The world of Aurethion was big enough to drown kingdoms in silence yet cruel enough to let a single abandoned child cry unheard.
And that night, the Sage heard him.
The Sage no one knew his real name was a healer to the villagers, a wandering scholar to travelers, and a man whose eyes carried centuries of exhaustion. After a borderland skirmish ended in fire and blood, he walked through a field scattered with broken shields and bodies cooling under the moon.
Then he heard it.
A small, stubborn cry.
"…A child?" he whispered, turning toward the sound.
He knelt between two fallen soldiers and brushed aside a torn cloak. When he saw the infant's face, his breath caught.
"No… you're not human, are you?" he murmured, not with fear—but with recognition.
The child's faint, glowing markings pulsed once, then faded. Anyone else would've stepped back. The Sage only sighed.
"You poor thing. Even the gods didn't want to claim you."
He wrapped the child in his cloak.
"From today on, you walk with me."
And so he carried him away from death, away from the war, into a worn-out village at the far eastern edge of Elydria a place so insignificant that even mapmakers forgot it existed.
There, he raised the boy as if he were his own flesh.
Morix grew fast too fast. Stronger, sharper, and far more disciplined than the other children. The Sage often watched him practice with a wooden sword at dawn, sweat on his brow, determination in his eyes.
"You push yourself too hard," the Sage would say.
Morix always answered the same way:
"I can't afford to be weak."
Some nights, the Sage found the boy sitting alone under the old willow tree.
"Do you miss your real parents?" he once asked.
Morix shook his head. "I only have you."
The Sage's smile was bittersweet. "Then remember this strength without purpose becomes destruction. Learn to wield both your blade and your heart."
But time is a thief.
The Sage's life slipped away like sand through trembling fingers, leaving Morix alone with a promise carved into his spirit:
Become a man of honour. A man of duty. No matter what it costs.
Years later, the forgotten child of the battlefield had become something unimaginable
General Morix Valarion.
Feared by enemies.
Respected by every soldier under the kingdom's banner.
A warrior carved from solitude, discipline, and the ghost of the man who raised him.
Yet for all the battles he had endured, nothing prepared him for the summons he received that morning.
A royal messenger bowed low and handed him a sealed scroll.
"The King requests your immediate presence, General."
Morix broke the seal with a thumb.
Prepare security for the engagement ceremony.
The Princess of Seraphyne will arrive soon.
Morix blinked once.
An engagement?
He had fought monsters, armies, assassins
but political ceremonies felt like a different kind of battlefield entirely.
"Tch… troublesome," he muttered, slipping on his gloves. "Very well. Inform His Majesty I'll oversee every detail."
"Yes, General!"
As the messenger hurried off, Morix glanced at the towering palace walls. Something in the air felt heavy, unsettling like fate itself was watching him from the shadows.
He didn't know it yet…
but this engagement would shatter every oath he had ever sworn.
And the forgotten child the Sage once saved
was about to walk into the storm that destiny had been preparing for him all along.
This… is where Morix's true story begins.