt as if his very soul was being flayed alive.
Once regal garments now lay in tatters, blood-soaked rags clinging to a body on the brink of death.
In desperation, his mind cried out...
Let me die. Please, I just want to die. I can't take this anymore.
But death remained elusive.
Time warped around him; each second stretched into an eternity while every heartbeat became a drumbeat of horror reverberating through the silence.
There he lay in Arcove Forest, blood pooling beneath him, a survivor of wars and betrayal alike…
But this? This was hell on earth.
And then....
Silence fell like a heavy blanket over him. The pain began to fade, not entirely but enough for his battered body to collapse inward like a broken marionette.
He gasped once and finally blessedly slipped into unconsciousness.
He lay there in that dark forest: bloody, broken… barely breathing.