The world didn't end with a bang. It ended with the smell of ozone and the sound of my mother's voice.
Ten years ago, the Yami Estate was a forest of white marble and ancient mana. Now, it was a slaughterhouse. Violet sparks danced in the air, clashing against the oppressive obsidian armor of the assassins moving through the hallway.
"Kuro! Mother is losing! We have to go back!"
I didn't look back. I couldn't. My seven-year-old fingers were locked around my sister Hana's wrist like a vice. My lungs burned from the sheer pressure of the S-Rank mana crushing the oxygen out of the corridor.
I skidded to a halt at the edge of the Great Hall. Below us, our mother, Amina Yami, stood in a circle of charred wood. She was trembling, her mana nearly spent. Three shadows in obsidian armor closed in on her, their blades humming with a lethal frequency.
"Mom! We're coming!" I screamed.
She turned. She didn't look afraid. She looked at us with a smile so calm it felt like a death sentence.
"There is no need," she said, her voice cutting through the roar of the fire. "This is the price I pay for your lives."
She raised a hand. The air behind us tore open—a jagged, swirling portal in reality. The vacuum pull began to drag us in. Hana was screaming, her small hands clawing at the floorboards, but I held on.
"Take care of your sister, Kuro," she whispered as the darkness took us. "Powerful or powerless... shine always."
The last thing I saw before the portal collapsed was the assassins' blades descending toward her heart.
[Present Day]
I sat bolt upright.
Sweat clung to my skin like a second layer of oil. My face remained like stone—bored, distant—but my eyes were sharp, scanning the dark corners of the room before my brain even fully processed that I was awake.
I stood up. My body was a map of lean, corded muscle. It wasn't the bulky, aesthetic muscle of a bodybuilder; it was built for high-speed violence and endurance. I checked the room next door. Hana was still asleep, her room glowing with a faint, unintentional violet aura. Even in her sleep, she was a sun.
I headed for the basement.
I kicked up into a vertical handstand against the cold concrete wall and began the push-ups. One. Two. Three. My breathing was a rhythmic, mechanical hiss.
Ten years, I thought. Pushing, pulling, running. This is the result. An E-Rank nobody.
I dropped to my feet, my eyes fixed on the tally marks that covered the walls—thousands of them, scratched into the concrete like the cell of a high-security prisoner. The world thought I was a joke. A "Zero-Link" whose job was to protect an S-Rank prodigy with nothing but muscle.
Let them laugh. I didn't care if I was powerless. My mother gave me a command. I would be the shield she never had.
The heavy door creaked open. My Uncle Baek entered, radiating a crushing, heavy aura that rippled the air around him. I didn't flinch. I was used to the weight.
"Nero Academy accepted the applications," Baek said, his voice deep. "Congratulations, Kuro."
I didn't stop moving. I picked up a heavy iron bar and began my next set. "I know why they picked me, Uncle. I'm the leash. I stay near Hana so her Void powers don't consume her. I'm a battery."
"And you're okay with that? Being her shadow?"
I flexed, my muscles feeling like braided steel under my skin. "It's an opportunity. It puts me in the room with the monsters. I'll show them that a human can protect a god."
Baek looked at the tally marks on the wall and gave a grim smile. "Determination is a double-edged blade, Kuro. In the Academy of Magic, it can take you to the top... or it can get you killed before the first bell rings."
[Later that Day]
The subway station was packed. I walked through the crowd with a bag of snacks, invisible, a ghost in a duster coat.
I reached the platform and stopped. The sound of the crowd didn't just fade—it cut out entirely. A sudden, unnatural chill swept over the tracks. I looked down.
A blue, semi-transparent barrier was vibrating across the tunnel entrance. It flickered like a glitch in a video game.
"What is this...?" I muttered.
I reached out. My hand passed through the blue film as if it wasn't there. Then, the world tilted. A massive vacuum force seized my chest and slammed me forward. I hit the concrete tracks on the other side with a bone-jarring thud.
I stood up, coughing against the thick, grey air. The station was gone. The commuters, the lights, the exits—vanished. I was in a tomb of stone and shadows.
Then, I heard it. A low, wet growl.
From the darkness of the tunnel, the Shadow Stalker emerged. It was a nightmare rendered in ink—two heads, six glowing red eyes, and saliva like liquid shadow dripping from its fangs.
I looked at my bare hands. No mana. No weapon. Just the muscle I had built in that basement.
I didn't run. I planted my feet. My mother's voice echoed in the back of my skull. Powerful or powerless...
I tightened my grip. The beast lunged.
[TO BE CONTINUED]