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Chapter 1: The Offering
The sky above Eldros Hollow churned with storms blacker than the deepest void. Thunder rolled like the beating of ancient drums, shaking the earth to its core. Lightning lanced across the heavens in jagged, furious arcs that illuminated a world scarred by countless wars and forgotten gods. Beneath the storm's wrath lay a land broken and forsaken — a place where the soil cracked open in endless fissures, rivers ran thick with ash and blood, and the very air tasted of death.
Eldros Hollow was no sanctuary. It was a prison, a crucible forged by the gods to seal away the unspeakable horrors lurking beneath its surface. For centuries, countless souls had been dragged here, shackled and sacrificed, their deaths binding the darkness below in fragile chains.
Today, the Hollow claimed another.
Arthur stumbled through the mud, his arms chained by iron shackles etched with ancient runes that glowed faintly in the tempest's gloom. These were no ordinary chains — they were forged to suppress power, to crush any spark of cultivation that might resist. His legs were scraped raw against the jagged stones beneath him, his breath ragged with exhaustion and pain. But his spirit would not break.
Two knights in crimson robes marked with the sigil of the Iron Banner — a lion pierced by seven spears — flanked him silently. Their grip was firm, their faces unreadable beneath their helms.
Behind them strode a third figure, tall and imposing, crowned with scars from countless battles. His eyes, cold and unyielding, fixed on Arthur with unflinching resolve.
Sir Mikel.
Once Arthur's master, the man who had taught him swordplay, battle formations, and the art of survival. Now, the judge delivering his death sentence.
"You should feel honored," Mikel said, voice low but commanding. "Most who fail the Awakening are executed quietly. But the Hollow accepts your tribute. Your sacrifice will seal away the things beneath this place for another hundred years."
Arthur spat blood onto the ground, defiance burning in his eyes. "Then let me haunt you for a hundred and one."
Mikel's gaze hardened but did not waver. With a measured motion, he unrolled a scroll stained with dried blood and powdered bone. The runes inscribed upon it pulsed ominously as he began chanting in a forgotten tongue older than the mountains themselves.
The earth beneath them trembled. Great cracks spiderwebbed across the ground. A massive stone slab, once thought eternal and immovable, split open with a grinding roar. Beneath it yawned a spiraling staircase of obsidian, descending into the abyssal darkness below.
A cold breath exhaled from the depths — the chill of a slumbering beast awakened.
Mikel gave a single nod.
The knights seized Arthur and hurled him into the void.
He did not scream.
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Arthur fell.
Endlessly.
Time lost meaning. Gravity twisted and bent until it ceased to exist. Around him, whispers of dead languages called to surrender, to lose himself.
His body flailed in the void — striking nothing but infinite darkness.
Minutes, hours, or perhaps centuries passed. There was no way to tell.
Finally, he landed.
Not on stone.
On bones.
Thousands of them — shattered skulls, cracked ribs, brittle vertebrae — crunching beneath him like dry twigs.
Pain flared, sharp and raw, through his broken limbs. Blood soaked his torn tunic, but his breath came steady.
He opened his eyes.
Before him stretched an abyssal chamber bathed in an eerie, faint glow.
"No aura," he muttered, voice ragged. "No power. Only silence. Only death."
A voice answered, not from the air, but from deep inside his soul.
No.
The single word echoed through his bones, stirring a spark long thought dead.
Arthur forced himself up, every movement agony. But determination fueled his limbs.
Suspended before him in a column of starlight hovered a scroll — unlike any he had ever seen.
Its surface shimmered with constellations, swirling cosmic ink, and runes that seemed alive, bending the very fabric of reality.
The scroll pulsed once and slowly unfurled, revealing visions: knights turning to ash, mages screaming as runes consumed them, dragons devoured mid-flight by invisible jaws.
Offered. Forgotten. Betrayed. You are not the first.
Arthur's lips trembled.
"I will be the last."
Do you wish to walk the Six Pillars?
The phrase struck him like a thunderclap.
The Six Pillars — the foundation of all cultivators in the lower world. Each a path to power, each a sacred rule of the universe.
Arthur remembered the day of his Awakening — the day his aura should have blossomed, but instead, there was only silence, an empty void.
"No," he whispered.
Then devour them.
The scroll surged into his chest like a supernova.
Light and void tore through his flesh. Runes blazed across his skin, binding and rewriting his soul.
Inside him, a universe was born — embryonic, infinite, chaotic.
The Scroll Realm.
Arthur was no longer a boy. He was something else.
A devourer.
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Inside the Scroll Realm, countless stars flickered dimly — threads of possibility weaving and unraveling like cosmic webs.
A voice echoed within.
Feed me. Grow.
Arthur's chest burned as warmth and power surged through his veins.
His broken body knit itself whole. Wounds closed. Strength blossomed — raw and unformed but fierce.
He opened his eyes. The abyssal chamber was now aglow with the gentle radiance of starlight.
The path ahead was clear.
Driven by instinct, he moved forward.
Soon, he came upon a sealed gate guarding an ancient chamber.
Beside it lay the skeletal remains of a knight, armor fused with stone, clutching a scroll faintly pulsing with dark energy.
Arthur reached out.
Technique found: Obsidian Knight's Path — Mortal Tier (Complete).
The scroll dissolved into shadows and was pulled into Arthur's Scroll Realm.
Threads of dark iron wove through the void, forming a spectral knight clad in obsidian armor.
It knelt, bowed, then faded.
Technique absorbed. Compatibility: 68%. Reforming.
Result: Foundation Devour Path — Stage 1 formed.
Power surged through Arthur's limbs.
No longer was he a failed cultivator.
He was reborn.
Not bound to the Six Pillars.
Not tied to old ways.
He would forge a new path.
One of hunger and endless growth.
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As Arthur took his first steps in the darkness, the Scroll Realm shimmered with life inside him.
Each heartbeat fed the embryonic world, causing it to expand.
With every breath, it devoured the void, consuming laws and techniques, weaving them into an ever-evolving power.
Arthur could feel it — a hunger deep and insatiable.
This was no ordinary cultivation.
This was devouring.
And with it came endless possibility.
He was no longer a pawn of fate.
He was the author of his own destiny.
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Far above, the storm over Eldros Hollow raged on.
Lightning shattered the clouds.
The earth trembled.
And somewhere deep below, a new force stirred.
A force that would change the world forever.
Arthur's journey had begun.
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End of Chapter 1
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