Do not ask anything, do not say anything, do not comment on anything. I will not explain why I took so long, nor the reasons. It is something very personal, so I hope you understand and accept that.
It will be short since this is a prologue, okay?
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Noah A. Edgar constantly questioned the power of the Gray Mist Castle. He possessed Authority over Space-Time and Deception, yet his studies on this unusual power yielded zero results—at least when he was outside the castle. Inside it, however, he managed to acquire vast knowledge about the power within the Gray Mist.
Even so, that knowledge did not come in a linear way.
It was as if every answer he found within the Gray Mist opened up ten new questions in sequence.
As if the castle itself was… playing with him.
Even the perception of time inside seemed distorted. Minutes could stretch into hours, while hours simply… ceased to exist. At times, Noah had the sensation that he had already lived through that same train of thought before—like an echo, an imperfect repetition of something that should never repeat.
And that bothered him.
Because if even his thoughts could be manipulated, then… how much of that truly belonged to him?
Even the Door of Light remained at the highest point of the castle, yet he could no longer pass through it. Moreover, this supremacist power seemed to be absolutely proficient in the use of esoteric Symbols of rites for Seers. Proof of that was Noah's absurd level in using the symbols compared to Morticia, who had years of experience and still struggled to use them.
The difference was striking.
Almost unfair.
While Morticia needed extreme focus, mental preparation, and absolute precision to activate a single symbol, Noah simply… did it.
Effortlessly.
Flawlessly.
As if it were a natural extension of his very existence.
And perhaps it was.
Because the more he used the symbols, the more he felt like he wasn't learning.
He was remembering.
As if that knowledge had already been engraved into something deeper than his mind—something that existed even before his own consciousness.
And that was dangerous.
Because knowledge that is not earned… rarely truly belongs to the one who uses it.
Raising his hand, Noah watched as symbols began to glow. There were three different symbols.
The glow was not merely light.
It was presence.
Each symbol seemed to carry a will of its own, pulsing faintly as if breathing in a silent, unnatural rhythm. The air around them distorted almost imperceptibly, as if space itself were being forced to accept something that should not exist.
One of them was an eyeless pupil surrounded by twisted lines.
The symbol seemed to observe.
Not just the environment… but Noah himself.
The twisted lines moved slowly, like serpents trapped in an endless cycle, suggesting perception beyond logic, beyond sanity. It was a gaze that did not see only the present—but everything that could have been, and everything that should never be seen.
Another was a vortex formed by a tentacle, with clocks at each end of it.
Time did not flow there.
It shattered.
The clocks spun in opposite directions, some advancing, others reversing, while the tentacle at the center writhed as if pulling all timelines into itself. It was an error.
A flaw.
A deliberate fracture in the very structure of reality.
And Noah could feel it.
Feel that this symbol did not obey rules—it corrupted them.
And the last was countless layers upon layers of illusory doors.
Doors that led nowhere.
And at the same time… led everywhere.
They overlapped, multiplied, dissolved, and reappeared in patterns impossible to follow. Some seemed real, solid, tangible. Others were mere illusions—or perhaps the opposite.
It was impossible to tell.
Because within that symbol, the very idea of "real" and "false" ceased to have meaning.
They represented The Fool, The Error, and The Door, respectively.
And as he faced those three concepts manifested before him… Noah reached a single conclusion.
He still did not understand the Gray Mist Castle, much to his dismay.
But in that moment, another thought took hold of his mind.
It came suddenly, intrusive, as if it were not just an ordinary line of reasoning, but something being pushed into his consciousness—something that did not ask for permission to exist.
'Are there others who carry the power of the Symbols?' Noah thought at that point. The events of the previous night before his departure suggested that there were other individuals with strange powers capable of using the Symbols.
The memory was still fresh, vivid enough not to be ignored. The presences he had felt were not normal, not like Morticia, not like any other Seer he had ever observed. There was something whole about them, something defined, as if each of those individuals carried an absolute concept, just like the symbols that now existed within him.
Proactively, Noah stopped considering his current power as something belonging to his Seer lineage and instead regarded it as something foreign, bearing the name of Symbols.
It was a logical, cold, and necessary decision. Because the more he analyzed it, the more he realized that it did not fit—not within traditions, not within records, not within the known limitations of Seers. The Symbols were not merely tools, nor just rites—they were something beyond that, something that transcended the very idea of technique or magic.
And perhaps… something closer to Authority.
"If I'm not mistaken, he must carry the Symbol of the Red Priest. As for the other one… perhaps the Symbol of… maybe a Demon. That sword carried a dense black magic. Normally, I would assume it to be the Symbol of Death, but it was far more than just black magic." Noah thought before attempting to consider other Symbols.
The analysis flowed naturally, almost automatically, as if his mind were being guided by an understanding he did not yet fully comprehend. The Red Priest evoked heat, blood, ritual—something tied to offerings, or perhaps a distorted form of faith. The other one, however, was not so simple. Demon was merely an approximation, an imperfect label.
What he had felt from that sword was deeper, older, more corrupted. It was not death, because death was silence, an end, an absence. That… was the opposite. It was noise, chaos compressed into a stable form—something that should not exist, and yet did.
And that bothered him.
Because it meant the Symbols did not follow a fixed pattern. They could vary, distort, perhaps even evolve.
He did not know whether someone could carry more than one Symbol—perhaps not—but it was far too early to draw conclusions.
Still, the doubt remained, persistent, like a constant whisper at the back of his mind. If it were possible to carry more than one, then what exactly was he? An exception, or merely the beginning of something greater?
Because three symbols were already too many to be considered a coincidence.
And yet… he possessed them.
Without any apparent cost, without any visible consequence—which in itself was already a sign of danger.
"Ugh." Lurch grumbled as he drove, signaling to Noah that they had arrived at their destination.
The sound completely shattered the flow of his thoughts, like glass breaking. Reality forced itself back into place, and the surroundings solidified once more, pushing away the subtle distortions that seemed to accompany his reflections.
Noah slightly raised his gaze.
And then he saw it.
Nevermore.