Chapter 1: *The Forest of Broken Things
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The Blackthorn Forest was said to consume men's souls. Hunters who ventured beyond the twisted trees were never seen again. Villagers spoke of beasts with mouths too wide and shadows that whispered names.
Kael made it his home.
The moment his bare feet touched the dying moss of Blackthorn, the forest… breathed. Trees seemed to lean closer. Vines curled in anticipation. The darkness welcomed him like kin.
His body ached—ribs cracked, bruises layered over bruises—but he didn't stop walking until the last sliver of moonlight was swallowed behind the gnarled branches.
Here, in this cursed place, he felt… peace.
He collapsed beneath a crooked tree and for the first time, dreamt. Not of screams or chains--but the throne made of bone and a voice whispering "Take what they stole".
Kael awoke to pain. Not the familiar pain of fists or whips—but the deep, bone-hollow ache of transformation. His veins burned. His skin prickled. The cold forest air brushed over him like frost and fire.
A whisper stirred the leaves.
"…you bleed not like them…"
He jolted upright. Nothing. Just trees twisted like the hands of the dead, black vines pulsing like veins, and roots that creaked as if alive. The forest wasn't just cursed. It was watching.
Kael dragged himself to a nearby stream. His reflection blinked back at him, but… something was wrong.
His eyes had changed.
Still crimson, but glowing faintly, even in darkness. And beneath his skin, a black mist curled through his veins like living smoke. It didn't feel foreign—it felt *right*.
He wasn't human. He never had been.
That night, the forest tested him.
A low growl echoed from the shadows. The air grew colder. From the darkness emerged a beast unlike anything Kael had seen—twice the size of a horse, its body covered in thick black fur, six glowing yellow eyes, and a mouth split open in four directions. A nightmare born from the void.
Kael didn't run.Something inside him *rose*. Instinct—not taught, not trained. He raised his hand, and the air *trembled*. Shadows rippled from beneath his feet like liquid, swirling into his palm. Without knowing how, Kael *commanded* it.
"Fall."
The word was soft—yet the beast froze mid-lunge. A spear of black flame erupted from Kael's hand and tore through the monster's chest. It shrieked and crumbled into ash, the forest swallowing its remains without a trace.
Kael fell to his knees, gasping.
What… was that?
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By dawn, the whispers returned.
"Shadowborn…"
"You carry the mark…"
"Demon... no. Heir."
Kael found an ancient stone deep within the forest, buried beneath thorn and bone. Symbols shimmered when he touched it. Runes pulsed. Magic. Old magic—demonic, yes, but not evil. Not cruel. *Powerful*.
He spent days—weeks—learning its language, deciphering spells by instinct and pain. The forest became his teacher, and the beasts became his trials.
Each wound he endured taught him to heal.
Each predator he faced sharpened his power.
His silence became discipline. His rage, fuel. His isolation, clarity.
Kael was no longer just the demon-born outcast.
He was becoming something else.
Something ancient.
Something deadly.
He carved a single message into the altar stone with his blood before moving deeper into the forest
"Let humanity remember what they tried to kill."