A small, almost unnoticed rural area lies far beyond the reach of the nearest town, cuddling between the rolling hills and the thick forest. As the villagers moved toward their primary residence, the cobbleway writhed with a throng of thatched roofs, and smoke glowed from the chimney as the villagers moved forward. The air smells faintly of smoke from the forest and fresh, fertile soil, the sound of children's laughter on the highways, and the occasional bark of a dog. Life here was silent, predictable, and secure, or so it seemed.
The Avelar clan, a family of five, lives in the country. Their father, a disciplined and skilled military artist, had spent eras training rural children, passed on his personal awareness without expecting much from the tax man. A villager would often bring him small gifts, grains, vegetables, and honey, to thank him for his advice. Their mother, a former athlete who traveled as a coach, was running football games for local children, teaching them both skill and certainty.
The family was proud of their firstborn son, Valen, a prodigy of soldierly humanistic discipline who had inherited his father's second discipline and could. Valen is teaching the village people patience, gaining respect and admiration. Their daughter, Lyra, was another star in rural sports. Her quick feet and calculated intelligence turned any sport she taught into a lesson in skill and teamwork. She had a rural child eagerly following her every move, studying not only football but the spirit of continuity.
And then there was Elric.
Elric, the young, the weak, and mostly ordinary among them. He stumbles when his siblings succeed; while they inspire him, he fades from the surroundings. Under his father's second alert eye, he had tried soldierly humanistic discipline, but his body refused to bend, hit, or kick with accuracy. He wasn't any different at football; he'd been awkward, slow, and he'd always fallen short. Elric had been the excess, the invisible shade in the family's observations about their endowment.
Every day he'd experienced it. Near his home, his shortcomings were met with a sigh and a quiet disappointment rather than celebration. When Valen comes back from teaching the towns children, or Lyra comes back from coaching the youth football player, the house is filled with tales of accomplishment and gratitude, leaving Elric to stand motionless. Even his own mother and father, though loving, could not help but notice his handicap.
Despite this, they're trying. Elric's second family had enough scrape together to send him to a prestigious night academy in a distant town. The educational institution was veiled in mystery, and the villagers were gossiping about it, teaching excess rather than ordinary academics, preparing its students for danger lurking beneath the shadows of the universe. Elric boarded the bus that took him on a loop through the jungle, leaving behind the safety of his country and entering a kingdom of expertise that he barely understood.
Elric was always close to the class support outside the academy. He had a poor private class, his answers were often wrong, and his teachers sometimes referred to him as needing an attempt. The next student didn't see him much, and when they did, it usually came with some kind of mild irritation or indifference. He was an extra here, too, not seen, unappreciated, and unimportant.
He clung to the belief that he could learn something, any skill, any ability, anything that would make him more than a burden rather than an obligation.
Nevertheless, that expectation, fragile and uncertain, concerned a test of techniques he could never imagine.
Oxygen was transformed on one identical night, subordinate to a crescent moon that projected pale light beyond a sleepy city. He was far from the learning center, in the middle of the countryside, called home. item stir. A shadow, darker than the night itself, slithers silently across the avenues. It prefers smoke next to primary, curling close to skyscrapers and forests, leaving a chill in its wake. The villager, unaware of the danger, endured the routines of locking doors, feeding livestock, and setting fires, but the shadow ignored them, moving with terrifying precision.
The family was sleeping inside the Avelar mansion, unaware of the terror that was approaching. Valen's second sword stood next to him, a reminder of the expertise that had been available for a long time, although today it would be useless. Lyra's ball rested in a corner, a testament to her talent and energy, but today it would mean nothing. Their ancestors, robust and loving, unaware of the menace, slept soundly, believed their kin were safe.
The shadow vanished from warning. He eats the house, swallows light and sound, leaving only a black vacuum where heat and laughter once existed. Elric's house scream echoed faintly in the wind, reaching the distant academy where Elric sat motionless, unacquainted, at his desk. Nothing remained by the time the cursed shadow had completed its occupation: no home, no laughter, no household. All that matters is serenity.
Elric returns to the village the following morning, transformed into ruin. Homes stood in matchwood, infernos burned in blackened tons, and the land was littered with signs of life dying out. For the first time in a long time, he felt the heavy weight of a desperate need to grieve, a weight of a sense of impending doom. Every corner he turned, every building he entered, he reminded himself of what he had lost.
And amidst this devastation, he realized something terrifying: he was alone.
In contrast to all the soldierly humanistic discipline lessons or failure to aim at football, the realization hit him hard. The male child, who now believed that he was invisible in life, found himself completely insignificant in a short time. But there was something flickering inside the oppressive despair—anger, determination, a flicker refusing to stay snuff outwards.
Elric knew the globe didn't have a place for an " extra " for the first time. 'To prevail, to retaliate, to live, he must rise above the ordinary, beyond the weak, beyond the invisible male child that had always been ignored. '.
Elric had made a silent vow that he would no longer be nothing as he stood in the ruins of his home, gazing into the busy streets where laughter and life once stood.
The shadows that had taken everything from him were not done. And neither was he.
From this ordinary life, a destiny unlike any other was beginning to take shape.