The throne room loomed like a mausoleum for fallen Heroes—its architecture an ode to malice. Carved from obsidian and bone, the vaulted ceiling stretched beyond sight, lost in an endless shadow pierced only by jagged slivers of crimson light that bled through invisible seams. Flickering braziers lined the walls, coughing out plumes of molten amber that slithered across the polished black marble floor like sluggish rivers of blood.
At the far end, upon a jagged dais of shadow-stone, sat seven thrones—each adorned with the sigils of a National Hunter. These were no kings, no emperors. They were executioners of nations.
Leaning casually against a twisted column of shadow-steel was the Beast Monarch—his armor laced with fur and bone, muscles rippling with primal power. He cracked his knuckles one by one; the sound echoed like thunder rolling across a battlefield. His gold beast eyes shifted to the cloaked figure beside him.
Dorian Nightshade, the Silent Reaper, stood motionless. Clad in dusk-hued leathers, he was the very essence of absence—barely present, like a shadow that had slipped from its host. His arms were folded behind his back, boots rooted in discipline, as if carved from the very darkness around him.
The Beast Monarch sneered, voice low and derisive.
"Well? was it to hard for you to kill a child"
Dorian's head inclined a fraction. His words were like breath passing over the edge of a blade.
"I tried my best but.." A pause—measured, loaded with a truth he dared not complete.
" They were to strong.... for me to handle alone."
The throne room fell still.
Even the braziers flickered quieter, as if the flames themselves recoiled from the implications. For a heartbeat, time seemed to hold its breath.
Then laughter erupted.
"A ten-year-old child escaped you?" Beast Monarch bellowed, his laughter guttural and violent, each bark a hammer blow.
"Truly pathetic. Shall we next fear infants in cradles?"
From the crimson gloom, the Arcane Sovereign, Alaric Spellbinder emerged—his robes woven from scaled dragonhide, their surface pulsing with arcane runes that shimmered violet like trapped starlight. In his hand, he tapped a long staff capped with a crystal skull against the floor. Each tap rang out like a funeral bell.
His voice curled like smoke.
"Dorian did fall. The poison meant for the mother worked… by mistake." His eyes narrowed.
"I revived him with the Decima Vitae Relic. A miracle wasted—after the Dark Emperor had finally died."
A hiss of flame interrupted.
The Inferno Monarch, draped in flowing crimson robes, clenched his fists as fire crawled up his gauntlets. The air warped around him with every exhale.
"You should've let him burn! What if the boy inherits his father's power?"
Dorian's head snapped toward him, voice sharp and raw.
"Then you should've finished the job yourself. Or are you afraid of a child?"
A tension flared in the room like iron meeting flint.
The Alaric chuckled, his grin serpentine.
"Worry not. We'll snuff him out like a candle. Let him scurry. Shadows cannot save him forever."
Beast Monarch rolled his neck, the sound like stone grinding against bone.
"No Blackthorne survives. If he breathes, he dies. If you need a proper burial, bring your own shovels."
The Alaric raised his staff and turned to the gathered hunters. His voice rang with unnatural finality.
"Find him. Scour every ruin, every mountain, every forest. Leave no stone unturned, no dream unburned, no blade untested. We will not suffer another Dark Emperor."
One by one, the hunters melted into the shadows—seven monsters disappearing into countless others, like a curse carried on the wind.
Outside the chamber, beside the door, a man cloaked in black and yellow lingered in silence, his presence heavy with suspicion.
Alaric was the last to emerge. His gaze was sharp, voice low.
"So… what are your thoughts on the survival of that little monster?"
The cloaked man answered in a voice as deep as ston
"A disappointment, perhaps. Yet the death of Maximilian is no small blessing. Even after all these years, I still feel the sting of your sister's loss, Alaric." he sigh " After the death of his son your sister may feel peace."
The world was fed a tale carefully woven by the National Hunters—a story so polished, so repeated, that it became the accepted truth. They claimed that Maximilian Blackthorne, the Dark Emperor himself, had been poisoned by an elite demon within the depths of a Gate. Twisted by rage and the demon's insidious control, he had turned upon his own blood, slaughtering his family and reducing Blackthorne Manor to smoldering ruin. And when nothing remained but ashes, they said, he fell by his own hand—consumed by the very darkness he once commanded. It was a narrative crafted to be irrefutable, the perfect legend to bury the truth beneath layers of pity and disgrace.
