Live

The world didn't ask for the "Great Catalyst" of 1715. It happened because Louis XIV, the Sun King, died and triggered a global evolution. In his wake, the Earth became a sponge of sorts—a planet that heals its own wounds, regenerating forests and cities as if they were skin. Along with the world, humanity changed. We gained Divine Rights, powers born from internal will.

Three centuries later, those Rights are the only thing that matters.

I was twelve when I met Jeanne Arc. I had just been kicked out of a local library for loitering when she found me. She was dressed in a silky white dress that from the looks, cost more than my parents made in a year, yet she was perched on a grime-streaked curb, eating a cheap popsicle.

"You look bored," she said, her eyes tracking a car passing by. She licked the melting purple popsicle, then held the stick out toward me. "Want the rest?"

I stared at the grape-flavored popsicle for a second before muttering, "Sure, I'll try it." I took a bite, but the artificial sweetness hit my tongue like battery acid. I gagged and flung the rest into the gutter.

"That’s a waste!" she laughed, kicking her heels against the concrete. "I’m Jeanne. My family says they have a 'Right' to rule or whatever, but I think I’d rather just have the 'Right' to play soccer. Want to come to the estate and play?" She leaned in, inspecting me as if I were a curious piece of jewelry. "My parents won't mind."

That was the start. For years, the Arc estate was my sanctuary. While the rest of the world fractured into three warring factions—the Crown, the Meridian, and the Hollow—I was in a backyard with Jeanne. She was the light to my shadow. She possessed a Tier 4 Divine Right called Output, which allowed her to boost the kinetic energy of anything she touched. When her foot connected with a soccer ball, it didn't just roll; it flew like a comet.

I didn't have a Right. I didn't want one. I just liked the cool grass under my feet and the way Jeanne made the world feel like something other than a battlefield.

But the world doesn't want peace.

It happened on a Tuesday night during spring break. I was staying over at the estate when a sound ripped through the silence. It wasn't the snap of a twig; it was the screeching symphony of a thousand mirrors shattering at once.

"Antares, get down!" Jeanne screamed.

She lunged at me, her shoulder slamming into my chest to tackle me toward the floor. Above us, the stone wall didn't just crumble—it disintegrated, the rock escaping its own form and scattering into a cloud of jagged shards. Standing in the settling dust was a man who made my skin crawl: the Fracturing Felon. A high-tier mercenary for the Bourbons, his will was absolute: everything he designated simply fell apart.

"The Arc lineage ends today," he said, his voice as dry as grinding gravel.

In seconds, the room became a slaughterhouse. The estate guards—men who had taught me how to tie knots and tell jokes—were reduced to a fine red mist before they could even unholster their weapons. My lungs seized. I couldn't find the rhythm to breathe. I was just a paralyzed kid watching a god unmake my world.

Jeanne grabbed my collar, her knuckles white as she dragged me backward toward a heavy, reinforced vault set into the floor. Her side was soaked in crimson, her brown hair matted and dark with blood.

"Jeanne, we have to go, we have to—"

"Antares, listen to me," she gasped. She shoved me against the lip of the vault, her shaking hands pressing hard against my chest. Suddenly, a surge of heat erupted from her palms—the most violent manifestation of Output she had ever used. It felt like my heart was being overclocked, my veins turning into wires of white-hot fire.

"The crate... inside the vault. It’s for you."

The ceiling began to fracture, spiderwebs of light racing across the stone above her. "Live," she whispered, her focus drifting as her strength failed. "Please, Antares. Just live."

With a final, desperate shove, she sent me tumbling into the dark hole. I fell through the air and slammed into the cold, damp stone of the basement just as the floor above collapsed with a deafening roar.

In the suffocating dimness, I saw it: a heavy, black metal crate marked with the Arc family seal—a sword entwined by a snake. My hands shook so violently I could barely catch the latch. My fingernails tore against the metal as I wrenched it open.

Inside sat a blade. It wasn't elegant like the other Arc relics; it was a blade of matte-gray metal that seemed to swallow the light. It hummed with a low, angry vibration that made my teeth ache. Etched into the dark steel, in a raw, jagged script, was a single word:

LIVE.