Souta:

  The Giant’s Glades are quite expansive. So expansive, that to travel across them with just a single caravan might be a two week endeavor. With an entire army…

  Well, it's slow-going to say the least.

  I expect the horde to slow us down, but no, they march along even better than our soldiers. It's as if they’re… compliant. I don’t know why.

  I watch them now, that rotting mass, heads hung low, feet shuffling forward, no thoughts, no prayers, no soul to their movements. Even the ones that are only half-sick already look dead. The transformed children lead the pack, moving the fastest. But they too follow our prodding orders.

  “Souta!” A voice calls. It is distant and hard to hear, but I know it is my uncle. I sigh and walk to the other edge of the cloud, sticking my hands to the underside and letting my green lightning hang me from the wisps of water and air. I find my uncle on a small hilltop below. He makes a fist with his hand and raises it.

  Enough warming up then. Training begins.

  I wait for him to call the drill. He holds up a single finger.

  Easy. I smile and hold one hand, summoning forth a large bolt of verdant lightning. It thrums with crackling energy and at times, it creates little branching sparks of lighting.

  I aim for a field away from our army. Then, with a heaving throw, I send the bolt shimmering down. In the blink of an eye, the lightning strikes the field of grass and weeds.

  When thunder follows, the field begins to bloom.

  The grass extends, the weeds grow taller, the roots become sparse, small trees. One particularly large tree forms in the center of that field—a tree unlike any of the few sparse saplings that mark the glades. It must have been a seed blown away from the Brightbriars—or now the Blightbriars I suppose. Green lightning can grow and shape nature, but it can also disrupt it with overgrowth, such as in a situation like this. That dark, twisting, knotted tree doesn’t belong in this field of green.

  I summon forth another bolt and strike the tree. It grows even taller, stretching to my cloud, wood creaking and bending in the wind.

  I step on one of the outstretched branches and let the tree take me down to my uncle, who looks particularly pleased.

  “Wonderful Souta. Wonderful,” he commends, clapping. I step off the tree, trail my fingers on the branches, and feel through its bark and its grooves, the already deep sense of absolute loneliness it feels.

  So, as a mercy, I strike it again. My bolt explodes against it this time, sending burning splinters of wood scattering into the air, falling like ash.

  Masaru frowns. “Why did you do that?”

  I hesitate, shuffling my own feet. “I uh—it didn’t want to be here.”

  “What?”

  “The tree. It didn’t want to be here.”

  “The tree didn’t want—hmm,” he looks at me. He always forgets that I can feel what they feel, know what they know. We’ve broached this topic before; had this conversation many times, but still, I can tell it bothers him.

  However, my uncle, being my uncle, just gives me a smile. “I understand, young shogun. But, surely, you must understand this is an… unnecessary mercy to divulge.”

  “Unnecessary?”

  “Yes young shogun,” he says, now coming around to my back and slapping his hand on my shoulder. My angel dust runs thinner by the second, but I don’t worry too much about wasting it: we have sackfuls. “You must understand, Souta, that you do not need to bend to nature.”

  He points to the black line of the Blightbriar’s tree-line in the distance: “What do you see?”

  “The briars,” I respond.

  “It's not just the briars. They are your briars. Your nature. Your world.”

  Back to this destiny lecture again. I sigh.

  “What?” he asks, voice still light. “Don’t believe me?”

  “It's not that uncle, I just—” I just don’t want to force nature to bend to my will. I don’t really want to lead armies against armies. I don’t want war.

  I want…

  I look at him. He prods me encouragingly. This is Masaru, the man who protected me as a child, saved me, secured my right to shogunate. This is the man who came from another clan and climbed our ranks for the sole purpose of serving me, of helping me.

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  He was my teacher when I had none.

  My martial instructor when no one would take me.

  My father, when my real father died during my childhood.

  What right do I have to refuse him? It would be selfish.

  “I want to please you,” I tell him confidently. This surprises him, I think. His face nearly breaks down into tears—I didn’t know such a proclamation would have that great of an effect. But it's only a flickering moment; then, he’s back to normal, rubbing my shoulder.

  “You do not need to think that Souta; I’m already very proud of you. I just want you to understand what is rightfully yours. The woods, the mountains, the grasslands, the kingdoms—all of it.”

  “What about that red lighting man?”

  He pauses. “What?”

  “The mancer, the other thunder watcher. If me being a thunder watcher makes the world mine, does that mean for him, the world is—”

  “No!” Masaru hisses, startling me. “No, it is not. He is an interloper. A slave who tries to rise above his place. His angel dust belongs rightfully to you.”

  “If only I could make him give it over,” a sultry, feminine voice speaks, breaking our conversation. Masaru looks away from me with a different sort of smile—a smile of older men who desire different things.

  I look at the woman who has ingratiated herself with Sorayvlad over the past few months. She is beautiful: no doubt about that. But I don’t like her beauty. It makes me uncomfortable. There’s something about her dark red hair and maroonish eyes that disturbs me.

  She struts up to Masaru now, dusting off flakes of tree ash from her brocade.

