Chapter 10 – Shadows That Whisper

Aika's words had unlocked something inside me.

Not a memory—

A warning.

She saw my world.

She saw me, standing above the ruins I once called home. Holding the crown of a kingdom I didn't ask for.

But she saw more than even I remembered.

That look in my eyes she described—

Empty. Cold. Dead.

It scared me.

Because I knew it was true.

I wasn't a hero back there.

I was a weapon.

All day, I couldn't focus. Every sound, every face, every whisper at school blurred together like white noise. My senses felt sharper. Like something was coming.

And then—

I heard it.

Faint. Twisted. Familiar.

A whisper. In my native tongue.

"Return… Prince of Blood."

I stopped walking. The hallway around me went silent.

No one else reacted.

No one heard it.

But I did.

That voice?

It belonged to a creature that should've been sealed in the other realm.

A Nightspawn.

Which meant…

The barrier between worlds was weakening.

That night, I didn't go home.

I went to the rooftop. My only quiet place in this noisy world.

I stood there under the moon, eyes closed, reaching deep—trying to feel it. My power. My origin.

But the mortal world was still too peaceful.

Too quiet.

No rage. No despair.

Just calm.

Too calm.

Then I felt it.

A chill. A pulse.

Fear.

Coming from nearby.

I leapt from the rooftop without thinking, my body moving on pure instinct. The scent of fear guided me. And it led to a place I never expected.

Aika's house.

I landed silently in her backyard. Her window was open. The lights were off.

Something was wrong.

"Aika…?" I whispered.

Then I saw it.

A figure in the corner of her room.

Tall. Cloaked in shadows. No face. Just red eyes.

And Aika—

Frozen in place.

Eyes wide. Barely breathing.

She wasn't just scared.

She was paralyzed by fear.

The Nightspawn turned to me slowly.

"The link has awakened... and the prince is weak."

Its voice echoed in my bones.

"You shouldn't be here," I growled, stepping into the room.

The creature grinned with a thousand invisible teeth.

"And yet… you are. Trapped in a world that starves your power. A king… reduced to a child."

I lunged.

But it vanished in smoke.

Gone.

Just like that.

But before it disappeared—

it left a message behind.

Written in blood across Aika's wall:

"The realm remembers."

Aika collapsed into my arms, unconscious.

But before she passed out, her voice trembled out one last whisper…

"…Why does it feel like I've died before?"