Crossworld Swordplay

Damon threw himself backward, just narrowly avoiding the upward claw. Stone shattered where he'd stood, shards slicing across his cheek.

He rolled to a crouch, heart pounding.

Cedric was still standing—barely. Blood trickled from his abdomen where the broken blade had struck true, but it was no longer just blood. It shimmered—thick, black, and smoking like tar boiled under pressure.

The boy's back arched unnaturally.

"Rghhh—kkhk—grrrghhh…"

His growl deepened, wet and animalistic. Bones cracked. His arms lengthened. Fingers split open, each digit extending into sharp, gnarled claws. His eyes rolled back, then snapped forward, yellow and glassy like a hound's. A snarl ripped from his throat.

His face contorted—nose elongating, jaw breaking forward with a sickening crunch. Teeth burst from bleeding gums, serrated and uneven. His uniform tore at the seams, muscles swelling with unnatural speed.

The courtyard gasped in unison.

Someone screamed.

The crowd of first-years shifted back.

Patches of coarse gray fur erupted from his arms, then his chest and neck. His spine twisted, his legs bent backward into a beastlike crouch, claws digging into the courtyard floor.

He let out a howl—broken, tortured—like something caught between madness.

—

(Mini-Flashback) 

A black horse stared down at him.

Its eyes gleamed—two slits of molten silver set in a void of ever-churning black. The horse didn't neigh or stomp. It simply stood there, impossibly suspended above him, hooves resting on nothing, mane shifting like a curtain of living smoke.

Damon's breath caught in his throat. He couldn't tell if it was truly there, or if the Sigil Stone had pulled something out of his mind and forced it to manifest.

It stared at him blankly—then lowered its head and nuzzled his outstretched arm, slow and silent.

[Simulation Menu Unlocked]

Simulation Anchor Point: Detected

Day 45, Year 304– Sword Academy Infirmary

Access Level: Level 1 – Multi-Thread Jump

Simulate alternate outcomes from this moment forward.

▸ Simulate World

Primary Divergence Options:

You were a Centaur Squire in the Wildhoof Tribes

Your lower body was equine, your upper human. Among the Wildhoof people, strength was law and tradition was blade.

You were trained to duel with bow and glaive on the run.

(Chance of successful DNA sync: 1%)

You were cursed with the Blood of the Mare-King

Once human, now a arcane abomination. Under going a wild ritual in a attempt to unlock the secrets of the human body, you had been pact left with your soul half-corrupted and your body twisted. Every full moon, hooves grow from your limbs.

You fled to the mountains, hunted by both man and beast.

(Chance of successful DNA sync: 17%)

The air grew dense.

Damon blinked, and he tripped on a tree root, "Ouch," he hissed landing on his knees.

"I should really start preparing for these abrupt jumps" he said dusting himself off and looking up at the crescent moon hanging in the sky, "now then, where the hell am I?"

The wind whispered softly through a forest of tall, slender trees. Their trunks stretched quietly into the night sky, bark damp and mottled with patches of pale lichen. The branches above formed a thin, tangled canopy, just enough to let the crescent moon peer through in shifting fragments of silver.

Leaves rustled faintly with each breeze. Their shapes were familiar—oak, ash, birch—but something about the way they moved felt… off. As if the forest itself was watching.

Damon rose to his feet, brushing dirt from his knees. The forest floor was thick with fallen leaves, damp with dew and soft underfoot. Roots crisscrossed the ground, but none bulged unnaturally—just the ordinary chaos of a healthy woodland.

But still—something was wrong.

The trees were normal in size, yes. But the air—the air was wrong. It pressed against him with a stillness that wasn't silence, but tension. Like a breath held too long.

Ahead, a narrow deer path curved through the underbrush. He stepped onto it, cautious. Each footfall landed softly, yet felt loud. Too loud. He paused, straining to hear.

A twig snapped.

His breath caught.

