"I will ask you again, Grey. What is it that resides in your core?" A Vritra scientist asked.

"Pfft. After a year you still can't get my name right? I'll tell you again, my name is Arthur Leywin." Arthur said with pride while strapped to a metal table, then spit blood in the scientist's face.

The Vritra scowled as he took a handkerchief out and wiped his face.

"So be it."

"Ugh." Arthur grunted as they began cutting his left arm off with what could only be described as a dull rusty bone saw.

It had been two years since the war against Alacrya was lost, and one since the resistance was crushed. Shortly after losing the war Arthur battled against two scythes, Cadell, and his former friend from his past life Nico, who was before Elijah. During the battle he achieved what was thought to be impossible, he unlocked the third stage of his beast will, Rhealmheart. Doing so gave him the ability to create teleportation portals without a gate, and he used this skill to save Tess and Madam Astrea by sending them to the sanctuary, an underground city left behind by the ancient mages.

The downside of reaching this new level, was that a lesser's body can't handle the strain, resulting in his mana core breaking and him nearly dying. Even so, his core only broke after he fell into his portal, and was sent to Alacrya and to what the Alacryans called, a Relic Tomb. There he forged an aether core, and with his newly awakened Asura weapon Regis, they began fighting their way to the bottom floor of each tomb. There Arthur began mastering aether, gained the ability to use the aetheric spells called God Runes, and gained insight into the ultimate aetheric magic, Fate. After Arthur gained all of the insight he could from the Alacrya Relic Tombs, he then returned to Dicathen to learn from the tombs there.

Arthur's return to Dicathen was nothing less than the hope the resistance needed, and a team was assembled to dive along with him into the first of two relic tombs in Dicathen. Unfortunately after completing the first tomb disaster struck. A team that left the sanctuary to gather supplies was captured, along with the artifact needed to enter the sanctuary.

The teleportation gate activated and Alacryan soldiers and five retainers poured in and began slaughtering everyone. They were led by three scythes, two of which were Cadell and Nico, who focused on Arthur and Regis. In the end the combined efforts of three scythes and the artifacts they carried was too much, and Arthur was captured, as Regis secretly returned to hide in his core to recover. Everyone in the sanctuary, over three thousand people were killed, except for Virion, Barion, and Mica. The three of them were captured, and publicly executed in Etistin, effectively ending any further resistance by Dicathen.

In the beginning of Arthur's time as a prisoner the Vritra scientists were careful and excited to experiment on Arthur as he had, with the help of Sylvie sacrificing herself to save his life, become the first ever Asura human Hybrid. They of course dissected him, removing organs and limbs to test his extraordinary healing, but the real thing they wanted to understand was his aether core.

It and Regis were the only reasons why he was kept alive. Regis remained in Arthur's core constantly, so there was no safe way for them to remove him, only know of his existence. They had suspected he was a sentient Asura weapon, making them want him even more. The problem though was that these weapons tended to disintegrate after the person they were bound to died, making it very hard to learn anything about them.

As for his core, an Asura could survive for several days after their mana core was removed, and the core would remain intact indefinitely. However Arthur was also part human and human cores crumbled apart after they left their body. So with this being the first ever aether core, they didn't want to take any unnecessary risks that could cause them to lose such a valuable source of research. But after a year of experimenting, they had reached the limit of what they could learn without his cooperation. So with their patience at its limit, they began repeating their experiments in a more painful manner to be used as a form of torture to try and get the answers they sought.

After having all of his extremities, except for his head, and several internal organs removed, the scientist placed several small aether crystals on Arthur's body so he could absorb them and heal. Upon learning of his aether core, special artifacts were created to keep the ambient aether out of the Floating Castle, where he was kept.

The only access Arthur had to aether were the small crystals given to him to keep him alive, but he didn't even want that. He only accepted the aether because of his hope that one day he would be able to escape.

"We're done for today, return him to his cell," the lead scientist said as he saw Arthur's limbs slowly growing back.

Two human guards grabbed the table and began to roll him out.

"Wait!" Arthur said, gaining the attention of the Vrtira present. "One day I'm going to break out of here, and I will take great pleasure dismembering each and every one of you just like you did me."

The vrtira grunted and turned away, and the guards rolled him out again.

"Regis, wake up. It's feeding time."

"You keep it, you need to heal," Regis said from within Arthur's core.

"Nope, I told you fifty fifty. I can heal with my portion."

Regis sighed and began consuming his portion.

"Why don't you just give me up? I'm your weapon, I'm supposed to be protecting you, not be the cause of your suffering."

"First off, last I checked you were a badass wolf. Secondly, you'll get your chance to protect me. The day you get enough aether you're coming out to rip them apart and help me escape," Arthur replied, although he was starting to question if that day would ever come.

"Yeah well at this rate it'll probably be another ten years before I'm strong enough to hold my own against one vrtira."

"I can handle it."

"Pfft. Fuckin masochist."

Upon arriving at his cell his arms and legs had already grown enough that they were nubs now. The guards lifted him up by the nubs and threw him into his cell.

"Hey! This isn't the penthouse we requested! I demand to speak with a manager," Regis chortled.

Even though Regis couldn't really do much now, he did provide plenty of humorous commentary that helped Arthur remain for the most part sane.

