Under a dark, dreary sky, the light crept from beyond the dark cloud that covered the sky.
One ray of light sneaked across the dark trees and fell on the boy lay on the shining blue glass.
He stared towards the dull, cloudy sky – the eighteen or nineteen-year-old boy raised his hand as if trying to stop the few rays of light from falling on his face.
“So the legend was true…” He muttered.
The boy raised his body, sitting up – his smooth spiky black hairs shook as he stood up. His red eyes stared down at his body – there was just one piece of clothing covering his body, an old cloak black cloak with a few holes in it.
He randomly chose a direction and started walking; the boy wasn’t sure how long he walked. He walked a while before reaching the edge of the forest – stepping out of it, his red eyes fell on burning lights in the distance.
The boy walked towards the light, reaching a village. The village had few arrows and rusty weapons lying around. The houses were broken, some people were fetching water from a well.
There weren’t many people in the village, around twenty or thirty. A few men and women were wearing old broken clothes, sitting around the bonfire.
The boy went around the fire, sitting on the empty place on the wooden logs that the few men and women were sitting on.
One of the women glanced in his way, “Oh, we get fresh blood after so long, and all we get is a pretty boy?” On the surface, she seemed to be an ordinary village’s housewife, but there was an air of warrior around her.
“Don’t be so harsh on him – Boy! which Kingdom are you exiled from?” A man came sitting beside him, patting his back.
The boy raised his hand, pointing forward in a random direction.
“Isengard…the Kingdom of the Traitor King.”
One of the men, the one with the scar, spoke, staring in that direction, “I am also from there.” He suddenly laughed, “I was sent here for killing the bar owner. He dared asked me for money!!”
Crazed laughter rose from the people that surrounded the fire – it was as if they heard the funniest joke ever.
The boy stared at them before turning his eyes towards other villagers; the few other tens of people looked at this group with nervous eyes.
The boy watched them, his eyes darting between their faces. He stared at the fire, hearing them brag about their crimes and the reason why they were sent to this place.
He soaked information from them as they tried to brag – this world seemed to have three human kingdoms. But there were also monster races that kept the three kingdoms on their toes and stopped them from expanding.
The broken village where they were – it was close to the area that the Goblins ruled over.
Because there were so many monsters to fight and protect their kingdom from, criminals weren’t killed. They were put under a dark magic contract and sent to the boundary areas to survive. If you could stay alive long enough and kill enough monsters, then not only you’d be forgiven, but you’d get a title for nobility. But well, no one ever survived long enough.
The scar-faced man, who seemed to be the leader of the group, said, “Boy do you know how to wield a weapon?”
The boy gave a brief nod looking at the man.
The scar-faced man laughed, “Good! Don’t end up like the girl that came last week!”
The boy didn’t ask anything – he kept staring at the fire. It seemed to have caused the others to lose interest. There were these kinds of people. People like him found it too hard to face reality, so they mostly stayed silent.
Slowly, they stood up, leaving to sleep. When the moon was at its highest, the boy rose to his feet. He walked out of the village, following the wreckage of bows, arrows, scorch marks, water puddles.
When the moon moved away from its highest point, the boy reached a territory where he finally saw the small footsteps. Even in the shadows, behind the trees, a few presences were moving around.
He stopped walking after reaching an area with a few broken trees. He stood there waiting for a while when suddenly he heard a cackling sound behind him. He took a step to his left, dodging the club that struck the ground where he stood.
The boy put his leg on the club, balancing his body on the top of the club, rotating and kicking the green, rough-skinned humanoid. It had pointy ears, claws, fangs, and a long nose – it held its broken nose, trying to scamper away. But before it could run away, the boy picked up the club and slammed it on the goblin’s head from behind. The strike had so much power and skill behind it that it blasted the goblin’s head to pieces without breaking the club.
The boy kept walking in the same direction – there were a few goblins who tried to sneak attack but ended up getting killed with a swing of the club. He arrived at a cave with bones splattered outside. He bent down to look at the bones before confirming them to be human bones.
The boy glanced at them and walked inside – it didn’t take long before there were sounds of clattering and cackling.
Numerous footsteps came from all around, the boy exhaled. Moments later, he dashed towards the left – behind a stone pillar was a few goblins. They held hand-made spears and axes – the moment the boy’s towering appearance appeared in front of them, they tried to attack him. But before they could even move, the club hit the faces of the two in front, blasting them.
The boy snatched the spear from the hands of one of the dead ones piercing the eye of one of the goblins. The spear went inside his brain even as he screamed.
The boy dodged the attack from the fourth and last one, picking up the club, slamming it down on the goblins head, breaking it and the club.
With blood splashed all over his broken cloak, the boy bent down, picking up the two axes that two of them carried. He closed his eyes for a moment before rushing in the other direction, soon he began slaughtering the goblins as they came.
After a long time, the boy stopped, surrounded by goblins dead bodies – the boy looked around, “nothing useful…”
He walked deeper inside the cave, reaching what seemed to be an inner area. As he got closer, he could hear panting voices – the voices of goblins were most prominent.
Without hesitation, he entered the inner area – inside, there were goblins fucking a beautiful woman with blond hair. As roughly as they were using her, it made the boy wonder how she was still alive.
The goblins were too indulged in the woman to notice him – he walked over and killed one of them. The blood from its broken head splattered all over the woman and other goblins surrounding her.
Making strange voices, saying something in a language that only a goblin would understand, they backed away. But the boy didn’t let go – he slashed the ax, killing the weaponless goblins.
The boy stopped there and looked around the room, trying to search for something, when something caught the bottom of his cloak.
