Umbral Wrath
At the stroke of midnight, the very world itself splits, and people with no special traits get involved in a difficult trial, which is only referred to as the 'Descent'—a realm in which one can live by the right of money, and fear and power are inextricably tied, while every gift has to be paid for.
"Kuro Ayanagi", a man who has always been unnoticed, comes to life with a cursed gift: a blackened figure that remembers all the things he has been trying to forget. Every success day by day increases his strength—heaps up the past memories which he wants to keep hidden. In the Descent, might is never free, and he has lost forgetting as a luxury.
Kuro, who has already been forced to make doubtful partners out of the other competitors—who each bear a crazy Burden of their own—has to find his way among the beasts, the altering tests, and the ruthless regulations where the power of life and death depends on trust being right or wrong. When things get tougher and the distinction between a man and a beast becomes fuzzy, there is one question that keeps coming up:
"How much will he give up of himself before the shadow dictates who he actually is?"
This is a gloomy development fantasy packed with emotional tension, lethal tests, and complicated ethical dilemmas. Besides that, the novel delves into themes of endurance, self hood, and the dreadful price that comes with power—all through the metaphor of taking a step forward that extracts something dear from the past.
