Vacuse was dead. And then he wasn’t.
He gasped awake, one hand going to his chest and the other went up as if to stop the heavens from falling on him. His chest was tight from pain and fear.
"...the Dragon roasted us alive and wanted to eat us?..."
It took a few seconds and a lot of blinking to realize that he wasn’t dead and the pain he was feeling was an illusion.
He sighed in relief and took a deep breath. He rubbed his face with his two hands. "It was all a dream."
And what the hell happened to his voice?
Vacuse lost his left hand from the elbow down since he was a kid, chopped off in a single swing. It was one of the reasons he was terribly bullied and struggled all his life.
Even people with two hands suffered, much less him.
The sight of his two hands and the sound of his voice struck his mind like an arrow, and every realization clicked in his mind.
"I should be dead. I was killed. If the spear didn’t kill, then the Dragon would surely have done away with me. So how?"
His voice sounded like that of a kid, and he shuddered.
"Did the Dragon cast some kind of spell? A special talent of it?"
Fear was beginning to settle in his mind because he remembered the stories of people that were turned on by unbound beasts and the terrifying things that were done to them, things that were worse than death.
Vacuse took a deep breath. "...I need to calm down... first things first... I need to know where I am..."
He turned to look around.
He was on a bed in a room that was lit with low light, and on his sides were two beds. Arranged all around the room were different beds with kids sleeping on them.
"This reminds me of my childhood... wait... impossible!" Vacuse sat up, eyes wide.
He slid away from his bed, and he realized he was almost the same size as his bed. His heart began to beat fast. The last time he had two hands was when he was six years old.
Without hesitation, he moved towards the wall in the corner, and he stood in front of the mirror. "Absolute fuckery!"
The face that was staring back at him was that of a grunt kid with hollow eyes. His red eyes were haunted, his black hair like strings on his head.
He couldn’t believe it.
"I am six years old," Vacuse said, shock and surprise battling in his voice. He touched his face, feeling the bones beneath his thin flesh. His face was covered in bruises, blue and purple.
"Why am I so malnourished?"
Drenvar didn’t care about all the bastards that he had until they’d passed through the rite and shown their real potential as Soulbearers. He treated them as nothing more than annoying pests that he had to deal with.
And to make it worse, Vacuse was one of the smaller children, and he was always bullied, his food eaten while he only got to lick plates after.
"I really suffered," he muttered softly. Then his eyes hardened. "But that was all in the past. Even the heavens will curse me if I let go of this opportunity to make something with my life."
Just then, a sound shot through the room like a sharp blade cutting the air. It was the sound of a bell waking them.
The children were used to such things, and they woke up, all of them between the age of five and six, some with only a few days between them.
Drenvar was the worst of the worst bastards.
He would time it and then spread his "seed" at the same time, impregnating multiple women so that the children would always come in batches.
They didn’t go to wash or anything. Instead, the children all rushed out of the building and ran down the hallway into the hall, where more children also poured from different hallways.
Now they were mixed, both male and female.
And Vacuse was among the unwashed bodies of the bastards of Vorrakyn.
It was mealtime. It was the first thing they did when they woke up because after that, their time would be filled with training and working.
Yes, Drenvar didn’t like hiring many servants and used his children. He did have a lot.
Long tables, five of them, were arranged in the hall, and they all found a chair. They didn’t sit. Instead, they stopped by the chair.
Vacuse had gone through the same process until he bound his lesser beast and moved out of the dorm.
Before, in the past, he would be feeling dread because mealtime might be what others were looking forward to, but for him, it was the time to get beaten.
But now, his heart was beating fast.
Then the servant that was responsible for their care entered. The man was bulky with red eyes of the Vorrakyn, one of the numerous bastards created by the former family head.
He sneered, his lips curling with misery. "Today, you will be given food and then you will learn about what it means to be a Soulbearer and a Vorrakyn!"
He raised his hand, and a soft blue light like condensed wind appeared. "What it means to use the force!"
Everyone’s eyes glittered because they knew what was coming—the first rite where all the bastards would be given equal chance together with the legitimate children of the Vorrakyn Family.
A chance that would set the foundation for all of them.
Vacuse grinned. He was going to take full advantage of it.