The world ended quietly.
No thunder, no divine decree—only the slow fading of light.
The eighth sun, the last source of warmth in a dying sky, sank beneath a curtain of shadow. Its fall painted the heavens crimson and bled through the chains of the world. The air itself seemed to grieve.
In the depths of the slave pits of Gorhal Valley, men stared upward as the sky went dark. Shackles clinked like dying bells. Fear spread—then silence.
Only one boy didn't lift his head.
Aaryan knelt on the cold ground, both hands buried in the black soil. His eyes reflected no panic, no wonder—only thought.
"The suns are gone… then the world's essence will change."
He exhaled slowly.
Where others trembled at the dark, Aaryan listened to it. He felt the air thicken, heavy with something strange—something forbidden.
The old overseer barked orders nearby. "Back to work, worms! Darkness or light, the mines won't dig themselves!"
The slaves moved, half-mad with fear, their picks clanging weakly against the stone. Yet Aaryan did not move. He felt a rhythm beneath his palms—a pulse.
The ground was breathing.
And within that breath, he sensed a current. It wasn't qi, nor prana, nor any gentle life-force the elders once spoke of. This power was impure. It hissed like a wound refusing to heal.
"So this is what remains after the sun's death."
He whispered it to himself.
The world had lost its light—but in the cracks of creation, something new was being born.
A spark of instinct made him press his bleeding hand deeper into the soil. The pulse surged upward. A chill shot through his veins—his body convulsed.
It wasn't pain that made him tremble. It was hunger.
Something ancient and endless had noticed him.
Aaryan saw visions flash in the darkness: rivers of shadow, palaces built from ash, figures crawling toward a black star. A whisper echoed inside his skull—no words, just intent. A promise. A price.
When his sight returned, his blood had turned black.
He clenched his fist. His heartbeat sounded distant, like drums from the abyss. His skin burned cold, and the earth's pulse moved with his.
"The essence of Sha," he muttered. "So this is what the heavens tried to bury."
The overseer stormed toward him, whip in hand. "Boy! You think you can rest while the world burns?!"
Aaryan rose slowly, his movements calm—too calm. His eyes glimmered faintly in the dark.
"I'm not resting," he said softly. "I'm listening."
The whip cracked—then froze midair.
The overseer's arm refused to move.
Aaryan tilted his head. In the black soil, thin lines of shadow had spread like veins, connecting his fingers to the man's feet.
The overseer's scream was swallowed by the night as his shadow twisted unnaturally, devouring his form inch by inch.
When silence returned, only Aaryan remained—kneeling, surrounded by darkness that pulsed like a living thing.
He breathed out slowly. The air was heavy, dense with the new world's scent—metal, ash, and the faint sweetness of decay.
"So this is my beginning," he murmured. "The world dies… and I rise."
In the distance, other slaves began to notice the overseer's absence. Fear turned to whispers. Whispers turned to prayers.
But no prayer could reach the heavens now.
The eighth sun had fallen, and with it, the old laws of nature had crumbled.
Aaryan stood beneath a sky of eternal dusk. Shadows coiled around his feet like loyal beasts, fading as he willed them to.
---
> The world wept for its fallen sun.
But in the silence that followed, something else began to smile.
— End of Chapter 1 —
(The next chapter: "The Birth of Shadow Essence").