The sky was black.Not dark. Not peaceful. Black. Like a hole carved out of reality.
And hanging in that abyss… was a castle.
Floating. Still. Silent.
Its towers pierced the clouds like blades. Its base hovered with no chains, no light, no reason. It simply was.
A pale moon loomed above. Too large. Too bright. Its light washed over the stone like frost on bone, cold, sacred, dead.
Sorren stared.
He had no body. No breath. Just eyes. Just silence.
He didn't question what he was seeing. He knew.
This place didn't belong to the real world. It came from somewhere else. Older. Colder.
Below, a thread of stone cut through the mountains. A road. Narrow. Ancient.
And on it… a carriage. Small. Fragile. Moving.
Its wheels turned slowly. Its horses trotted with mechanical rhythm.Clop. Clop. Clop.Each hoofbeat echoed through the vast night like a ticking clock.
Sorren watched from above.
Then something pulled.His perspective dropped.His vision spun.The sky folded.
And he fell.
No wind. No sound. Only gravity that didn't obey physics.
Then he opened his eyes.
Clop. Clop. Clop.
The sound was still there. But now it was real.
Wood. Leather. Frosted glass.
He was sitting upright. Cold pressed against his face. His breath clouded the window.His cheek had been resting against the glass.Now, it was trembling.
He blinked slowly.
A carriage. He was inside it.
The seat was too soft. The air too cold. The silence too deep.
Outside… the same mountains from the dream. The same sea. Flat, shining. Unmoving.
He stared out the window. No driver. No other passengers.
Just him.And motion.
He lowered his eyes. Black fabric. Clean. Smooth. A servant's uniform.Too formal. Too sharp. Too not-his.
What is this...
His voice came out dry.
He checked his hands. Gloves. Thin. Useless against the cold.
The air felt heavy. Not like pressure. More like attention.Something was watching.Not from outside.From above.
Then the world slowed.
The clopping hooves warped, slowed, stretched like echoes in water.
His breath caught.
The air around him thickened.
And a voice dropped into his mind.
Welcome to the Eclipse Trial. Good luck.
Flat. Calm. Absolute.
His jaw tightened.
Who said that?
No answer.
But something inside his skull began to burn.Not hot.Cold.Sharp.
The Mark pulsed behind his bangs. Like ice burrowing into bone.
He gritted his teeth.
And remembered.
Check your status the moment you wake up.
He closed his eyes.Breathed in.
Status.
No sound. No glow. No window. No system chime.
Just silence.
Then words.They appeared behind his eyes. Not in front of him. Not spoken. Just… there.
He didn't know the language. But he understood every line.
Name : Sorren.
Rank : None.
Artifact : None.
Role : [Servant of the White Throne].
→ A simple servant. No combat value. But irreplaceable.
Trait : [Chosen of Skadiya], [Sealed Tongue], [Child of the Void].
He didn't move.His breath fogged the glass.His heart thudded once.Then again. Slower.
He read the words twice.Three times.
Then whispered :
...Right.
The silence had weight.Not the kind that settles in after a conversation. Not the kind you find in the middle of the night.This one breathed.
It filled the air like cold smoke. Thick. Slow. Waiting.
Sorren hadn't moved in minutes. He sat back in his seat, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the frost-covered window. He had read his status. Twice. Then a third time.
The words didn't change. But something in him had.
He shifted slightly, cracking the stiffness in his neck. The cold bit deeper now. Not through the air. Through his skin. It had sunk into his bones.
He let out a breath. A thin white cloud fogged the glass.
Okay. Let's think.
His voice broke the silence like a needle through glass. Not loud. But sharp enough to leave a mark.
I'm in a carriage. No driver. No passengers. Wearing a butler outfit I've never seen before. Riding through a landscape that looks like a cursed painting.
He blinked slowly, eyes heavy with disbelief.
And my official classification is: trash-tier support role with a name that sounds like a tragic poem.
He scoffed. Almost laughed.
Servant of the White Throne. Sounds like a toilet paper brand.
He leaned forward slightly, speaking to no one. Or maybe to something. He wasn't sure.
And the traits. Let's talk about those. Yeah.
He held up a gloved finger, ticking them off like a checklist.
First one: Chosen of Skadiya. Let me guess. Ancient frozen goddess. Locked away in a glacier because she tried to kill all the other gods. Now she wants revenge, and I'm her delivery boy. Classic.
He gave a slow, theatrical nod. Totally checks out.
Another finger.
Sealed Tongue. That one's fun. So… what? If I say the wrong thing out loud, the sky cracks open? Or people just die randomly? Maybe I've already cursed something without knowing it.
He glanced out the window, as if expecting an answer. Nothing moved. The world was still.
Well. If I'm doomed to become some weird prophet possessed by forbidden vocabulary, I hope at least I get a cool voice filter.
He leaned back, rubbed the bridge of his nose.
And the last one. Child of the Void.
He whispered that one.As if saying it too loud would wake something.
Not born in the world, but in its absence.
He stared at the glass. His reflection looked pale. Almost hollow.
So I'm a glitch?
He tilted his head. A leftover. A mistake. A thing that shouldn't be here?
That idea stuck.Heavy.Quiet.Wrong.
He didn't like it.Because it didn't feel false.It felt like someone else had said it first. A long time ago. And the world had agreed.
He exhaled, slowly.
Or maybe I'm just overthinking.
But even as he spoke, he could feel it.
The silence wasn't silence anymore.It was listening.
Not in the way a person listens.More like how a room listens.How a sealed place waits.
He swallowed hard. Then spoke again.
Is someone there?
No answer. Of course.
But something shifted.
He felt it before he saw it.
He turned his head. Slowly.
Out there, in the sky, was a dot.A tiny black speck, floating just above the horizon.It hadn't been there before.And now it was moving.
Closer.
It wasn't falling.It was descending.Deliberate. Controlled. Certain.
The cold grew sharper, as if the air had turned to needles.
He drew back into the seat, every muscle tense.
Then the sound stopped.No more hooves.No more wheels.No more motion.
The carriage had stopped.Just like that.
His breath caught.
He stared at the door across from him.
It hadn't opened.
But something was outside.And it was coming.