Prologue: Eclipse of Fate

The world was drowning in silence.

Under the fractured glow of a crimson moon, the battlefield lay in ruin. The air was thick with the stench of blood, the metallic tang of steel, and the distant echoes of a battle long lost. Corpses—some human, some twisted into grotesque forms—were strewn across the shattered earth.

A lone figure stood amidst the carnage.

His tattered cloak fluttered in the dying wind, torn and bloodstained. His body, though upright, bore the weight of countless battles. Yet, it was not his wounds that made the air feel heavy—it was the blade in his grasp.

A sword that should not exist.

Its surface pulsed between light and darkness, its very form shifting like a reflection on broken water. At times, it gleamed with a radiance that could sunder the heavens. At others, it swallowed all light, casting an abyssal void upon the ground beneath it. A blade that whispered, that breathed, that watched.

The warrior exhaled, his breath visible in the deathly chill of the battlefield. His grip on the sword was firm, unwavering, as if letting go meant surrendering to something far worse than death.

Then, a voice.

Low, ancient, neither man nor god. It slithered into existence, its presence colder than the void.

"You were never meant to survive, yet here you stand."

The figure did not move.

"Fate bends before you, but do you have the will to defy it?"

For the first time, his lips parted, but no words came. Only the silent defiance in his stance, the unyielding fire within his gaze.

The world trembled.

The fractured moon above pulsed as if it were alive, as if something watched through its shattered light. The battlefield blurred, the corpses vanishing into darkness, devoured by the unseen force that had been waiting, watching.

And then—

The world shattered.

Like glass breaking upon the void, everything collapsed into nothingness. The blood, the bodies, the blade, even the crimson moon—all were erased.

Except for one thing.

A single glimpse—reflected within the abyss.

Eyes, sharp as blades, burning with defiance.

And then—

Darkness.