Arthur felt heavy. It felt like air itself became viscous, pressing against him.

  He opened his eyes.

  He wasn't in his room. The peeling wallpaper, the drafty window, the smell of old wood-it was all gone.

  He was standing in a Hall so vast the ceiling was lost in the shadows. The floor was polished obsidian, reflecting a sky that didn’t exist. Massive pillars, carved from white marble and veined with gold, stretched upward, disappearing into the void.

  The sheer scale of the building was impossible, Stone Arches spanned distances that should have collapsed under their own weight.

  “Where Am I?” Arthur muttered, his voice echoing in the absolute silence. “This looks like some ancient Temple.... Is this a dream?”

  He looked down at his hands. They weren’t pale but transparent, akin to a hologram projection.

  “You sure are loud for an intruder.” The Voice boomed from the far end of the hall. It wasn’t a shout, But a thunderstorm.

  Arthur spun around.

  Sitting on a throne of rough black iron at the end of the hall was a man. He wore Armor that looked like it had been forged from Dragon scales, and a heavy fur cloak was draped over his broad shoulders. His face was scarred, and his eyes....

  His eyes burned with a red fire far more intense than anything Arthur had ever seen.

  “Magnus Ashborn,” Arthur muttered, the name surfacing from his memory, he had seen a drawing of him in the Viscount’s study and his name appeared on the records too.

  Magnus leaned forward, resting his chin on a fist clad in a gauntlet.

  “You are one of my descendants,” Magnus rumbled, his gaze piercing through Arthur’s spirit.” You Soul feels.... foreign. I suppose you came from a world without mana.”

  Arthur straightened his back. He knew that if he lied now, this might be his last dream.

  “I am Arthur Vance,” he said, while maintaining a steady voice as much as he can “And I am currently inhabiting the body of your descendant, Oliver.”

  Magnus laughed. “Inhabiting? Is that what you call it?”

  He stood up and walked down the steps of the throne, the sound of his boots ringing like hammer strikes.

  “I sense the book,” Magnus said, stopping a few feet away. The codex Sanguinis. You touched it and it resonated with you. That book only responds to the Ashborn bloodline. Which means...”

  Magnus reached out. His hand, glowing with red energy, passed straight through Arthur’s chest.

  Arthur gasped, but there was no pain. Just a sensation of cold water running through his veins.

  Magnus pulled his hand back, holding a ball of swirling light. But the light wasn’t one color. It was two, a bright chaotic blue (Arthur), and a faint sleeping silver (Oliver).

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  “Two souls,” Magnus murmured, looking at the light with fascination. “Entwined like vines. The boy... Oliver is not dead, he is merely sleeping. Hibernating to survive the trauma.”

  Arthur froze , his face paling. ”He is ...alive?”

  “Barely,” Magnus said, crushing the light back into Arthur’s chest. “His soul is very weak currently. He retreated into the deepest recesses of his mind to escape from the poison effects. And you... have filled the void.”

  Arthur took a step back. “I didn't choose this, I died and I woke up here. I am just trying to survive.”

  Magnus circled Arthur like a predator. “I feel your rejection, Arthur Vance. You look in the mirror, and you see a stranger. You call him “Oliver” as if he is a tool. You reject the blood and the identity you currently hold.”

  He stopped in front of him, grabbing Arthur by the collar of his shirt-or the spiritual projection of it.

  “You cannot pilot a ship if you are fighting the hull, boy. If you must accept the vessel. You are not Arthur Vance anymore. You are Arthur and Oliver. You are an Ashborn now.”

  Arthur stared at him. The words hit him harder than gravity. Accept him? Accept his life? Accept his family?

  “I...” Arthur stammered.

  “Silence,” Magnus commanded. “We do not have time for your existential crisis; the connection is unstable.”

  He released Arthur, stepping back.

  “The codex brought you here because the Blood resonated with your foreign soul, and you became the medium. To me you are Ashborn regardless of the other details. Now moving into more pressing issues”.

  Magnus waved his hand, and the obsidian floor changed, it became a map of the territory.

  “The man is shifting; The Great Tides are returning.” He continued, “Your core is also sealed, not dead. You have zero mana tolerance and capacity. In your current state, you are just a smart corpse.”

  Arthur paled even further, things only keep getting more complicated” How do I fix My..., I mean his core”

  Magnus sighed upon hearing the boy’s stuttering. “Listen Arthur. To save Yourself, Oliver and the people on that village of yours, you must break the seal. And the only way to do so is to absorb a huge amount of Mana in one go.”

  “If you are successful, your core is active again. But if it fails, you Die...” Magnus finished with a cold look

  “And how can I stop the great tides?” Arthur asked, trying to get as much information as he could

  The world began to shake. The pillars started to crack. The red sky bled into black.

  “The connection is fading,” Magnus noted, looking up at the crumbling ceiling. “Listen to me closely, Heir.”

  He grabbed Arthur’s shoulder. His grip was iron.

  “The Mana rampage is coming. You must find ---”

  CRACK.

  The world shattered before Magnus could finish his sentence.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  ”HAAAAAA!”

  Arthur woke up screaming.

  He sat bolt upright in his bed, his sheets soaked through with sweat. His heart was pounding so hard his vision pulsed with white spots.

  He looked around the room. It was morning, the sun was streaming through the window, bright and indifferent to the terror he had just felt.

  Arthur took a moment to calm himself, regulating his breathing.

  Accept the boy, Magnus’s voice echoed in his mind. You are not Arthur Vance anymore

  Arthur looked at his hands. For a second, he didn’t see the engineer’s hands. He saw Oliver’s hands. The hands that used to hold a toy sword. The hands that held his mother’s hand.

  “Sigh. tell me Elena, what should I be doing now...” Arthur muttered

  He pushed all thoughts to the back for now and swung his legs out of bed.

  It was time to see what surprises this day would have.

  (To be continued....)