Far from the obsidian throne room and its poisonous ambitions, beneath a cathedral of ancient oaks whose branches cradled the moon, a lone figure moved like a whisper.
Lucian Blackthorne, ten years old yet carved by grief, stepped lightly over moss-covered roots and through silver-streaked undergrowth. His breath matched the wind. His heart pounded in time with the forest itself.
He reached a crumbling wall half-consumed by vines. Hidden beneath illusion and time, it bore a faint glyph etched into the stone—a family crest long forgotten by the world.
Lucian mother tell him about this place.... a place where true legacy of Blackthrone resides.
Lucian placed his trembling hand against it.
A golden sigil ignited under his palm, humming with ancestral resonance. The wall shuddered, stone grinding against stone, before splitting open with a groan like an ancient beast yawning from slumber.
He stepped into the Blackthorne Sanctuary.
Dust hung in the still air like forgotten spirits. Shafts of pale light pierced the chamber, illuminating stone pedestals lined in silent ranks. Relics slumbered atop them, sealed beneath humming inscriptions—A-Rank, S-Rank, and at the center, alone and revered: SS-Rank.
Lucian approached the central pedestal.
There lay Obsidian Oath—a blade blacker than night, its edges whispering fate, its hilt carved with runes older than language. Beside it, a folded parchment sealed with blood-wax.
Hands shaking, Lucian opened the letter.
Lucian,If you are reading this… it means I fail as a father.This vault and all it contains now belong to you. The blade you see—Obsidian Oath—is our family's greatest heirloom. SS-rank, forged in shadow and bound by oath. Use it to avenge our name.Take also the Nyxveil Relic—a pendant that shields you once a day from any 8th-class spell, and can teleport you to safety. Use it wisely, my son.Live. Learn. Fight. And when the time comes... make them remember us.. our bloodline.
Lucian's breath caught.
He gripped the parchment until blood seeped between his knuckles.
He turned to his right, eyes narrowing at a narrow recess in the wall—a hidden cupboard, its opening disguised without a door. Inside, glimmers caught the faint light: vials of healing potion lined neatly beside jade bottles of pills, their surfaces shining faintly as if whispering of forgotten alchemists' hands. Scattered among them lay curious trinkets, each humming with a subtle trace of power, as though waiting for the right hand to claim them.
Lucian was already burdened with internal injuries, and with his relentless ambition, he knew he would suffer more in the days to come. That was why these potions, pills, and rare elixirs gleaming before him were not mere trinkets—they were priceless assets, the very fuel that would sustain his body and sharpen his path toward greater power.
After a week of rest every dawn, he rose before the sun dared touch the sky. Barefoot and shirtless, Lucian trained beneath roaring waterfalls, amidst crackling thunderstorms, and atop ice-laced peaks where even the wind feared to howl. He wasn't simply building strength—he was carving power into his very soul.
He honed each sense with ruthless precision. Taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing—refined to a razor's edge until illusion itself became transparent. He could hear a heartbeat through stone, track a leaf in a storm, and see through the lies men wore like armor.
Hours were spent in stillness, meditating as mana coursed through every vein like molten shadow, forging his body into living obsidian. His muscles no longer flexed—they sang with restrained devastation. Every movement flowed like art born of war.
After two relentless years, Lucian Blackthrone was no longer a boy.
He was a phantom shaped by wrath and purpose.
He had mastered the Blackthorne Eclipse, a forbidden sword art whispered of only in lost tomes—ten legendary forms that once turned empires to ash. With Obsidian Oath strapped to his back and Nyxveil coiled at his left wrist like a sleeping viper, he now stood before a towering mountain.
With one breath, he unsheathed his blade.
Reddish-black mana surged along its length, pulsing like a heartbeat from hell. The earth trembled as he took his stance—each motion perfectly etched into existence.
Then came the storm.
First form—Obsidian Genesis, the blade carved a crescent through stone.
Second—Midnight Veil, shadows cloaked the forest in silence.
Third—Sable Tempest, the wind screamed in black fury.
Fourth—Umbral Dominion, gravity bent around his will.
Fifth—Eclipse of Desolation, trees withered in an instant.
