On a night that was supposed to witness the rare cosmic phenomenon known as the "Blue Eclipse," the stars did not appear; instead, the sky was veiled by thick, accumulating clouds. When he woke up, he found himself alone amidst the ruins, and the killers left him only one message: "If you wish to know the true reason behind what happened, come to us when you reach the age of nineteen."
Since that day, the fires of rage ignited in Zenith's heart, and he decided to seclude himself from humans, seeking refuge in the depths of the forest. There, as he now approaches that promised age, he has made silence his home. Every night at exactly ten o'clock, he goes out with his 175 cm tall body, wearing his tight black T-shirt that highlights his strong, defined muscles, his wide white pants, and his light black shoes that make no sound. In his right hand, he grips the black hilt of the katana engraved with his name "ZENITH," and begins his violent training, trying to understand the dark forces that manifest in his body whenever the eclipse draws near.
Amidst this deadly silence, Zenith felt a delicate and refreshing energy watching his movements daily from high up in the trees. He knew of that eye tracking him, but with his demonic coldness, he never turned around, waiting for the moment the identity of this observer would be revealed.
On a night when the sound of the wind vanished, Zenith followed the source of that energy with the stealth of shadows until he reached a hollow area in the forest, hiding behind a massive tree trunk, watching in absolute silence.
Before his eyes was an Elf warrior, her body surrounded by a shield of glowing purple aura, fighting a desperate battle against a giant red monster. The monster was a hideous nightmare, four meters tall, its body a mass of swollen crimson flesh, with four arms ending in claws dripping a burning substance, and a single yellow eye in the middle of its face pulsing with hatred. With a crushing blow, the monster shattered the Elf's shield and sent her crashing violently into the tree, her aura fading completely. The monster let out a roar that shook the forest and then withdrew into the darkness.
The Elf warrior remained lying on the ground, weeping with burning humiliation, her tears shining like purple diamonds. From behind the tree, Zenith watched the scene with his wide blue eyes that carried the coldness of the eclipse. He didn't flinch, nor did he think of helping her; for to him, the weak meant nothing on his path toward strength.
With eerie coldness, he put his hand back in his pocket, turned his back on the weeping warrior, and walked back to his cabin with steady steps, leaving behind the whimpering of the Elf to echo alone under the mournful purple skies, waiting for the day his own eclipse would be complete.
Zenith entered his modest wooden cabin with calm steps, placed the katana "ZENITH" on the wooden rack next to his bed, and sat in the dark corner watching the void for a moment before surrendering to a dreamless sleep—a sleep that resembled death in its stillness. At exactly five in the morning, Zenith woke up with terrifying mechanical precision; he did not yawn or toss in his bed, but opened his wide blue eyes sharply and rose immediately. He lit a small stove and placed an old iron pot over it to prepare his primitive breakfast consisting of a piece of dry meat he had smoked himself and a bowl of boiled rice with some bitter herbs he boiled in water to drink instead of tea. While chewing the food very slowly and with mechanical movements, he was not thinking about the taste of the meal; rather, his mind was replaying yesterday's scene like a repeating film strip: the Elf warrior's body slamming into the tree, the shattering of her purple aura, and that crimson monster that withdrew into the darkness. He wondered coldly if that delicate energy he used to feel was the same aura that withered before his eyes, and if her breath still echoed in that spot of the forest or if she had become just a cold corpse.
At midday, because he needed oil for his sword blade and a quantity of salt and new bandages, he had to travel a long distance toward the edges of the border village. He walked among the people like a moving shadow, wearing his tight black T-shirt that highlighted his disciplined muscles and his wide white pants that moved fluidly with his graceful steps. He moved between the stalls coldly, placing coins and taking his supplies without uttering a single word, ignoring the villagers' looks filled with fear and the whispers that followed the mysterious "Forest Demon." He returned to his cabin before sunset and spent the following hours cleaning his blade with extreme care, passing the oil-soaked cloth over the clearly engraved word "ZENITH."
When ten o'clock at night struck, Zenith went out for his usual training, but the air was different this time; the energy that had been watching him from the treetops was gone, replaced by a desolate silence he had never known before. He stopped suddenly in the middle of an offensive movement and looked toward the direction where he had left the weeping warrior yesterday. He felt a strange sting in his veins; the demonic energy within him was flickering whenever the sky approached a deep purple color, as if pushing him toward that place. It wasn't a feeling of mercy that moved him, but a demonic curiosity and an attraction toward the scent left by that battle and a desire to know if the monster had left a trail behind. He returned his sword to its scabbard with a sharp metallic sound and decided with eerie coldness to make his way toward the battle area, piercing through the fog with confident steps, to face what remained of the wreckage of that purple night.
Zenith walked with steady steps toward the shattered tree; the place was drowned in a haunting stillness and a strange burning smell left by the monster's acidic substance. He did not find the "Elf Warrior," but he found a small dagger with a paper pinned to the broken tree trunk. He pulled the paper out coldly and read its contents: "To the Daughter of Space... Surrender and let the demons swallow this forest; your resilience is but a delay of your inevitable demise. If you do not leave, your death will be the next sacrifice on the night of the eclipse."
Zenith's blue eyes narrowed sharply; the message was not just a threat, but carried the same style of "arrogance" that characterized his family's killers. At that moment, he felt a slight tremor in his energy—that same "refreshing energy" returned to watch him from the high branches, but it was disturbed this time, mixed with fear and weakness.
Zenith did not turn toward the source of the energy, but threw the paper into the air with lethal indifference and said in a deep, calm voice that pierced the silence of the forest like a blade:
— "If you intend to stay alive, stop watching me and train well... for the weak have no place in my world, and watching shadows won't grant you the strength you lost yesterday."
He turned his back and walked away without looking back even once.
Behind the branches of an ancient tree, the Elf warrior was sitting hidden, bandaging her wounds with trembling hands. She watched his silhouette as it vanished into the fog, feeling a dread she hadn't felt even before the red monster. She whispered to herself in a shaky voice:
— "This youth... his calmness is not natural, and that energy emanating from him does not belong to humans... it is as dark as it is powerful. If I can convince him to help me, if I can just break that ice surrounding his heart, I might have a chance to win this battle and reclaim the forest."
She gripped her purple necklace, which began to blink weakly, her eyes following the last trace of his footsteps, realizing that her fate had just become linked to this stranger who exuded the scent of eclipse and death.