"Hahaha," Arthur laughed out loud.

"Fuck'n psycho," a guard said and walked off.

After he stopped laughing Arthur laid there quietly as he did the one thing Regis hated most, he played "what if" scenarios through his head.

"I wish you'd stop that," Regis said as he closed himself off, not wanting to keep going through this kind of self torture.

Arthur didn't reply, and continued playing the war out through his head. He played out every battle doing different things, sometimes even thinking how it would have played if he had been able to use aether. After he ultimately won the war his mind then moved on to thinking about what his life with Tess would have been like. His mind played out their wedding, sometimes with human traditions, sometimes elven, and sometimes mixing them together. He'd think of the home they'd live in, how many kids they would have and what they would look like, growing old beside her and watching their kids grow up. After several hours of this there was a knock on the bars to his cell.

"Dinner time Grey."

Arthur rolled his eyes and turned his head to look at Nico with an annoyed expression.

"My name is Arthur."

"People never change, so you're Grey," Nico replied, then slid a tray into his cell.

On the tray was an aether crystal about the size of his thumb, and a glass of water that looked like it was scooped out from a swamp. Arthur picked up the crystal and within a second it turned dull as he quickly absorbed the aether. He then tossed the crystal at Nico and closed his eyes.

Nico appeared annoyed. He hated that despite everything he never broke, and retained his dignity. Nevertheless, he wasn't done. He set a chair outside of the cell and took a seat. In the beginning he taunted Arthur about everyone he lost, and gained some satisfaction there when he would get angry. But over time Arthur stopped reacting, not that he didn't care, but he refused to give Nico the satisfaction.

"So big news, Cecilia and I are getting married," Nico started but Arthur didn't reply. "Yeah, she was so excited we had sex for the first time since reincarnating in this world." A wicked smirk formed on his face, but Arthur still didn't react. "So thank you for never fucking Tess, and saving her V card for me."

Nico smirked confidently, when all else failed Tess was always a weak spot for Arthur. While Arthur was stuck in Alacrya, Tess lead a mission to rescue hundreds of elf slaves. During the rescue she was captured by Nico, who eventually put his former fiancé, Cecilia's soul into Tess' body. Arthur learned of this, and before he left for Dicathen attempted to capture Cecilia and put Tess back in control of her body. The problem with this plan was that it wasn't planned very well, he didn't even plan on seeing her when he did.

Before leaving for Dicathen Arthur wanted to test his strength against a retainer. So he challenged one at an annual competition where students from different schools showed off their fighting skills, and people could challenge the scythes and retainers for their positions, the Victoriad. However Nico was already aware of him, so when Arthur entered the battlefield he attacked. Realizing he wasn't going to get another chance at rescuing Tess he god stepped out of the way, and moved to take her. Unfortunately the remaining scythes got in his way. There he and Regis held back all five scythes, showing Arthur he was at least on their level. In the end they were too much and he couldn't get to her, and was forced to create a portal with his newest godrune, and retreat.

Of course this wasn't a total loss. He had managed to kill one of the Scythes during the battle, and also gained some important intel on Cecilia. During the entire fight she hesitated and wouldn't join in the attack against him, even after several of the scythes yelled for her help. She didn't have a look of fear in her eyes, but instead doubt. He wasn't sure if Tess was still in there fighting back or what, but he did feel confident that if he could get her alone that she would listen to him and not attack first on sight.

"I feel sorry for Cecilia."

"Excuse me?"

"That she wasn't able to be satisfied by that needle dick of yours."

"Hahahaha," Regis laughed uncontrollably.

A metal spike shot out of the floor and through Arthur's left leg, completely ripping it off.

"Ugh!" Arthur grunted in pain as he grabbed at his now stump.

"I'm way bigger than I was in my previous life."

"Those that brag the most about their size are always the smallest."

Another spike shot up and ripped his left arm off at the shoulder.

"I'll have you know she was moaning my name!" Nico yelled in rage.

"Damn," Arthur grunted out in pain. "She actually faked an orgasm."

"Hahaha, Please stop haha before he tries to kill you haha," Regis laughed out

Nico swung the cell door open, stormed in, and began stomping down on Arthur's face. He kept kicking until Arthur's face was a bloody mess, then proceeded to leave.

"Don't forget, the only reason you even had a chance with Cecilia was because I couldn't be. You'll always be her second choice, while I was her first," Arthur said, making sure to get the last word in.

A final spike shot up as Nico left from view, but this time Arthur was able to roll away to avoid it.

"It's it really necessary to trigger Darth Emo?"

"No not really, but I just wanted him to leave." Arthur replied before retreating back into his own mind.

Hours passed and night fall came. It was bitterly cold in the dungeon, and Arthur wasn't even given the luxury of a sheet. Regardless he tolerated it, having had enough time to train his mind to barely even notice the cold. As he laid on the cold stone floor his eyes suddenly shot wide open as he felt a tremendous pressure coming from outside of the castle. He wished he could see where it was coming from, but with no windows he had only his imagination.

"Now isn't this a familiar sight."

Arthur turned his head to face the cell door to see a well groomed man with platinum blonde hair, golden eyes, and what looked like a freshly pressed black military uniform.

"It's good to see you again Arthur."

"Hello Windsom."