The rain came down like needles, slicing through the smog that blanketed the city.
Every drop carried with it the metallic tang of blood, as though the heavens themselves wept for the massacre that had unfolded. The alleyways overflowed with crimson, bodies strewn like discarded dolls, faces twisted in their final screams. Somewhere amidst the carnage, a boy staggered,
half-broken, his eyes hollow but burning with something darker than grief.
His name was Kairen.
Hours ago, his world was intact parents alive, a sister laughing at dinner, a neighborhood bustling with petty chaos. But the shadows had descended without warning. The "Butchers of Veynar" — a cult whispered in fearful tavern rumors — had come with blades, rituals, and a hunger for sacrifice. No one was spared.
No one except him. Not because of mercy, but because the leader of the slaughter had leaned in close, smiling with jagged teeth, and hissed: *"Survive. Crawl. Suffer. And when you're ready, come find me."*
Kairen woke hours later surrounded by corpses, his hands raw from clawing at the stones, his throat torn from screams that no one heard. His sister's necklace, drenched in her blood, was the only thing he carried from the ruins of his life. The city guard had come, too late, marking the massacre as "ritual crime, unsolvable." Corruption stank in the air—this was no ordinary crime, it was allowed to happen.
The rain washed over his face, mixing tears with blood. For the first time, his eyes weren't just human. They burned faintly with an ember of something else, something awakened by the horror—an inheritance no one told him of.
That night, as he collapsed in the ruins of his home, he saw them. Shadows coiling on the walls, figures with horns and crowned heads, whispering names in a language older than humanity. Bael. Agares. Paimon. Asmodeus. Belial. Names that bled into his skull, searing themselves into his soul. He felt their hunger, their power, and their mockery of his weakness. He had touched the abyss, and the abyss had touched back.
---
Far away, two others moved in the storm. One, a boy with a crooked grin and scars hidden beneath his sleeves, hunted rumors of the Butchers. The other, a girl with eyes like tempered steel, carried a dagger she'd stolen from a noble corpse. They didn't know Kairen yet, but fate was already threading their paths together. Together they would forge a bond stronger than blood—but tonight, they bled alone.
---
As dawn broke, the city awoke to the massacre, papers screaming of "cult violence." But for Kairen, there was only silence. He walked away from the ruins, clutching his sister's necklace, his feet dragging, his breath ragged. With every step, he whispered a vow. Not to gods. Not to demons. To himself.
"I'll kill them. All of them. Even if I have to drown the world in blood."
The city would remember this night as the *Crimson Dawn Massacre. * For Kairen, it was the night he died and something else began to take root. He did not yet know of the teacher who would one day drag him back from the edge, or the comrades who would shield his broken soul. For now, there was only vengeance, and the abyss watching with delight.
Thus began the chains that would bind his destiny.