Chapter 43: The Canvas of Fate

Ren put his shoulder into the wood, shoving against the resistance of the rusted iron door until the frame gave way with a long, metallic screech.

The air that bled out from the cell was damp and frigid, smelling faintly of old parchment and stagnant water.

’Not locked...’

The subterranean chamber was swallowed by absolute shadow, save for the faint silhouettes of a work desk, an unlit oil lantern, a single wooden chair, and rows of cluttered bookshelves. At the far corner sat a heavy, brass-trimmed chest.

"Can’t see a thing," Elysia muttered behind him.

She stepped past his shoulder and snapped her fingers. A small flicker of light shot from her thumb, catching the wick of the desk lantern. The flame flared to life, casting a warm yellow light across the stone room.

Ren stepped around the dust-covered shelves, his boots leaving clear prints on the stone floor as he scanned the stacks of loose papers and leather-bound volumes.

"What was this place used for?" Ren murmured.

Elysia stopped at the central desk, her eyes locking onto a solitary, thick book resting near the lantern.

Ren walked over, coming up beside her shoulder. Their eyes landed on the plain, unmarked cowhide cover of the volume.

Without a word, Ren picked up the book. The leather was dry and cracked under his fingers, bearing no title or crest on its face. Whatever was recorded inside had been left here deliberately, tucked away from the rest of the world.

He flipped the cover open. Elysia leaned in close, her eyes scanning the first page beside his.

Written in dense black ink across the top of the parchment was a single, bold heading:

The Dawn of Ruin

Ren’s gaze sharpened, his focus narrowing onto the handwritten script.

"Looks like a journal left by a Celestial scholar," Elysia noted quietly, tracing the edge of the page.

As Ren worked his way down the text, the entries laid out an extensive account of the world’s history.

This planet was once known as Lumiris. Centuries ago, its surface was divided into six thriving continents, populated by distinct nations that existed under the passive protection of their pantheon. The gods preserved the balance of nature and guided human civilization—until a colossal meteor tore through the sky and smashed into the world’s core.

’So the records match the memory trace...’ Ren thought, keeping his expression neutral. The journal confirmed what his vision had already revealed about the extraterrestrial haze that corrupted the pantheon.

He flipped to the second page, eager to dig past the macro-history.

The text shifted to the immediate aftermath of the divine corruption.

When the gods lost their sanity and unleashed hordes of mutated monstrosities—known in the records as Aberrants—humanity was hunted to near-extinction. The global population collapsed from over three billion souls down to a meager twenty million survivors.

Ren’s grip tightened around the edge of the page.

’A ninety-nine percent mortality rate...’

The sheer scale of the purge was staggering. The initial collapse hadn’t been a gradual decline—it was a swift, brutal slaughter executed across six continents simultaneously.

The journal went on to explain how those twenty million survivors managed to endure. A devout spiritualist named Merlin Grace stepped forward, using an unheard-of martial art to hold back the tide of beasts. Armed with high-tier cultivation techniques and an innate connection to atmospheric mana, Merlin manifested spectral blades from the upper sky—the foundational art of the Skyblade.

While the origins of Merlin’s power remained unrecorded, the survivors rallied beneath his banner.

Merlin led the remaining human population to the continent of Askaryn, the only landmass where the Aberrant hordes hadn’t completely overrun the terrain. There, he laid the stones for the very first human stronghold: Starlight Kingdom.

To prevent another extinction event, Merlin eventually divided the surviving populace into five distinct kingdoms spread across Askaryn. If all of humanity remained packed into a single fortress, a single coordinated assault by high-tier Aberrants or corrupted deities could wipe them out in one evening. By dispersing the population, establishing enforced birth caps, and fortifying five separate strongholds, humanity spread the risk. If one kingdom fell, the others could survive and carry the line forward.

Merlin had calculated the risks with terrifying precision, noting that the Aberrants moved in calculated, wave-like patterns—almost as if guided by the lingering wills of the corrupted gods above.

Ren stared at the parchment, his mind processing the geopolitical layout of this world.

’Starlight Kingdom isn’t just a random castle... it’s the cradle of current human civilization.’

He turned his head slightly, eyeing Elysia as she read the passage over his arm. "Merlin Grace... that was your direct ancestor?"

Elysia blinked a few times, looking up from the page before giving him a simple nod. "Yeah. The founding bloodline of our house."

Ren looked back at the book, turning the next leaf.

A large blotch of dried black ink spilled across the lower half of the third page, bleeding through to the following sheets and rendering the remaining text entirely illegible.

Ren let out a low hiss of irritation, closing the ruined journal and setting it back on the desk with a heavy thud.

"Why would someone keep a detailed history text buried in a secret basement?" Elysia asked, leaning back with her arms crossed. "Was the head of this house a historian or something?"

Ren didn’t answer. His gaze was already scanning the rest of the dark chamber, landing squarely on the brown wooden chest resting in the corner.

He walked over to it, the iron hinges of his boots clicking against the stone. Elysia followed a pace behind, raising her eyebrows as she watched him reach for the latch.

The chest wasn’t locked.

Ren lifted the heavy lid. Inside, resting on a layer of preserved velvet, was a single roll of yellowed canvas.

He reached into the chest, pulled out the thick scroll, and carried it back to the desk. Clearing away the dust, he unrolled the fabric, flattening it across the dark wood so both of them could see the artwork stretched across the canvas.

It was a triptych painting—three distinct scenes rendered in fine, dark ink.

"What is this supposed to be?" Elysia asked, leaning over the edge of the desk to study the figures.

Ren stared at the left panel, his back going rigid.

The left drawing depicted a dimly lit, ancient stone corridor—a corridor that looked identical to the interior of an Egyptian pyramid. Inside the panel, an older man was shown lifting an ornate chest, reaching his hand out to grasp a glowing purple crystal.

The middle panel was partially faded, split down the center. On the left side of the split, a young man bearing Ren’s exact facial features and build stood atop an altar, surrounded by robed figures bowing in worship. On the right side of the same frame, that same young man stood alone amidst a wasteland of shattered buildings and dead bodies.

The right panel showed a single, final image: a planet cracked into jagged fragments, exploding into the void of space.

Ren’s heart hammered against his ribs. Cold sweat broke out along his neck, a sharp chill running down his spine.

The left panel wasn’t just a random piece of art. It was a direct depiction of his past life on Earth as Elian—the exact moment he opened the stone sarcophagus inside the desert pyramid and touched the purple crystal before waking up in this world.

His fingers dug into the edge of the wooden desk as he stared at his own face rendered on ancient canvas.

This painting... it knew I was coming.