The High Plains of Elrad were nothing but ruins and ashes.
The ground smoked.
The mountains cracked.
The sky... hesitated to look.
At the heart of the storm, a young man with hair as white as eternal snow and eyes as piercing blue as lightning still stood. Alone. Bloody. Unyielding.
Kyan.
He did not scream. He did not tremble.
His face was calm. His gaze, clear.
But his heart... beat raw.
His arms were heavy, muscles scorched, clothes in tatters, yet his hand refused to release his sword. The weapon seemed like an extension of himself, slicing arcs in the air like a mad calligrapher writing his final stanza.
Around him, five feared warlords, bodies scarred and soaked in power. They trembled—not with rage, but with fear.
"This... this brat really created a Concept... at his age?!" one whispered, a burnt hand clutching a shattered sword.
"He's a monster. We have to end him now, or he'll bury us all."
Kyan smiled. Not in arrogance.
It was a weary, lucid smile. Almost sorrowful.
"Then try. Traitors."
He raised his sword one last time. It vibrated in the air, responding to his Concept like a sacred drum.
"Concept: Heavenly Thunder."
And the sky screamed.
A column of blinding white light slammed into the earth. Lightning surged, blinding. Thunder was no longer a sound—it became matter. The ground cracked, trees ignited, the five enemies were blasted back, suffocated by the sheer force.
Kyan still stood.
His body trembled. His breath was short. But his eyes... were at peace.
He had won.
He had survived.
And then... he felt something.
A cold blade. In his back.
Straight to the heart.
Everything stopped.
The noise.
The light.
The breath.
A shock. Not just physical. A betrayal. An abandonment. A cosmic slap.
He coughed blood, dropped to his knees. His sword slid from his hand, trailing dying flames.
He turned slowly.
"...Envil...?" he breathed.
Behind him, standing in silence, was a young man with a familiar face. Hair as white as his. Slender frame. But his gaze... green, cold, fatally calm.
Envil. His younger brother.
His expression was neutral. No hatred. No joy. Just emptiness.
"You're too bright, brother."
"It's time for you to go out."
No tremble in his voice. No regret.
A clean execution.
Kyan felt a pain beyond the physical. Something deeper. A ripping.
"Why...?" he whispered.
Envil stepped forward. Slowly.
"Because your mere existence crushes me. Your fire burns me, even in the shadows. You leave nothing for anyone. Not even me."
Kyan, on his knees, locked eyes with his brother.
"I always protected you..."
Envil said nothing.
Kyan lowered his eyes. Then looked up one last time.
In a final breath, a vow rang out:
"You'll pay for this... someday... Father will know."
And in a dying spark of thunder, Kyan faded.
His body collapsed. His sword fell, planted in the earth. The sky closed. Silence settled.
Envil stood there, alone, amidst the ruins.
Motionless.
But the wind still carried his brother's name.
And it would carry it for a long time.
Meanwhile, miles away, in a hidden fortress nestled in the Yren Mountains, a woman was giving birth.
Her screams mingled with the elders' chants. Mana light formed a barrier around her. Kyan's loyal but wounded guards held the walls. They knew. They had felt their lord's death in their hearts.
But they hadn't fallen.
They had to protect his legacy.
And when the baby's first cry rang out, a breath swept through the room. A blue light, calm and clear, like a distant resonance... a final goodbye.
The child opened his eyes.
White as snow.
Blue as the sky.
Kyan's son.
His blood pounded like a war drum. Serya, her face sweaty, black hair clinging to her trembling skin, held the child to her chest. Her gaze—blue, vivid, feverish—fixed the entrance. Every second felt like a theft, a betrayal of time.
Outside, the world crumbled.
The chants had stopped. The hooves of mana echoed on sacred stone. The ground shook with every wave of energy. The clan fell, one fire at a time.
She heard Kaen shouting. The clash of steel, of flesh, of explosions. Yet she did not cry.
Not yet.
In her arms, the child remained silent. His midnight blue eyes, deep as pre-storm skies, stared at her. He hadn't cried at birth. He hadn't whimpered. He had observed. As if he knew. As if he already understood.
She knew what it meant.
The awakening of an ancient consciousness.
A destiny greater than theirs.
Serya gently caressed the child's cheek. Her heart pounded too hard. Every beat reminded her she had no time. Not enough words. Not enough gestures.
"You were my dream, my miracle..." she murmured, voice trembling. "I wanted to see you grow. I wanted to be there when you spoke your first word, when you'd fall and rise again, when you'd ask why the world is cruel."
Tears finally came. Hot. Salty. She muffled them with a kiss on the infant's lips, a kiss of fire and farewell.
Nyra entered—covered in ashes, eyes wide and burning.
"Serya, we have to go. Now."
But Serya didn't respond immediately. Her gaze clung to her son's. She wanted it to be the last thing he saw before parting: his mother's face, full of love, pain, and broken promises.
She wrapped the baby in the sacred cloth—embroidered by the mothers of the clan. The fabric still smelled of home, protective herbs, and dried milk. She tied the knot like a prayer.
Then, she gently placed the child in Nyra's arms.
Her fingers didn't want to let go.
Her heart broke.
"Protect him. Even if you must flee far. Even if you must lie. Even if he forgets my name."
Nyra nodded. She didn't speak. Her eyes said everything: the vow, the fear, the sacrifice.