The mist was coming in low, hugging the ground like a pale veil. It wrapped around his boots, curling gently as if searching for something. It carried with it the scent of soil, moss, and something faintly metallic.

Blood?

He stepped backward once, instinct prickling.

Then he saw them.

Pawprints.

Like a wild beast had just circled him. 

Run, his body screamed. 

He turned to look behind—and froze.

There, between the trees, something moved. Low to the ground at first, then upright. The silhouette of a beast, gaunt and long-limbed. A hunched back, twitching. Furred—but not like any animal he'd seen.

Its forelegs ended in clawed paws. Its hind legs were fleshed and distinctly huma.

It sniffed the air.

Damon stepped back again, and the thing crept forward.

His fingers clenched. He grabbed a fallen branch—sturdy, smooth, not ideal, but solid.

[Memory Sync Option Available.]

Sync emotions?

[Yes] / [No]

[Yes] 

[LIFE RECONSTRUCTION ARCHIVE – ACCESS GRANTED]

[Host Identity: Damon of House Valtair]

[Thread Timeline: Year 274 – Year 289 (Present) ]

[Year 274 – Day 1]

You were born a bastard son of House Valtair.

Your mother was a foreign servant girl—once a pleasure maid from a distant border town. Kept in secrecy and forgotten in silence.

She died in childbirth.

Your father, Baron Rhoderic Valtair, never spoke your name aloud.

You were raised in the servant quarters.

[Years 282 — Age 8 ] 

At age 8, you were caught stealing an old riding manual from the stables. You were beaten and sent to clean blood from the dueling floor.

You read the manual anyway.

[Year 283 – Age 9]

You discovered the library's locked annex during a cleaning errand. Inside, you found forbidden pages sealed in blood-thread parchment.

They spoke of Chimeric Rituals—spliced soul patterns, rituals to alter flesh.

You did not understand them.

But you memorized the structure.

[Year 285 – Age 11]

You began crafting your own horse tack and trained in silence after dusk, riding the warhorses when no one watched.

A steward caught you but let you go with a light verbal lashing. 

[Year 287 – Age 13]

You began copying fragments of the Valtair Codex.

Your illiteracy made it difficult to understand the full meaning of the forbidden pages you'd found—

but what did stay with you was the hidden ritual compendium, composed more of images than words.

By candlelight, in the dust-shaft above the kitchens, you traced the glyphs with charcoal and gut string.

You were seen.

That night, you were thrown into the old cellar and forgotten for three days.

You emerged with cracked ribs—

and the full sequence of the Equine Transfiguration Rite.

[Year 288 – Age 14]

You performed the ritual beneath a blood moon, deep in the eastern forest.

The ingredients you gathered were:

▸ Thirteen vials of horse's blood

▸ Gleaming marrow from a horse's skull

▸ Tendon thread, carved from your own thigh

▸ A binding circle etched in an ossified salt ring

▸ The severed head of a foal, skinned alive from dusk till dawn

The result was an Incomplete Sigil Fusion.

You screamed for six hours as your body warped.

Bones cracked.

Hoof-like growths ruptured from your calves.

And for eight days after, you were unable to sleep—your mind splintered, wandering the edge of delirium.

[Year 288 – Age 14]

The Valtair household discovered the missing ritual.

They posted a bounty on your head.

Within days, three independent mercenary groups were hunting you.

You killed two men during your attempt to disappear into hiding.

—

Damon staggered back, panting. His head throbbed with fourteen years of memories—but instead of overwhelming him, the system seemed to filter what he couldn't handle, highlighting only the critical events.

His hand lowered to his sword—and unlike the first time he'd simulated a DNA sync, this time it stayed at his hip, steady. His fingers curled firmly around the hilt.

A low growl rippled through the underbrush, shaking the leaves.

The creature stepped between two birch trunks—and the moonlight caught its face.

An elongated snout, coated in bristling black fur. Teeth too long. Eyes silver and slit vertically, like something born beneath a cursed moon.

"Did you think you could escape, gutter rat~?" the beast snarled.