Birth in Darkness

The night was dense, the sky shrouded in black clouds that concealed the moonlight. Deep within the Valrock Forest, where ravenous beasts roamed, there was a small village barely known to anyone. A wretched, decaying place where hunger and disease were the true rulers. It was here that Rain Irthon was born.

That day, there was no celebration, no joy—only the howling wind and the agonized screams of a dying woman. His mother, a frail woman with sunken eyes drowned in darkness, screamed as she gave birth to her child inside a shack barely standing against the storm. There was no doctor, no midwife, only a few elderly women exchanging pitiful glances.

"He's so weak..." one of them whispered, gazing at the infant wrapped in a tattered cloth.

But that wasn't what terrified them.

Every child in this world was born with a spirit insect, a mysterious entity that appeared beside them at birth, determining their fate and abilities in life. Some were born with small ants, others with venomous spiders or radiant butterflies. Insects were ranked from D to S, and very few were ever born with an S-rank insect.

But Rain… had nothing.

No ant, no fly, no trace of any insect.

"Impossible...!" one woman gasped, stepping back in fear.

"A child without an insect? That's… a curse!"

It was known that those born without a spirit insect had no chance in life. They were weak, fragile—mere bodies without power, without destiny.

"He's an omen of misfortune! We must get rid of him!" an old woman shrieked, her face twisted in terror.

But his mother, despite her dying state, clung to him as if holding the most precious thing in the world. "He... is my child... No one... will touch him..." Those were her final words before silence swallowed the room.

She died, leaving behind a child forsaken before he even took his first breath.

---

Years passed, and Rain grew up in a village that despised him. Children threw stones at him, while adults looked at him with disgust. He couldn't even defend himself—he was too weak to fight, too weak to scream.

He worked in the fields for scraps of food, enduring insults in silence. Every day was a never-ending nightmare. There was no hope, no future.

One day, as he sat under a dead tree at the village outskirts, three boys approached him, their faces twisted with cruel smiles.

"Oh, look who it is! The curse himself!" the first one laughed, kicking dirt toward Rain.

"How does it feel to know you're nothing? Just trash?" the second sneered, raising a long stick.

Rain didn't reply. He knew there was no point in resisting.

But today… was different.

As the boy lifted the stick to strike, Rain heard something strange—a whisper, soft and eerie, as if echoing from within his mind.

"Do you want to change?"

His limbs froze. For a moment, he thought he was imagining things.

But the voice came again.

"Do you want power? Do you want… to shatter this world?"

The whisper was cold yet tempting. For the first time in his life, Rain felt something—an urge, a desire… to say yes.

As the stick came down, Rain instinctively raised his hand.

And suddenly… the boy who was about to strike him vanished.

No blood, no scream, nothing.

Just emptiness, as if the boy had never existed.

The other two stood frozen in terror, their bodies trembling.

"W-What… what did you do?!"

But Rain didn't hear them.

For the first time, he saw something he had never seen before. There, hovering in front of him, was a black butterfly, its wings absorbing the light as if it were part of the void itself.

"You've finally awakened..." the butterfly whispered, and for the first time in his life, Rain's lips curled into a cold smile.

A strange power surged through his body, something that had been sleeping inside him all these years. The air around him shifted as if the world itself was beginning to bend to his will.

The other boys turned to run, but the moment they took a step— they vanished.

No trace, no sound, nothing.

Rain stood up, staring at his hands. He didn't feel fear—only a strange sense of tranquility. For the first time, he wasn't powerless.

He turned his gaze toward the village, the place where he had suffered for years.

"This world… will never be the same again," he muttered, smiling.

And so, it all began.