The sky split open like torn flesh.
Screams rose from the crowd as the arena gates slammed shut, trapping hundreds inside with the stench of iron and fear. The ground beneath our feet thrummed—alive, hungry, waiting.
Execution Day.
I was supposed to awaken my Taming Sigil today.
Instead, I was kneeling on the bloodstained sand, wrists bound, my fate decided by a Council that hated me more than the monsters outside the city walls.
"Aerin Vale," the High Examiner's voice boomed.
"You are charged with the crime of Null Awakening."
Gasps rippled through the stands.
Null Awakening—awakening with no Sigil, no power, no worth.
A curse. A death sentence.
My mother cried my name from the top row, her voice swallowed by the roaring masses.
I clenched my jaw.
I knew I wasn't Null. I could feel something under my skin—burning, coiling, waiting. But when they held the Awakening Crystal to my chest…
It cracked.
Turned black.
And then exploded.
Everyone decided that meant "Null."
I decided it meant something worse.
"By decree of the Council," the Examiner continued, "you are to be fed to a wild beast. Your death will cleanse—"
The earth beneath me shuddered.
The ritual circle at the center of the arena snapped alight, glyphs spinning like a cyclone of luminous teeth. The smell of sulfur and bone dust choked the air.
"A Class-B summoning?" someone screamed.
"That's too much—he's just a boy!"
"No," the Examiner hissed. "The beast will judge his worth."
Judge. Right.
This wasn't judgment.
This was execution disguised as tradition.
The glyphs brightened—
—then detonated.
A shockwave blasted sand into the stands. My ears rang. My vision blurred.
And then…
It crawled out.
A creature formed from a shadow deeper than darkness itself.
Long limbs. Wrong angles.
Eyes like dying stars.
A body that refused to settle into a single shape, as if reality itself didn't know how to describe it.
The crowd fell silent.
Not from awe.
From instinctive terror.
It wasn't just another arena beast.
It was something older.
Something that wasn't supposed to exist.
"The hell is that—?"
"That's not a classified species!"
"Stop the ritual!"
The beast tilted its head toward me.
My heart stopped.
It had no name sigil above it.
Every beast had one—floating letters, fragments of their True Name.
The more letters you learned, the more control you had.
But this one…
Nothing.
A blank void.
A beast without a name.
The Examiner scrambled backward, face pale.
"T-That creature was sealed! Why did the ritual—?!"
The creature ignored him.
It was focused on me.
It moved.
Not with a roar.
Not with a charge.
One moment it was ten meters away.
The next, its face was inches from mine.
My breath caught.
My instincts screamed to flee, but my body wouldn't obey.
It's going to devour me.
I braced myself—
And then it spoke.
Not with words.
With thought.
"You don't want to steal me."
The voice slid into my skull like cold water pouring down my spine.
My pulse hammered.
"What…?"
Its gaze sharpened.
"Good."
It touched my bound wrist with a claw—
And my shackles shattered.
The crowd erupted into chaos.
"He's taming it!"
"That's impossible—no one can tame a nameless beast!"
"Kill them both before it breaks containment!"
The Council guards surged forward.
The beast didn't even look at them.
A single pulse of black mist erupted from its form—
—and the front line of armed tamers collapsed, screaming, clutching their heads as their own beast names flickered and warped above them.
Name corruption.
A death worse than beheading.
The beast turned to me again.
"Speak my name and I kill you."
"What name—? You don't even have one!"
The creature lowered itself so its eyes met mine.
"Exactly."
My chest tightened.
This… thing… chose me?
Why?
Why me?
Why—
My skin burned.
Pain seared across my collarbone.
Golden light burst outward in a violent surge.
My Sigil.
My Awakening—
It was happening now?!
The symbol etched into my skin glowed like molten metal.
Three words formed in the air above me, visible to everyone:
THE MUTE SIGIL
The arena fell deathly silent.
"No…" the High Examiner whispered.
"That sigil was erased generations ago."
Whispers spread like wildfire.
"The Mute Tamer?"
"That's a myth—someone who cannot speak any beast's name…"
"Impossible… impossible…"
"He can't control anything!"
"He'll die!"
I stared at the glowing words.
Mute?
A sigil that prevents naming?
A tamer that can't command beasts?
What kind of cursed Awakening was this?
Before I could react, the beast leaned close again.
Its breath was cold.
Its voice colder.
"You cannot name me."
"I can't name anything, apparently!"
"Good."
It placed its clawed hand on my chest.
My vision dimmed.
The beast whispered into my soul—
"Then I choose you."
The world detonated.
Black light.
Screams.
A shockwave that threw everyone into the stands.
The arena floor cracked apart like shattered bone.
When the dust settled…
I was standing.
Alive.
And the nameless beast stood behind me like a shadow wearing skin—silent, obedient, watching.
Gasps echoed through the arena.
"Taming… through no name…"
"That's not control. That's… companionship?"
"That's forbidden!"
"Kill him!"
Guards pointed spears.
The Council screamed orders.
Dozens of tamed beasts were released into the arena, all lunging toward me—
The nameless beast stepped forward.
The air itself trembled.
"Do we run," it asked me calmly,
"or do I show them why I was sealed?"
My heart pounded.
This was it.
This was the moment.
My first command.
My first sin.
My first step into a world that already wanted me dead.
I swallowed hard.
And then—
I made my choice.
"Do it."
The beast smiled.
And reality split open.