The city of Noxhaven was alive under the neon glow of street lamps, its skyline drowned in violet mist. Students walked home from cram schools, couples laughed under the rain of flickering billboards, and Kaien Draven sat slouched on the top floor of a cracked apartment block, earbuds in, staring into the night.
To anyone else, he was just another seventeen-year-old with a permanent scowl and a bad reputation. Dark hair falling into his eyes, uniform half-worn, sneakers scraped from fights he never admitted to starting. At school, he was quiet, almost invisible—yet rumors painted him as dangerous, cursed even.
But Kaien had learned to ignore the whispers. He had bigger problems: the same recurring dream that had haunted him every night since childhood. A dream of endless shadows, a black sun hanging above a wasteland of writhing shapes. Demons with twisted jaws whispered his name. A sword of obsidian floated before him, dripping with dark light.
And every time, just before he could grasp it—he woke up.
---
Tonight, though, felt different.
The sky cracked. Not with thunder, but with a sound like glass shattering. Kaien sat up sharply, yanking his earbuds out. Across the horizon, the moon twisted, its pale surface splitting open like an eye awakening. A ripple of black mist bled into the air above Noxhaven.
He whispered to himself:
"Not again… it's real this time."
A scream tore through the city streets below. Kaien leaned over the balcony rail and saw them—demons.
They crawled from cracks in the pavement, spilling like tar, shapes too jagged and chaotic to belong to nature. Some resembled wolves with too many teeth, others hulking figures with horns that scraped the sides of buildings. Their eyes glowed like embers, their screeches rattling glass windows.
People ran. Cars swerved and crashed. The night was drowned in chaos.
Kaien's chest tightened, his instincts screaming for him to run. But something inside him pulled tighter—something that had been waiting for this moment. The dream. The whispers.
He grabbed the rusted metal pipe he kept by his bed—more out of habit than bravery—and sprinted down the stairwell.
---
The streets were carnage. A demon lunged at a woman clutching her child; Kaien swung the pipe with all his strength. It cracked against the creature's skull, but the metal bent like paper. The demon snarled, its maw opening wide enough to swallow him whole.
Kaien froze—until the world slowed.
A voice, cold and ancient, echoed in his skull.
"Finally, you hear me… Kaien Draven. Take hold. Claim what is yours."
From the shadows spilling across the asphalt, a shape rose. The obsidian sword from his dreams. Its edge hummed with violet fire, its surface alive with carvings that twisted like veins.
Without thinking, Kaien reached for it.
The moment his hand wrapped around the hilt, a wave of energy ripped through his body, nearly tearing him apart. His veins burned black, his vision flooded with crimson light. He screamed, but the scream turned into a roar.
The demon lunged again. Kaien slashed.
The blade cut through the beast as if slicing air. A burst of dark light erupted, disintegrating the creature into ash. Silence followed—then another shriek from behind.
Kaien spun. Dozens of demons circled him now, eyes locked on the sword.
---
He fought.
The blade guided him, his movements no longer clumsy but precise, flowing, brutal. He dodged claws that could tear steel, ducked under jaws snapping like guillotines. Every swing sent shadows spilling, every strike ended in an explosion of black fire.
But with every demon he killed, he felt something gnawing inside. The sword whispered with every cut.
"More… feed me more…"
His pulse raced. His hands shook. Yet he couldn't stop.
The street became a battlefield drenched in violet light and shadows. The ground cracked, lamp posts flickered and died, and the screams of fleeing citizens blurred into background noise.
For a moment, Kaien forgot he was human. He was something else—something born for this night.
"Draven!"
The voice snapped him back. From across the chaos, a girl sprinted toward him. Long black hair whipping behind her, uniform torn, eyes burning with both terror and resolve. Aya Kisaragi—his classmate. The one who always sat by the window, the one who smiled at him when no one else dared.
"Aya?!" Kaien gasped, parrying a demon's strike.
She skidded beside him, wielding nothing but a broken piece of rebar. "What the hell is happening?!"
"Demons," Kaien growled, slashing two more apart. "Stay behind me!"
But Aya shook her head. Even with fear in her eyes, she swung her weapon at a lunging beast, buying Kaien a second to strike it down. "If you think I'm running, you don't know me."
Kaien almost smirked. Almost.
The battle dragged on. They fought back-to-back, Aya's resolve pushing Kaien further, making every strike of his blade sharper, harder. Blood, shadow, and fire painted the night.
But then—the ground split.
From the crack rose a figure unlike the others. Taller, sharper, armored in bone, with wings stretched wide and a crown of horns. Its eyes locked onto Kaien, and for the first time, he felt his breath catch.
A High Demon.
The creature's voice boomed like thunder:
"So the Slayer awakens. The cursed child of shadow… your bloodline is not forgotten."
Kaien froze. Slayer? Bloodline? What was it talking about?
The High Demon raised its claw, summoning a storm of fire. Aya screamed as the blast ripped toward them. Kaien threw himself forward, sword glowing with every ounce of will he had. He swung—
And the city shook.
The blast split apart, shadows ripping the sky itself. Kaien stood panting, his uniform scorched, his blade burning hotter than ever. The High Demon only laughed.
"Good… struggle, little Slayer. When you're ready, your soul will be mine."
With a flap of its wings, it vanished into the night, leaving only silence and the stench of ash.
---
Kaien collapsed to one knee, the sword trembling in his hands. Aya rushed to his side, eyes wide.
"Kaien… what was that? What are you?"
He wanted to answer. But his chest ached, the sword pulsed like a living heart, and the whispers returned.
"This is only the beginning."
As the fires of Noxhaven burned, Kaien Draven realized his life as a normal student had ended.
The hunt had begun.