“Thank you…thank you…” He glanced back to see the woman with a round face, blonde hair, broad nose, grey eyes, whimpering. You couldn’t tell that this woman had been moaning with her face twisted in pleasure a few moments ago.
The boy stared at her eyes, she seemed to be genuinely upset, but there was one direction she wouldn’t glance. A smile appeared on the boy’s face – it was a hollow smile that reflected a bit of happiness. He pulled away from the woman, but she didn’t seem to want to let go. Causing the only broken cloak covering his body to fall. He was a tall man, muscles sculpted so well that it seemed they were carved by god, itself. He didn’t seem to be mind being naked as he walked towards the wall. Standing at one corner, the boy touched the rock until he finally found a way to open it. He moved the door made up of multiple rocks – it was perfect camouflage, without the woman’s hint, he wouldn’t have found it this easily. He used force to push away six feet high rocks away, revealing a little pool. It was only a few meters in diameter – at the center was a rusty sword, stabbed in the ground.
It was a silver sword with a golden handguard and black hilt. It had ancient golden ruins carved at the center of the blade. But it was rusted, only an image of what it was.
The boy watched it before looking back at the woman, who was also watching the sword with intense fascination in her eyes.
The boy gestured towards her, “come here.”
“Me? Young Master?” The woman snapped of her daze, innocently pointing at herself.
She didn’t wait for the boy to answer but came running, her breasts bounced with every step she took. The boy pointed at the sword, “pick it.”
It was a command that made the woman step back, biting her lips. But it made the boy blink, “You can’t?” She must have already tried it. It made him wonder for a moment why she stayed for so many days if she already knew this was a dead end.
“Young master…” She said in a soft voice that was on the edge of breaking down in the sobs.
But the boy didn’t seem to notice, “you know what it is?”
The woman looked down, her shoulders shivered, “An ancient artifact?”
The boy looked at the sword, “there is a legend on the infinite ladder – it says that when a hero fails to save the world, he and the broken world fall into the shadows of the infinite ladder. But if the Hero fails the gatekeeper’s trail, he is sent to the first broken world. He must make up, atone and overcome the reasons that made him fail the trail, and then and only then can he pick the sword that no one else in the world could.”
“What happens when he picks up the sword?” The woman asked in a calm, intrigued voice – her head was still staring down at the ground.
The boy smiled, not surprised by the change, “he’d be given another chance to pass the gatekeeper’s trail and climb the infinite ladder.”
“And you planned to pick the sword?”
The boy glanced back, his smile turned warm, “atone? Overcome the desires that made me fall into this world? I don’t give a damn!”
His voice turned louder, laughing, he walked over to the sword.
“I will relish them, enjoy everything that these worlds have to offer. I will enjoy myself, live all my dark desires, amass powers, conquer all the broken worlds that lie in the shadow of Infinite Ladder.”
When he put the hand on the sword, blue thunder and lightning shone, rejecting him. But the boy’s eyes shined, his hand holding the sword’s handle, “I will climb the Infine Ladder, but my way!!!”
The lightning and thunder became even bigger, but slowly it turned into black-red thunder and lightning.
The sword moved, slowly sliding out of the floor.
The thunder and lightning covered the boy’s body, turning into the black shirt and pants, with a long black coat over it. A brown hilt appeared on his waist, stuck to the belt. When the light disappeared, the rust from the sword was also gone.
The boy put the sword back in the sheathe, turned around to look at the woman, who had been blown away when he was picking it up.
She raised her body, panting when the boy walked towards her. Her heartbeat became even faster when he came closer when he crouched down in front of her. She could feel her body trembling, her stomach churning, “are you going to kill me?” It wasn’t like she wasn’t trying to kill him. She had tried to think of so many ways to kill this boy, but the moment she even tried to move, she could sense death an inch away from her.
The boy smiled as if she had asked a stupid question, “Will you be useful to me?”
She glanced at him in surprise, “I will do everything to please master!”
But the boy stared at her and asked again, “will you be useful?”
The woman blinked, her lips curving in a smile, “What do you want.”
“Information.”
She blinked, “you were serious about conquering this world?”
“Yeah.”
A twisted smile appeared on her face as she stood up, clapping “that sounds fun!! But are you sure you want a tainted woman like me to help?”
The boy tapped the sword, a cloak appeared in thin air, “you enjoy being raped by monsters. That is your thing – I don’t care. As long as you are useful to me.”
The woman wrapped the cloak around her body, giggling, “To think you figured it out! The men who usually save me don’t figure it out.”
She fixed her hairs, bowing, “My name is Agnessa Von Isengard, the sister of the current king and wife of Duke Rusell Grey. And what should I call you?”
The boy paused for a moment, “I left behind everything when I fell to this realm…Just call me J. for now. I’ll think of a name later.” His sight turned towards the sword – this sword was much more than a ticket back. Right now, he wanted to see how useful it could be.
Agnessa followed the boy as he walked outside the cave, “Jay?”
“J.”
“Yes, Jay? Right?”
“J and a dot.”
“Mmm, Jay is better. Anyway, they seem the same…”
“Whatever, it’s just a temporary name.”
“Oh,”
“What is it?”
Angnessa stared at his side profile, “Lord should give up so easily, especially when he plans to rule worlds.”
Jay glanced at her, “Stubbornly holding on to something that is not important is foolhardy. It serves no purpose.”
Angnessa’s eyes twinkled, “but my lord, a name is an important thing. You must have one that matches your majesty.”
Jay waved his hand, “I’ll think about it…”
Arriving outside the cave, the boy looked at the deary sky. His eyes seemed to pass through the heaven, crossing the void, and a sea of nothingness, until four shadows appeared in front of his eyes, “we will meet one day…Heroes.” He whispered with a refreshed smile on his face.