Sixth—Phantom's Requiem, echoes of the dead cried from the void.
Seventh—Nocturne's Ascendancy, the sky itself dimmed.
Eighth—Shadow's Wrath, a cyclone of dusk spiraled around him.
Ninth—Abyssal Exile, space cracked and folded.
Tenth—The Sovereign's Finale—
The mountain split.
Half the forest was erased, replaced by scorched earth and stillness. Birds no longer dared to sing. Time itself seemed to halt for a heartbeat.
Lucian lowered his sword, breath calm, gaze merciless.
He was no longer preparing.
He was ready to crush anyone.
Dorian Nightshade's villa overlooked the sea—perched on a cliff carved by time and arrogance. Built from white-streaked stone and darkwood, it bore no guards, no enchantments. He feared no one.
But tonight, he should have.
Lucian approached under the cover of midnight. His cloak, lined with Phantom's Embrace, flickered with ethereal shadows, blurring his form into wind and silence.
At the gates, he touched the Nyxveil Relic.
The pendant pulsed. Space folded.
He reappeared inside the villa, behind the glass wall at the back of Dorian.
Dorian sat on a leather couch, a goblet in hand, staring into the crashing waves.
A whisper broke the stillness.
"Aren't you enjoying your night to leisurely."
Dorian turned—just as a cold blade pressed against his throat.
His eyes widened.
"Who are you—"
Lucian comes closer in deem light .
"You forgot the Blackthornes too soon."
Recognition flickered. Then came panic. In one blink, Dorian twisted away—daggers forming from condensed shadow, slashing the air.
Dorian " To think you survived those years, I though you commit suicide."
Lucian advanced without pause, his blade gleaming with restrained wrath.
With a breath, he invoked the Sixth Form—Phantom's Requiem.
His strike blurred through the air in a wide arc, silent and deadly. The villa cracked, a shockwave splitting the ground and collapsing half the room.
Dorian landed on a ceiling rafter, snarling.
"Impressive… but still a child!"
He activated his ultimate skill.
Severance Realm.
The world shattered—walls dissolving into floating shards of midnight. Time slowed. Sound vanished. The two stood in an abyss where light dared not enter.
"My perfect kill zone," Dorian hissed. "No one leaves."
Lucian's eyes glowed.
"No one needs to."
Dorian lunged.
Dozens of daggers became a storm of fangs, claws, death incarnate.
Lucian stepped into the Seventh Form—Eclipse of Desolation.
He parried and spun, black arcs flashing like the scythe of death. One precise cut severed Dorian's arm at the shoulder.
The assassin screamed. Flesh crawled to regrow—but sluggish.
"You bastard…!" Dorian hissed, staggering.
Lucian's gaze burned cold.
"You killed my mother. You butchered my name. Now..." He raised his sword high.
"...I erase yours."
He activated the Eighth Form—Nocturne's Ascendancy.
The blade erupted in pure darkness, swallowing light, air, and hope.
Lucian struck.
One devastating slash bisected Dorian—torso, arms, and skull sliced in a clean arc. The pieces fell, twitching, writhing—trying to heal. But the darkness denied him rebirth.
Dorian gasped, blood bubbling from his mouth.
"T-this… this can't be… I…"
Lucian raised his sword over the heart.
"This is justice. This is vengeance. This is Blackthorne."
The blade descended—piercing the final breath from the Silent Reaper.
The Severance Realm cracked and collapsed, returning Lucian to the ruined villa, standing amid the smoking wreckage.
Lucian slumped onto the half-broken sofa, the fabric tearing further under his weight. Each breath dragging like iron through his chest. His body shook under the strain—the higher the forms, the harsher the toll, every muscle screaming from the burden.
His hand trembled. He had slaughtered countless monsters within the gates, carving through abominations without hesitation. But never once… never once had he killed a human.
Is this truly the right path? Should I have let him live? His thoughts pressed like knives. No… there's no other way to reclaim humanity. Not while men like him walk free.
Lucian's gaze fell on Dorian's severed head, its lifeless eyes still locked in silent defiance.
He exhaled, slow and heavy, the sound more weary than triumphant.
"One down…" His voice cracked, almost swallowed by the silence.
He leaned back, eyes shadowed. Still six remain.
The hunt had begun.