The city of Lumeris never slept.
Its lights burned through the fog, hiding the screams that echoed from the lower districts. People pretended the world was still human, still normal, but every shadow that brushed the corner of your vision whispered the same truth — the Gates were opening again.
Kael stood at the edge of the 7th District, staring at the glowing rift splitting the air like a wound in reality. His breath came slow, deliberate. Every heartbeat pulsed with the dark mana he'd absorbed from the last Gate. His veins shimmered faintly — black and red, like veins filled with liquid fire.
The Hunter Guild had already abandoned the site.
Too dangerous, they said.
Too unstable, they said.
But Kael didn't run from instability anymore. He was instability. He was the thing they feared would crawl out of the Gate.
> "You shouldn't be here," a voice called from behind him.
It was Lira — her blade humming with pale blue light.
"That rift... it's not a normal one. It's—"
"Alive?" Kael interrupted, smirking faintly. "Yeah. I know."
The Gate pulsed like a heartbeat. Kael could feel it calling to him — not as prey, but as kin. Shadows stretched from its core, reaching toward him like loyal beasts returning to their master.
Lira tightened her grip on her sword.
> "You've changed, Kael. The Guild said you—"
"The Guild?" he cut her off, his tone sharp enough to make her flinch. "The same Guild that left me to die in the Rift Zone? The same one that said I wasn't worth saving?"
He turned to face her, eyes now faintly glowing with a dark crimson hue.
> "No, Lira. I didn't change. I evolved."
The Gate roared open behind him, and the shadows poured out — hundreds of them, twisted and screeching. Lira raised her blade, but Kael simply extended his hand.
The shadows froze.
Then bowed.
The look on Lira's face was pure horror.
He wasn't fighting the darkness anymore.
He was commanding it.
Kael's voice dropped to a whisper, filled with an eerie calm.
> "They think light brings order. But only darkness listens."
The ground cracked. A dark sigil formed beneath his feet, and a massive surge of aura exploded outward — the kind that ripped through the atmosphere and dimmed every light in the district. The city fell silent. The Gate bent, distorted, then collapsed into a single orb of energy that hovered above Kael's palm.
He absorbed it.
The moment he did, every shadow in the district vanished — pulled into his body like smoke returning to fire. Lira fell to her knees, her blade dimming completely.
> "What are you becoming…?" she whispered.
Kael turned away, cloak fluttering, eyes dimmed but glowing faintly from beneath his hair.
> "Something they can't control."
He walked past her, the ground cracking lightly beneath his steps as aura leaked from his form.
Every shadow around him twisted to follow.
> "From now on," he said quietly, "this city kneels to no light."
The night wind carried the sound of his footsteps — slow, calm, confident.
And in the distance, as lightning cracked the sky, a new symbol began to appear across the walls of the district:
A single mark — Eclipse.
And with it, the prophecy whispered across Lumeris once again:
> "When the shadows learn to bow, the world will tremble before its true king."
Kael didn't look back. He just smirked, his eyes glowing brighter.
> "Then let them tremble."