The atmosphere was illuminated by a peculiar mix of dark purples and unevenly sorry grays—such hues only dawned when impending change was at the horizon. Somewhere beneath that sky, a boy was scavenging for hope in the shape of a pile comprised of scrap metals, stones, and even gnarled roots which he painstakingly believed had some value to him.
The boy's name was Kaen.
The world of Auraterra bore witness to the birth of every child being gifted an Eclipse mark, a signature of strength tied to the ancient wonders known as Relics of Ecliptica. These marks shaped everything in one's life starting from the identity, revolving around the individual's prowess, and ultimately their fate. However, in the case of Kaen, he was born completely devoid of one. A Shadowless in a world that valued anything and everything except for pure strength was a damnation.
In the world of Auraterra, marks determine everything an identity, a name, one's strength, and filter to the future. For Kaen, stripped off of such gifts, he could not be seen nor acknowledged as a threat. In simpler terms, he was neither hunted nor praised—just plain overlooked.
Circling winds tainted with a chilling sensation shrieked through the ruins of crumbled and broken towers. Despite the snowing weather, Kaen shredded himself and tightened the cloak he possessed as if he was staring at an endless canyon filled with things to excavate.
"Facing the opposite direction or looking low won't exempt you from my sight, trash fox!" One voice claimed obnoxiously from some alley in the back.
Kaen froze.
Three figures stepped out of the mist, all wearing ash-gray uniforms with chains in their hands and gleaming emblems stamped across their chests—tells that they belonged to the empress's most elite Academy. The foremost, a broad-shouldered boy set to twirl the chains he held, wore an infuriating grin.
"Looking for something? Perhaps you'd like to try assembling the broken shards of your halcyon fantasies," the leader taunted.
Without much thought, Kaen decided not to answer. He buried his head deeper into the soil, further sifting through the grit.
"Waiting shifts over. Might want to stop languishing in your fantasies because no such dormant power exists." The boy inched closer and the taunt got sharper.
Kaen, despicable as it was, had to deal with it all.
All at once, for some hugely negative reason, fate was inclined to arrive at the right moment.
A tremor passed through the terrain.
Beneath the rubble, an unnatural, primal yet alive source of sound resonated.
Then comes the explosion!
A burst of energy erupted from the ground, propelling dust and debris skywards. The other boys were thrown back mid-way through their coughing; their eyes flooded with dread.
"What the hell is that?!" Fuming, Turo barked, the leader of the group.Kaen turned. In the midst of the destruction, something was levitating. A small sphere that was glowing with golden veins on its obsidian surface. Slowly, it began floating fairly close to Kaen, as if it had been dormant for centuries.
And then-
> "At last..."
"Bearer of ruin, you have returned..."
A voice in his imagination, not one that he has ever heard before. Flames wreathed darkness swirling. He couldn't explain why but there was an intolerable urge to stretch out his hand. At this point all that was needed was a mortal touch and an apocalypse was inevitable.
When Kaen woke up, he was not located at the ruins.
Mountains floated along with the oceans. Lightning particles stitched the sky while it's ripped open. Finally, purple mist swirled in which everything is wrapped into a capsule of deceptive microgravity.
> "Welcome to Nexveil"
The Kaen swiftly glanced to the area but still nearby was no base and no zenith. It was merely cloistered void with a feeling unlike anything else he has encountered that dates aeons back and perhaps made time feel ancient.
The clearness of the voice drowned the stillness surrounding Kaen. Out of the mist, he gazed a figure who was draped all over in fine silk, tall and wearing a mask with gemcrusted runes striding and shifting every now and then.
> "You have touched a Fractured Relic. One that no chosen dared to bind."
"You should not have survived. Yet, here you are."
"Why?"
Kaen inhaled, feeling the cold air burn. As he began to rise, his legs shook as if they were unfamiliar with standing.
"I do not know," Kaen answered, his tone soft yet calm. "But I have nothing to lose. So if there's something you want me to accomplish if that's why I was brought here, just say it."
The figure opted to shrug. "You are bold, but boldness does not equal strength. Archeflare must be earned."
"Archeflare?" Kaen inquired.
A weapon materialized as the figure extended their hand: a blade forever riddled in a battle of duality encapsulated in flame and ice.
> "The Archeflare is not power. It is belief made manifest—a weapon forged from what drives you. But power here demands a price."
"Are you ready to pay it?"
"Is there a price for using such a weapon?" Kaen asked, eyes wide open yet filled with skepticism.
The figure whipped their head back with no sense of grace but overwhelming speed, blades of ice and fire exploding around like a supernova.
"Only your soul and every ember of your will."
Paired with an endlessly fracturing grin were shredded clothes unable to be defined as rags. One of which bared an emblem of a once proud warrior nation. Flames beneath the figure's feet danced wildly with each battle-worn step taken.
Kaen's heart rapidly beat like a rabbit's in fright, flooding him with unnerving determination to grasp the weapon. Fear had snatched away the possibility of breathing, yet anger, relentless in its attack swiftly charged to the front lines. Quick like lightning, the thought surfaced to seethe through the focus required to force his shaking hand onto the brute flame embedded blade.
Each insult replayed repeatedly like restless song fulfilling the torment of sensitive ears. Every single punch from hollow hands landed excruciatingly slow, stimulating the bleeding imagination. Every attempt of sleep turned into an endless struggle leaving Kaen to fought against the shackles of hunger. The nights were unendurable battles in desperate need of tranquility. Loneliness neither befriended nor unaccompanied that clawed at him like raging claws of a hurricane. Seeking for a semblance of an ally. An ally who would be beside him to utter the words he had futilely ached to hear throughout the worn descents of his life marred with fed up battles. Names, he had not once being worth unchained in harsh silenced deemings dismissed from existence that could never be shattered in unforgiving truths. The words 'son', 'brother', 'friend' desperately longed to be savored yet shattered upon his frenzied engulfing thoughts.
"Yes," he whispered. "Simply grant me the strength to change everything. Take what you desire."
The world roared as he gripped the weapon, and he remembered everything—the fights set in distant epochs, screams in alien dialects, and impossible abominations.
Somewhere deep in his essence, something primal ripped into his soul, and Kaen screamed as the blade set alight with darkfire.
His cocooned sphere engulfing his figure disintegrated into flames. Everything around him shattered into embers, and his body sweetly floated as his eyes observed the dying landscape where he dwelled. A mark of an eclipse encircled by broken chains blazed in his back and angel-like veins of ember hypnotically coursed through his back.
Fires erupted where the sphere once was, and Kaen felt as if the world decided to give him what he long desired the most—tears. Uncontrollable streaks of tears consumed his face, but blood effortlessly splattered from his vessel. Ghastly pale and soot red eyes lifted towards the dying surroundings. Crippled into servile knees, translucent strands of crimson flew around the beams from the farthest sun in the world illuminating the sphere, and in deep embraces he could finally cry. Seeing him while pleading for recognition.
His thoughts were illuminated by words that festered in the back of the mind for a long time:
"> What monster have you always been hidden under the suffering mask of, the world?"
End of Chapter 1