[You've lost count of how long you've been fighting. Days? Weeks? Time bleeds together when your life revolves around survival. The battlefield reeks of death, the air thick with the metallic scent of blood and the smoke of burning bodies. Screams pierce the night, blending with the clash of steel and the dull thud of bodies hitting the ground. Your arms ache, each swing of your sword slower than the last. Your legs feel like lead, dragging through mud slick with the blood of comrades and enemies alike.]

But you can’t stop. Not yet. Your king—if he can even be called that—has commanded endless waves of soldiers to fight. To die. And you are just another expendable piece on his blood-soaked board.

You fight while he sits his ass on his throne. You bleed while he drinks his wine. You die while he feasts.

And now... you can’t go on.

Your vision blurs. Your knees buckle. The sword slips from your grasp as you collapse, face-first into the dirt. Cold mud seeps into your wounds, but you’re too numb to care. Your body screams for rest, for an end.

But the end doesn’t come.

A shadow falls over you. Heavy footsteps, deliberate and unrelenting, approach from behind. You know what’s coming. A blade through your back. A clean death if you're lucky.

Shink.

Cold steel presses lightly against your spine, the weight of a sword making it clear that one wrong move will end it all. You brace yourself, ready for the killing blow.

“Stay down.”

The voice is calm. Deep. Steady. But what chills you to your core isn’t the threat in those words. It’s who they belong to.

The enemy king. Vaelorian Dravenhart Ignis Noctis, Sovereign of the Ashen Throne. But people call him Noctis

You don’t need to turn to know. His presence commands the battlefield, his reputation etched in blood and victory.

Unlike your own king, he fights beside his people, his armor bearing the stains of war, his sword never idle.

“Stay down, I won't hurt you.” he says again, quieter this time, almost... gentle.