Serya knelt one last time, touched her forehead to the baby's. Her voice was just a whisper:
"My son... You were born of light... and flames. Never let the darkness steal your light."
And Nyra fled. She ran. Slipped into tunnels, crossed haunted galleries, and entrusted the baby to the water—to the aquatic beast trained to escape when all burns.
Serya, left alone in the sanctuary, slowly stood.
She was bleeding.
She knew she would die.
But she smiled.
Because she had done what a mother does when the universe collapses:
She had saved what she held most dear.
Nyra clutched the child. Her left arm bled, pierced by an arrow she'd broken off, but she didn't slow. She couldn't.
Around her, the sacred tunnels' walls pulsed with ancient magic. The ceiling oozed blue light, throbbing, as if the stones themselves whispered urgency. Every step echoed, joined by others—not hers.
They were following.
Voiceless hunters. Masked beings, fed with black mana. They couldn't see her yet, but they felt the power in her arms, the ancestral blood. The child. The heir. The last.
She slipped on moss, rose again, resumed her run.
"Hold on, little one..." she whispered between clenched teeth. "Your mother loves you. Your father fights. Me... I run."
She turned into a narrow hallway, barely shoulder-wide. Behind her, a magical projectile hit the stone—a burst of light exploded, grazing her. Her back burned from the impact. But she didn't scream.
She couldn't alert the beast.
At the end of the tunnel, a large cavity opened onto a small underground lake. The water glowed faintly, lit by floating mana filaments. An ancient silence reigned there, sacred, absolute.
And there lay the creature: the Pagineur.
A semi-aquatic, semi-magical beast, trained for generations. It was summoned only in the direst times. Its body shimmered with green and blue hues, eyes wide and calm. On its back was a basket made from sacred Valderys wood, surrounded by runes of protection and stability.
Nyra stopped, panting. She knelt by the water. Blood dripped from her mouth. She had no time.
She looked at the baby one last time.
His eyes—so dark, so strangely aware—locked on hers.
She felt a burn in her throat. A knot in her gut.
She wanted to say so much. But had only seconds. So she whispered:
"You're not alone. You never will be. The world betrayed you. But one day, it will be yours. Live. Remember. And forgive me for leaving."
She placed the child in the basket, cloth tight, the clan symbol still visible, stitched in gold.
The Pagineur approached slowly. It sniffed the basket, then turned its head to Nyra. A breath of agreement. It understood. It would obey.
Nyra laid her bloody hand on the beast's snout.
"Go. Cross. Take him to the open air."
The creature gave a soft growl and slipped into the water, basket securely attached. A ripple formed, then the lake fell calm.
Nyra stood.
She turned her back to the water, drew her two daggers—worn but loyal.
The steps returned.
Closer.
Faster.
She smiled. A sad, proud smile.
"He's gone. You won't have him. But me... I'm right here."
And she charged into the dark, blades in hand, towards foes she knew she couldn't defeat, but could delay.
Just enough.
He was awake, but imprisoned.
Not in a room. In a body.
Small. Weak. Deformed. A body that wouldn't obey, not even the simplest commands.
Every muscle too soft. Every movement... impossible.
Yet he was there. Conscious.
"This isn't a dream. I think. I observe. I understand. Therefore, I am."
The old Cartesian postulate came to him, oddly flavored here.
Because this "I am" wasn't human.
He didn't know how long he had been floating, gently rocked. The filtered light sometimes burned his eyelids. The cold clung to his skin. The fabric around him was heavy, wet, rough.
He struggled to lift his eyes. Nothing. Still blurry.
But under his fingers—or what felt like fingers—he sensed something: an embroidered texture, a precise pattern.
And then, something shifted.
Not a revelation. Not intuition.
Just... dissonance.
"This pattern... it's not decorative. Too structured. Too regular. There's a rhythm. An internal logic."
Even seeing just a sliver, he knew.
He recognized the rigor of a system, like an algorithm stitched into cloth, or an equation not yet translated.
Not a language he knew. But he sensed it wasn't art. It was calculation.
"Who embroiders an equation on a baby's cloth? Unless... it's not for the baby. But for those who find him."
A weight settled slowly in his chest.
Something he didn't want to name. A cold dread, deeper than death.
"This world... doesn't operate by the laws I know."
He had seen... things. Fragments.
A fleeing woman. Fire. A white mass in water. A strange beast.
And above all... that symbol.
None of it fit the principles of physics, chemistry, or biology he had learned.
Yet it existed.
"Am I insane? Or... was everything I believed false?"
He wanted to scream. But his lungs wouldn't allow.
He wanted to rise. But his muscles had no strength.
So he stayed. Motionless. Prisoner of his own skin.
"I died. I saw the end. I accepted it. And now\... I'm here. Reborn without explanation, in a foreign body, with an unknown code on my chest. It's..."
He had no word.
Even as a scientist, he had never imagined such a hypothesis.
He believed in method. Observation. Reproducibility. Not this.
"I have no cause. No model. No starting variable. It's an equation without roots."
The cloth trembled slightly. A breeze.
Or an animal's breath. He couldn't tell.
But in that soft chaos, one thing etched itself inside him:
"I'm no longer a man. Not yet a child.
I am... a question.
And I will have to find myself, piece by piece."