Hello, everyone.
Some readers of this book may not have seen the update I posted for Shattered Innocence, so before discussing the future of this story, I should first explain why I disappeared.
It has been around eight months since I last posted a chapter.
To get straight to the point, I spent much of this year dealing with a serious legal situation in my country. From the middle of January until May, I was held in custody while an investigation was ongoing.
Some older readers may already know that I am an Electrical and Electronics Engineering student. Because of my field, I had previously participated in several government-related projects, including technical demonstrations, meetings, and other professional work. That experience eventually led to a new position within my country's defence industry.
For some time, everything was going well.
Then an information-security incident occurred involving the suspected transfer and leakage of sensitive information. Because of the nature of the incident, as well as concerns involving foreign actors from countries geographically close to mine, a wider investigation was opened.
Somehow, that investigation eventually reached my secondary source of income: my writing.
Although the legal documents concerning my earnings were in order, the fact that I received income through overseas platforms drew additional scrutiny. Before I was given any meaningful opportunity to explain the situation or defend myself, I was detained as part of the investigation.
The following four months passed under those circumstances.
Eventually, with the help of my lawyer, I was released through the legal process. However, the experience affected me deeply, both mentally and professionally.
I had been very close to completing my degree, but my detention caused my education to be delayed. Although I did not suffer any major physical health problems, I struggled for a long time to recover the motivation necessary to write again.
I technically had limited access to the internet during this period, but that access was strictly monitored. My lawyers also instructed me not to post comments, make statements, or publicly discuss the situation while the investigation continued.
That is why I disappeared without offering any explanation.
I am sorry for the silence.
I understand that eight months cannot be erased by a single update, and I do not expect this explanation to automatically restore anyone's trust. What happened explains my absence, but it does not change the fact that readers were left waiting without knowing whether these stories would ever continue.
During the considerable amount of empty time I had, I began rereading my novels from the beginning.
I read both Shattered Innocence and this book in their entirety.
However, rereading this particular story took considerably more effort.
Looking at it as objectively as I can, there are many things about this book that are lacking. There are inconsistencies, poorly developed elements, pacing problems, continuity issues, weak transitions, and ideas that were introduced without receiving the attention they required.
More than anything else, however, the book suffers from the quality of the writing itself.
That is difficult for me to admit because, even with all of its shortcomings, I still believe strongly in the idea behind this story.
The premise remains interesting to me.
Damien remains a character I find genuinely compelling, both because of who he is and because of what he has the potential to become. His circumstances, his personality, his struggle against the role imposed upon him, and the consequences of his transformation still provide the foundation for a story I want to tell.
I also continue to believe in the setting.
The worldbuilding, the power system, the hidden history, the families, the political conflicts, the foreshadowing, and the larger concepts surrounding Damien's existence all contain a great deal of potential.
The foundation of the idea is promising.
The execution was not.
One of the book's greatest weaknesses was its lack of planning and a sufficiently rigid structure.
When I began writing it, many characters, relationships, locations, conflicts, and worldbuilding concepts were developed alongside the chapters themselves.
To some extent, that has always been part of my writing style. I often discover parts of a story while writing it, and I do not believe that every detail must be decided before the first chapter is written.
However, flexibility is not the same thing as having no foundation.
Even a story that develops naturally requires structure.
This book did not have enough of it.
Too many important elements were introduced before their place within the wider narrative had been properly established. Characters appeared without sufficiently developed long-term paths. Parts of the world existed only because an immediate chapter required them. Foreshadowing was introduced without a firm enough structure to support its eventual resolution.
Some concepts contradicted one another.
Others remained vague for too long.
Certain relationships progressed without receiving the necessary groundwork, while important parts of Damien's development were weakened by the inconsistent direction of the story surrounding him.
The result was a book containing many ideas I liked, but without the discipline and preparation required to bring those ideas together properly.
That failure belongs to me.
I had promising material within my hands, but I did not make proper use of it.
For the past month, I have therefore been working on rebuilding the foundation of this story.
I have been organising its world, nations, cities, locations, families, political structures, power system, supernatural history, characters, relationships, timelines, future conflicts, and major narrative arcs into a much more coherent framework.
I have also been reconsidering the long-term roles of the central characters.
Rather than creating their motivations only when they become immediately relevant, I want their personalities, histories, limitations, relationships, and future development to possess a clear foundation from the beginning.
The same applies to Damien.
His transformation should not feel like a sequence of disconnected victories or reactions. His physical development, Awakening, relationships, business ambitions, family position, moral decisions, and conflict with the forces controlling the world must belong to the same larger path.
The more I worked on this structure, the clearer one conclusion became.
The existing book cannot be repaired through ordinary editing alone.
The problems are too deeply embedded within its construction.
Correcting names, repairing continuity mistakes, improving individual scenes, or rewriting several weak chapters would not be enough. Those changes might improve the surface of the story, but they would not solve the weaknesses within its foundation.
Because of that, I have decided to rewrite the entire book from the beginning.
This will not be a simple line-by-line edit of the existing chapters.
The central premise will remain.
Damien will remain.
Many of the important characters, relationships, conflicts, and major concepts will also remain.
However, the story itself will be reconstructed with clearer planning, stronger prose, more consistent characterisation, better pacing, and a world that feels established rather than created only when the plot requires something new.
Some scenes may remain recognisable.
Others may be moved, expanded, combined, or removed entirely.
Certain characters will receive considerably greater depth. Some relationships will develop more slowly and naturally. Foreshadowing will be placed with a clearer understanding of what it is building toward. The power system and political structure will be introduced more carefully, and the larger direction of the narrative will exist from the beginning.
The rewritten story will still be the story of Damien Elford.
It will still follow a man placed into a world whose story and systems were designed to make him fail.
However, I want that struggle to be presented with the weight, structure, and consistency it deserves.
I believe this book's setting, characters, and concepts possess far more potential than I managed to deliver in the original version.
Failing to make proper use of that potential was an act of incompetence on my part.
There is no complicated excuse for that.
I did not plan the book well enough, and my writing was not strong enough to compensate for the lack of structure. What appeared on the page did not match what I believed the story could become.
For that, I sincerely apologise.
I am sorry to the readers who invested their time in the existing version.
I am sorry to those who followed Damien's development, became attached to the characters, discussed the story, supported it, or waited to see where it would lead.
I also understand that announcing a complete rewrite after such a long absence may be frustrating.
Some readers may not wish to begin the story again.
Others may believe that the rewrite will eventually be abandoned just as the original version was left unfinished.
Those reactions would be understandable.
I have accumulated too much bad faith to ask anyone to trust another promise simply because I have written it in an update chapter.
I do not wish to ask for blind faith, sympathy, or patience.
This is only an explanation of what happened and what I have decided to do next.
Readers are free to judge the decision for themselves.
More importantly, they are free to judge the rewritten chapters when they are published.
The original version helped me understand what I wanted this story to become. It also showed me how far my execution had fallen from that goal.
This time, I want to approach the book with the preparation, discipline, and care it should have received from the beginning.
I cannot ask you to trust that I will succeed.
All I can do is return to the work and allow the result to speak for itself.
Sincerely, from your Fraud Author, Darkness_Enjoyer.