Everyone fell silent.
For a full minute, not a single word was spoken. The air itself felt heavy, as if pressing down on them all.
Sam slowly stood up. His eyes moved from one face to another—confusion growing with each passing second.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Why are all of you acting like this?"
Ricardo inhaled deeply, steadying himself.
"Sam… please sit down. I'll explain as much as I can."
Sam hesitated, then lowered himself back into his seat. Ricardo sat as well, but Riana and the man remained standing, rigid and tense.
Ricardo's expression hardened.
"I don't know where to begin… but you deserve to know. You are the heir to this world's throne—the last remaining descendant of the true king."
Sam froze.
The words didn't seem real. For a moment, he simply stared—then let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
"Sir… that's a funny joke."
But Ricardo didn't smile.
Sam leaned forward, his voice quieter now.
"You're serious…?"
Ricardo nodded.
The laughter died instantly. Sam's thoughts spiraled, his mind struggling to grasp what he had just heard.
Ricardo continued, "Your father was known as the wisest king of all. Though he never sat upon the throne, he fulfilled his duty more profoundly than anyone before him."
Ricardo rose to his feet and turned away, his back now facing Sam. His hands clenched at his sides.
"And your parents…" he said, his voice tightening with anger,
"they didn't die in an accident. It was the work of—"
He stopped.
Silence crashed back into the room.
Sam shot to his feet and rushed toward him, grabbing his arm and forcing him to turn around.
"Tell me," Sam demanded, locking eyes with him.
The words struck Ricardo like a command—heavy, undeniable. Something in Sam's voice… something he couldn't resist.
For a fleeting moment, Ricardo didn't see Sam.
He saw someone else.
A king.
There is no doubt, Ricardo thought. He is our king… Your son, Majesty.
He swallowed and spoke.
"Your father's closest friend… Carl Zeiss."
Sam staggered slightly, the words barely forming on his lips.
"His… best friend…?"
"Why?" he whispered.
Ricardo placed a hand on his shoulder, his expression filled with conflict.
"I wish I could explain," he said quietly. "But I can't. No one can answer that… except Carl Zeiss."
From the moment his parents died, something inside Sam had gone silent.
Not broken—not completely. Just… buried.
He had taken every emotion that threatened to surface—every scream of grief, every surge of anger, every unbearable question—and forced it down into the deepest corners of himself.
He told himself it was strength. That enduring meant staying still, staying quiet, staying in control. Days passed.
Then weeks.
Then months.
Then years.
And through it all, Sam carried on as if nothing had changed.
But everything had.
The laughter that once came easily now felt distant, like a memory that didn't belong to him anymore. The world around him moved as it always had—people talking, cars passing, life unfolding—but Sam felt detached from it, like he was watching from behind a sheet of glass. He spoke when necessary, nodded when expected, lived because he had to.
Inside, the pressure built.
Grief didn't disappear.
It settled.
It hardened.
It waited.
And so did the anger.
It crept in quietly at first—small, almost unnoticeable. A flicker when he saw other families together. A tightening in his chest when someone spoke about "moving on."
A sharp, bitter edge to thoughts he didn't want to admit he was having.
Why them?
Why not someone else?
Why was he still here?
The questions echoed endlessly, unanswered, feeding something darker with every passing day.
Regret followed close behind.
If only he had said more.
If only he had stayed longer.
If only he had done something—anything—that might have changed what happened.
The "if onlys" became a constant whisper in his mind, gnawing at him, refusing to let him rest.
And beneath it all was the emptiness.
A vast, hollow space where warmth used to live. Where love used to be. It wasn't loud like the anger or sharp like the regret—it was quiet, heavy, and endless. It drained the color from everything, leaving behind a dull, gray existence that felt barely real.
Still, Sam held it all in.
Until he couldn't anymore.
It started as a crack—small, almost insignificant. A moment where the weight felt just a little too much, the silence inside him just a little too loud. His breath hitched. His thoughts raced. The walls he had built so carefully began to tremble.
And then they shattered.
Everything came at once.
The grief he had buried surged upward like a tidal wave, raw and suffocating. The anger ignited, fierce and uncontrollable, burning through him with a heat that demanded release. Regret clawed at his chest, sharp and relentless, while confusion twisted his thoughts into something unrecognizable.
It was too much.
Far too much.
Sam's body tensed as if trying to contain the storm, but there was no containing it now. His hands trembled, then curled into fists at his sides. His breathing grew uneven, shallow and fast, as though the air itself had turned against him.
A surge of rage flooded through him—pure, blinding, unstoppable.
Before he could think, before he could stop himself, his fist clenched tighter and tighter, every muscle in his arm straining with the force of it. His nails dug into his palm, piercing the skin. A thin line of blood surfaced, then another, warm and bright against the cold tension of his hand.
But Sam didn't flinch.
He didn't feel the pain.
Or maybe he did—but it was nothing compared to the storm inside him.
His jaw tightened, teeth grinding as the anger demanded more, louder, stronger. It roared through his veins, drowning out everything else—every thought, every memory, every trace of the boy he used to be.
In that moment, Sam wasn't grief.
He wasn't regret.
He wasn't emptiness.
He was rage.
And for the first time since his parents died… he didn't try to stop it.
DING!
A faint glow flickered at the edge of his vision.
[ CONGRATULATIONS KNIGS BLOOD AWAKENED]
For a split second, his eyes shifted toward it.
Then his jaw tightened.
He ignored it.
Whatever it was, it didn't matter. Not now. Not when the fire inside him was still raging, clawing at his chest, demanding release. The world had already taken everything from him—he wasn't about to be distracted by hallucinations or tricks of a broken mind.
His fists trembled.
Blood dripped slowly from his palm, each drop hitting the ground in soft, uneven taps.
DING!
[ Time Remaining: 15:0:52 ]
DING!
[ Time Remaining: 13:20:22 ]
DING!
[ Time Remaining: 10:11:52 ]
Seconds weren't ticking anymore. They were dropping, vanishing in chunks too large to ignore.
[ Time Remaining: 00:0:00 ]
For a single, suspended moment, everything stopped.
The air.
The sound.
Even his thoughts.
Sam felt it—a shift. Deep, internal. Like something dormant inside him had been waiting… watching… counting down to this exact second.
[CONGRATULATIONS SYSTEM ACTIVATED ]
The words burned brighter than before, searing into his vision.
And then—
Something answered from within him.
Not his thoughts.
Not his voice.
Something older.
Something that had been silent… until now.
Sam's fingers slowly uncurled, the blood on his palm glistening under an unseen light. The rage inside him didn't disappear—but it changed.
It sharpened.
Focused.
Became something far more dangerous than uncontrolled fury.
Power stirred beneath his skin.
Sam's fingers twitched.
The glow faded.
The air around him grew heavy—too heavy.
For a brief moment, he stood there, unmoving, as if his body hadn't yet understood what had just changed inside him. The rage that had burned so violently moments ago now twisted into something unstable, something deeper… something his body wasn't ready to hold.
A sharp pain struck his chest.
Then another.
His breath hitched.
"What… is—"
The words never finished.
His knees buckled.
The strength left his body all at once, like a thread had been cut. The tension in his muscles vanished, replaced by a crushing weakness that spread from his core to his limbs in an instant.
Sam collapsed.
His body hit the ground hard, the dull thud echoing faintly in the silence around him. His bloodied hand fell limp against the floor, fingers barely curled now, the earlier rage drained into something distant and unreachable.
His vision flickered.
Darkness crept in from the edges, slow at first… then faster.
The world blurred.
Sounds stretched and distorted, like they were being pulled away from him.
But just before everything faded—
[ King's System Activated ]