Free Web NovelChapter 381: 381 — A Monster’s Birth (5)
He lay on the cold floor, his head resting on a thin pillow.
He had never been given more than necessary—only the bare minimum required to survive.
Why?
He had never asked.
Perhaps because nobody would have answered him, or perhaps because, from the moment he became aware of his surroundings, he had already learned that asking questions often led nowhere.
Sometimes, he would watch the other children living on the opposite side of the Temple.
They played together.
They laughed.
They ran through the gardens without fear.
Their clothes were neat, embroidered with patterns and symbols he didn’t understand. They ate warm meals, attended lessons, and spoke freely with the priests assigned to them.
Meanwhile, he was permitted to wear nothing more than a plain piece of cloth.
Simple.
Uncomfortable.
Strange.
At times, the rough fabric irritated his skin, but complaining would accomplish nothing.
The strangest part was how differently people treated him.
Most of the Temple attendants behaved as though he were some noble young master. They bowed their heads, lowered their gazes, and rarely dared to speak unless he addressed them first.
Yet the High Priests constantly reminded him of a completely different reality.
He was not special.
He was not important.
He was not a noble.
He was merely a child they had taken in. A child they had sheltered out of kindness.
At least, that was what they always told him.
The boy stared at the ceiling above him.
If that were true, then why was he forbidden from leaving unless it was for a mission on the battlefield?
Why was he watched day and night?
Why were chains waiting for him every time he returned, while the other children wandered freely through the Temple grounds?
He could not see the expressions on the High Priests’ faces, but he could hear the tremor in their voices whenever they removed his blindfold and ordered him to deal with captured enemies.
Raniel could not understand any of it.
The questions lingered in his mind, unanswered, as always.
Living alone within these walls suffocated him. He had thought about running away countless times. But how could he do that when he did not even speak the same language as everyone else in the kingdom?
The language he had been taught was different. The High Priests only used that tongue when speaking to him.
What was it called?
He didn’t know.
It was also the reason he could never befriend the other children.
They could not understand him. And he could not understand them.
Then there was the blindfold. Never leaving his eyes.
"He is scary!"
"I don’t want to play with him!"
"Go away!"
Some children cried at the sight of him. Others ran away. And some simply pushed him to the ground whenever he tried approaching them.
At first, Raniel had not understood why.
He had done nothing to them. He had never insulted them. Never hurt them. Never even raised his voice. Yet the way they acted toward him was as though he were some terrifying monster.
Slowly, he stopped trying. Stopped approaching them. He stopped hoping for a miracle, for an escape.
Instead, he remained on his side of the Temple, watching from afar through the small opening on the wall of what could be barely called a window as they laughed together beneath the sunlight.
Sometimes, he wondered what it felt like. To have friends. To belong somewhere. To be wanted.
The thought made his chest ache in a strange way. A feeling he could neither understand nor name. So he simply rolled onto his side and pulled the thin blanket closer to himself.
Tomorrow would be the same as today. And the day after that would be no different.
***
And for many years, he killed. He took countless lives without ever truly understanding what happened to the people standing before him.
His eyes did not allow him to see the world as others did. All he saw were strange threads connected to people.
Some were bright. Some were dull. Some changed colour. Some had more than one, while others had only one. And over time, Raniel gradually came to understand one thing.
When a thread turned completely black, it meant the person was dead. There was no soul left inside the body. That was all he knew.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
One day, unlike usual, Raniel was finally permitted to enter the Temple’s library.
The place held little value to him. Most of the books were written in a language he could not read, their pages filled with symbols that made no sense no matter how long he stared at them.
Still, he liked being there.
It was quiet.
Peaceful.
No chains.
No screaming prisoners.
No high priests giving him orders.
As he wandered between the shelves, familiar voices drifted through the room.
"Finally, those Revhara prisoners died," one of the High Priests exhaled sharply, a satisfied smirk evident in his voice.
