Darkness.
It was all there was.
Endless. Eternal. Cold.
Juno floated in the void, weightless and silent. No heartbeat. No breath. No sound, save for the whisper of his thoughts—and even those felt distant, like echoes in a deep well.
Was he dead?
Yes.
He remembered the pain. The claws tearing through flesh. The blood pooling around him. The stunned betrayal in his chest far deeper than the wounds. Kyler's sneer. Mina's scream. The footsteps running away.
They left him.
His team. His comrades. His classmates.
Left him to die.
It was supposed to be a D-rank dungeon. He trusted them. He fought beside them. He believed he mattered.
He was wrong.
"So fragile," a voice murmured.
Juno's thoughts stilled. The voice was like smoke—velvet and ancient, male and female, whisper and roar.
"So easily broken. So easily discarded."
"Who… who are you?" Juno asked. His voice didn't echo. It didn't even sound like his own.
"A question asked by all the dead," the voice said. "I am many things. A fragment of will. A remnant of power. A shadow that lingers."
Juno tried to move, to turn toward the voice, but there was no direction in this place. Only black.
"You have been wronged, Juno," the voice continued. "Betrayed. Cast aside. Left to rot."
"They killed me."
"Yes."
"I want to live."
"Do you? Even knowing the price?"
Juno hesitated. "What price?"
From the void came a shimmer—a ripple in the dark. It formed a shape: a skeletal hand, ancient and wrapped in violet mist, extending toward him.
"Power comes at a cost," the voice said. "I offer you a second chance. A path forged not in light, but shadow. You will not be what you were. You will become something… else."
Juno's chest ached—not from pain, but longing. For justice. For vengeance. For meaning.
"Will I be able to fight them? The ones who left me?"
"You will rise above them. Rule over them. With this power, you may build or destroy. But the price is your humanity."
Juno looked at the hand.
He had nothing left. No family. No friends. Not even pride. All that remained was a broken boy in the dark.
"I accept."
The hand grasped his.
Agony.
His body erupted in pain—no, in sensation. Muscles he no longer had spasmed. Nerves burned. It felt like he was being torn apart and stitched back together by fire and smoke.
[Shadow System Initiated.]
[Synchronization: 1%... 12%... 42%...]
[Warning: Soul core damaged. Repairing…]
[Class Assigned: Shadow Sovereign]
[You have gained the unique ability: Shadow Extraction]
[You have been granted the skill: Command: Lesser Wraiths]
[Title Acquired: The Reborn One]
The voice returned, no longer distant.
"You now walk the path of the forgotten. The abandoned. The feared."
Juno fell—through the void, through the weight of the world—until he hit something solid.
He gasped.
Air filled his lungs.
He opened his eyes.
He was lying on the stone floor of the dungeon.
Alive.
He tried to sit up, but pain lanced through his entire body. Blood still oozed from reopened wounds. Bones cracked. His limbs barely responded.
He was alive—but barely.
Faint voices echoed through the chamber. Heavy boots. Equipment clinking.
"Over here!" someone shouted. "We've got a survivor!"
Footsteps rushed closer.
"Holy crap… it's a student. Get a stretcher—he's not stable!"
Juno felt himself being lifted, gentle hands bracing his battered form. Blinding light flooded his vision, and the last thing he saw was the emblem on the shoulder of one of the figures.
The Cleaning Corps.
---
He drifted in and out of consciousness. Beeping monitors. Hushed voices. The sterile scent of antiseptic.
"He should be dead," someone whispered.
"Multiple lacerations… broken ribs… mana poisoning… and yet…"
"…Vitals are stabilizing. It's like his body is repairing itself."
Darkness again.
He dreamed.
Of shadows.
Of whispers.
Of that voice.
"You chose rebirth. The system is within you now. Await the awakening."
Juno stirred in bed, unaware of the pulsing black mark now etched on his chest, glowing fai
ntly beneath the hospital gown.
Unaware that the world would soon learn the name Juno again—this time, not as prey, but as predator.