***
The days in As-Saqarah are scorching. The extreme climate of its arid deserts and the sparse vegetation that survives on infertile lands define the country's daily rhythm.
What filth... A nation where, if you're not gifted, you're deemed useless and discarded by a system rotting in its own delusions. They have no idea their brazen ideological garbage is tearing the roots of the people apart, cornering those who lack talent in the use of Lysae.
Everyone in that country is the same. Everyone looks at you with disdain. They all kick and spit on you, even when your intellect far surpasses their stupidity.
They all… deserve to be annihilated.
The root of it all lies in how a system full of morons with disproportionate power can destroy everything.
I grew up without a mother. My father was kind and warm. My early years were peaceful… but everything has to reach its limit.
Everything… everything has a limit.
—Aderas, you must hide. You can't come out until Dad returns, is that clear? —my father said with a gentle smile.
—Yes! —I replied enthusiastically, not knowing those would be the last words I'd ever hear from him.
Later, when my father didn't return, I spent three days locked in a small hole in our house, where he kept food rations for when desert tornadoes infused with Lysae struck. Nature is brutal in that country.
The day my father left me in that hideout behind a makeshift shelf built from discarded planks, I heard a noise—like someone had thrown a sack into the house. It wasn't a big house, but it was cozy.
When the rations ran out, hunger won the battle. I decided to go out and look for Dad… only to find his lifeless body near the entrance.
That moment marked a turning point in my life.
As I stepped into the world, some men found me and said they'd finally located "Osmer's guarantee." I didn't understand at first, but I soon discovered that my father had made a mistake with the Grand Saqah—one of the most powerful figures in the empire of As-Saqarah.
There are five such entities in the empire: mighty governors who hold the country in their own hands.
They took me and brought me before him: the Grand Saqah, Odinaris Samaq, who had killed my father and tossed his body back into our home, hoping I'd find it. His way of ensuring they'd track me down—payment for the offense my father, Osmer, had committed.
The Saqah demanded his head… or the enslavement of one of his children.
—Did your filthy little father give you a name? —he said, looking at me with disgust.
…
—No answer, huh? —he added as he rose from his throne.
His black robe dragged along the floor like a trail of liquid shadow. His face, as if the desert itself had carved it with lashes of sand, bore a scar that ran from his left brow to his chin. His eyes—dull grey like ancient ashes—seemed to pierce through you without seeing. He wasn't tall, but every gesture carried the gravity of a ravenous god.
—My Lord, you mustn't waste your energy on vermin like this. Your magnificence already echoes across the lands. To spend your divine strength on this insect without latent power is—
—SHUT UP!!!! —the Saqah interrupted, his face twisted in rage— Do you dare command me? Do you presume to tell me where I can and cannot spend my energy?
—I decide how and where to waste my energy. GET OUT, before I skin your face alive!
Hearing those words, fear overtook me. My body trembled as if an endless quake surged through my bones.
—I asked you —he said, slapping my face— What's your name, you useless, filthy lifeform?
I fell to the ground. Then he kicked me. Thirteen times in the stomach. He didn't stop… not until a small drop of spit landed on his foot, a byproduct of my cries of pain and pleading.
—YOU! Filthy, reeking scrap... how dare you soil me with your disgusting fluids!? Lock him up and whip him! But don't kill him... —he growled, his face warped by fury— Make it seven lashes a day. Seven. I want him alive.
And so it was.
I spent three years in that place—caged, my body split open by lashes, too weak to do anything… except die. But death never came.
One day, a natural cataclysm swept through the southern part of the citadel. A massive sphere of sand—dense like stone and furious like a wrathful god—rose on the horizon and advanced, devouring everything. Such disasters were common, yes… but never this close. And this time, it exploded.
The citadel trembled. The walls collapsed. The Grand Saqah's castle shattered like an old clay pot. Among the rubble, many perished: nobles, wives, even the Saqah's children.
The walls of my prison fell one by one. And so I was freed… though the chains still bound my hands.
I walked out. I stepped into the arid desert, where monsters and sandstorms kill anyone who dares cross it. But I didn't want to die.
I chose to live…
To destroy everything.