Another chuckled. "At least they were useful before dying."
Raniel paused.
He recognized them immediately. Not through their faces but through their voices. And through the unique grey outlines that represented their bodies in his vision. He had memorized it over the years. Although someone had a rather strange figure as time passed.
The boy remained silent, standing between two shelves.
His world had always been the same, pitch black. Filled with grey silhouettes. Filled with countless threads stretching in every direction.
He never questioned it.
How could he?
Nobody had ever told him the world was supposed to look different. Nobody had ever explained what colours were. Or sunlight. Or the sky. Or flowers. Or trees.
To Raniel, reality had always been darkness interrupted by outlines and threads.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
"High Priest XVII says the boy’s control is improving," one of the men suddenly said.
"The Grim Reaper?"
A chuckle followed.
"Yes. Him."
Raniel stiffened slightly. The title sounded familiar. They often used it when speaking among themselves.
Yet nobody had ever explained why or what it meant.
"The Kingdom of Revhara has already begun fearing him. Imagine their faces if they knew he was only a child."
The two priests laughed.
A strange feeling settled in Raniel’s chest. They were talking about him. He knew that much.
Yet he didn’t understand why their voices carried such amusement whenever they did. As if he were not a person. As if he were a weapon they had crafted with their own hands.
The thought lingered in his mind long after their footsteps disappeared deeper into the library.
For reasons he couldn’t explain, he suddenly no longer wanted to be there.
And for the first time in his life, Raniel found himself wondering what exactly the Temple had turned him into.
***
"What am I?"
The question stunned the High Priests. They exchanged perplexed glances before turning their attention back to the young man standing before them.
"Why do you ask such a thing?" High Priest I snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "You were never curious about these matters before, Raniel."
"I know, but I..." The boy hesitated. The words became trapped in his throat.
How was he supposed to explain that he no longer understood anything around him? That the things people said and the way they treated him never seemed to match?
"Don’t be silly," another priest interrupted with a laugh. "We already told you, didn’t we?"
A smile spread across the man’s face.
"You are our hero. You are the one destined to save Hianshu from those cruel Revhara people who keep attacking us. They have done so for centuries. Without you, we would all be dead."
The others nodded in agreement.
Raniel blinked, confused.
Heroes. The word sounded nice whenever they said it, warm and special. Yet something about it felt wrong.
If he was truly a hero, then why was he treated differently from everyone else?
Why was he watched every hour of the day?
Why were chains waiting for him whenever he returned from the battlefield?
Why was he forbidden from leaving the Temple grounds without permission?
Heroes were supposed to be admired, respected, strong and free. At least, that was how the stories described them.
But Raniel had never felt free. Not the one described in the dictionary at the very least.
The thoughts lingered inside him, though he lacked the courage to voice them aloud.
His gaze lowered toward the floor. Or rather, toward the endless darkness his eyes perceived.
The day he had manifested as an omega, everything had changed.
Before that, the priests had merely been strict. Afterward, their attention became suffocating. His surroundings suddenly filled with alphas.
Every lesson. Every escort. Every mission.
Alphas, alphas, alphas. Only alpha pheromones.
As though his second gender had somehow become a crime. In Hianshu, omegas occupied the lowest position—weak, and fragile. That was what people believed.
And yet, instead of being discarded like most omegas, he was locked away even more carefully than before.
"Protection," they called it.
The contradiction made no sense.
Sometimes, when he returned from training, bruised and exhausted, he would wonder if the priests were punishing him for manifesting as an omega.
Other times, he wondered if they were afraid of him.
The latter sounded ridiculous.
Why would anyone fear him?
He was only Raniel. A boy who could barely understand the world around him. A boy who knew nothing beyond the Temple walls. A boy who spent his nights staring into darkness, wondering why everyone insisted he was a hero while treating him like a prisoner.
"Go to the library now. We have prepared something you might like there," High Priest I said, grinning at him.