  “Thraevirula! Oh how I’ve missed you over the past few days,” Masaru says. I look away as the two of them share a kiss.

  I don’t like her one bit.

  My angel dust runs out at that moment, distracting me slightly. No longer can I hear the fading call of nature. I feel empty without it—like some primal sense of mine is missing.

  I might not particularly like uncle’s lectures of destiny, but I much prefer it to watching him fawn over… that woman.

  I turn around when they're done, only to find Thraevirula whispering something into my uncle’s ear. At first I think it is some lover’s thing—but that conclusion is proven wrong when Masaru begins to frown.

  Then, he sneers in anger.

  “Oh Souta! Come over here for a bit, would you? I’ve got a task for you,” Thraevirula says. Masaru is walking away slightly, muttering to himself. I look at my uncle for a moment too long before finally, reluctantly, stepping towards the woman. She greets me with a bright white grin, as if baring her fangs. “Don’t be like that, Souta. If you listen like a good boy, I might even give you a reward.”

  “What is it Thraevirula?” I ask. Her name has always sounded odd to me. As odd as her place in our army at least. She’s Masaru’s lover, yet she advises him like a general counselor. It worries me. I don’t want her taking advantage of my uncle.

  But I listen regardless, because Masaru would want me to.

  “There are some rather… problematic people making their way through the briars right now. I don’t have a particular handle of their location, but I will soon. When I do, I'll need you and that angel dust which you wield so valiantly.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  She smiles before putting her finger to her lips: “A lady never tells.”

  I squint my eyes at her. Her smile holds, for a moment, before dipping slightly.

  “I need more than that,” I tell her.

  She sighs. “Oh sometimes you’re no fun Souta.”

  “Just—”

  “Listen. These people are out to kill not only me, not only you, but your uncle. Now, tell me honestly, do you need any more reason than that?”

  I hesitate. Memories flash. Masaru taking me to the sweets shop. Buying me gifts. Tossing me up in the air after I did my first successful lightning strike.

  Then, an image of him bleeding out before me appears—all hazy and muddled, like some distant, unobtained future.

  I shudder.

  “Tell me, is it—are people who are coming, are they who my uncle fears?” I ask.

  She tilts her head. Her eye twitches. It's a very slight gesture, but I catch it regardless. Despite my youth, Masaru has trained in me the art of politics far better than most grown men. I can when someone is holding back anger.

  Lots of anger.

  To be fair to Thraevirula, she’s better at it than most. Still, it’s the first time I’ve seen her angry in any regard. So, that begs the question, what happened to her?

  “One of them is. He’s that red lightning user.”

  “What’s his name?” Masaru has never told me that, despite my prodding. He always tells me that ‘the slave is not worthy of a name.’

  But, Thraevirula is delighted to hear me ask.

  “Raiten.”

  The way she says it is tinged with so much emotion that I can’t begin to unpack what she thinks of this man, despite my all training. With Masaru it's simpler—it's all hate and disgust. Some fear as well.

  I look off into the distant horizon, where the sky meets the black treeline of the briars. Somewhere, in all that thicket, is a man who wants to hunt me, hunt my uncle. Take all I own. Kill all I know.

  Unconsciously, almost unwillingly, I make a fist. Some angel dust still runs through my veins. Green lightning wreaths my knuckles, skitters around my wrist. It dances across the grass below me.

  Except, this time, rather than healing the land, the lightning scorches it.

  No matter what, I won’t let him do it. I won’t let him lay a single finger on my uncle. Even if I have to hurt him, maim him… kill him.

  I think of the way his red lightning clashed with that blue fire in the sky. My legs wobble. My stomach twists.

  I clench my fist harder, let the lightning flow. Choke down the fear.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” I whisper to myself.

  In the distance, a rumbling storm approaches.

  Iron gray clouds march in droves.

  They ring with thunderous drums of war.

  [Delayed Isekai - Progression LitRPG]

  "A path is a rope. A purpose is a prison. I would rather be lost than led.”

  Earth is dying. Three years ago, the Shattering tore open reality, vanishing a third of humanity and bleeding Rifts into ruined cities. Everyone has awakened "Resonances" – soul-deep powers. Except Invia. Trapped on a monster-ravaged Earth, he’s cursed to analyze battles he can’t join.

  Now, a sudden catastrophe throws him into the world of Collendrum, where the vanished built a new life. Here, survival demands action, not just analysis. He arrives with nothing but his father’s mysterious silver necklace that pushes him toward a simple fate and a System that brands his soul with a single, mocking question mark.

  But Invia’s curse is his strength. Where others follow the paths their Resonance dictates, his is unwritten. To survive, he must forge a power from nothing, power that rejects the very concept of rules.

  Philosophical Fantasy with strong Coming-of-Age elements - think Mistborn meets The Name of the Wind with deeper questions about agency and freedom.

  What to expect:

  

  
• Philosophical Fantasy with strong Coming-of-Age elements


  
• Think Mistborn meets The Name of the Wind


  
• REAL PROGRESSION, not boring level-ups


  
• LitRPG-Lite System that is NOT numbers vs numbers


  
• No NPC Side Characters


  
• No Harem