5 Months

The air was heavy with smoke and ash, thick enough to choke even the strongest lungs, the remnants of battle still clinging to the crumbling walls of the sewer.

Ken stood there, chest heaving, feeling the sting of blood in his mouth, the cut on his cheek still fresh and raw. The silence after the fight was almost worse than the battle itself.

The professor stepped forward out of the swirling grey mist, his boots stirring up blackened dust with every measured step, his cloak trailing behind him like a shadow given life.

"I sensed a rift open," the professor said.

The words dropped into the silence like stones into a still lake, rippling outward, filling the space between them with invisible weight.

Ken said nothing. He only wiped the sweat from his brow, grimacing as his fingers came away smeared with ash and dried blood.

"You closed it already," the professor continued, voice unreadable, gaze sliding over the battlefield where burnt Rift Ants lay twisted and broken, the stench of their burning bodies thick and nauseating in the stale underground air.

Ken shifted uncomfortably, unsure whether he should be proud or terrified, his heart still hammering a desperate rhythm against his ribs.

The professor moved closer, stopping when his eyes fell upon the sword lying half buried in the cracked stone, a strange purple gleam still clinging to its blade like a dying star refusing to go dark.

He crouched slowly, fingertips brushing the hilt as if afraid the weapon might vanish if touched too roughly.

"Shadow Reaper," he murmured, voice almost reverent, almost fearful.

Ken watched, silent, confused. The name meant nothing to him, but the tone of the professor sent a shiver racing down his spine, colder than the foul air curling around them.

"You should not level it here," the professor said, standing once more, brushing invisible dust from his hands as though the sword itself had contaminated him.

Ken opened his mouth to ask why, but the words dissolved on his tongue. There was something about the moment, something sacred, something forbidden.

Instead, another question forced itself free, one he barely understood even as he spoke it.

"What is Innocent Eclipse?"

The professor froze, shoulders stiffening, before he slowly turned his head. The firelight from the scorched walls threw deep hollows across his face, making him look less like a man and more like a relic from another time.

"That," he said, voice low and distant, "is a long story."

Ken swallowed hard, his throat dry as old bones, the weight of unseen eyes pressing down upon him from the broken stones, from the trembling shadows, from the very walls of the world.

"Once every five hundred and twenty-five years," the professor began, voice carrying in the gloom with the slow, measured certainty of a funeral dirge, "a rare eclipse crosses the heavens unlike any other, casting all realms into darkness. Realms beyond your sight. Realms layered atop each other like glass and sand and flame."

During that blackened time, he said, children born under the eclipsed sky were marked, their souls twisted by ancient curses, by forces older than even the oldest gods, by hatred and hunger given shape.

He paused, his gaze distant, as if looking through Ken and into the bleeding heart of history itself.

"These children are born to destroy," the professor said. "They are chaos given flesh. Harbingers of the end."

Ken felt a knot tighten in his gut. His hands clenched into fists without meaning to.

"But," the professor continued, and the single word seemed to hang there suspended in the ruined air like a candle against the dark, "there are exceptions."

Children not twisted, but chosen. Not corrupted, but tempered by something unknown, something deeper.

"The Innocent Eclipse," he said, "is the name for those rare souls. Born to fight the others. Born to stand between annihilation and hope. Their souls are a paradox — light woven from the darkest thread."

Ken sucked in a shaky breath, the burning ruins around him forgotten as the weight of the professor's words sank deep into his bones.

"Such children are rare," the professor said, "rarer than the eclipse itself and more precious than any kingdom, any crown, any spell."

The professor stepped closer, each word striking Ken like the blows of a hammer forging a weapon in fire and pain.

"You," he said, voice iron and flame, "are one of them."

Ken stared at him, mind whirling, spinning, reeling, unable to grasp the meaning of it all.

"I," he thought. "Me."

The sewer around him seemed to close in, walls breathing smoke, dripping water from ancient pipes, ceiling trembling as if about to collapse under the pressure of a secret too heavy to bear.

The professor looked back at the sword lying gleaming malevolent on the ground.

"How did you get that?" he asked.

Ken opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, his voice cracking like dry wood.

"I do not know," he said.

The truth burned on his tongue, but some instinct deeper than fear, deeper than reason, warned him to hold back, to protect the truth of the strange system that had whispered to him, taught him, saved him.

The professor frowned, lines etching deeper into his face.

"Shadow Reaper," he muttered, almost to himself. "Forged in the heart of the dying Starfall. Wielded by only one before you. Now it answers to you."

Ken bent slightly, his fingers brushing the hilt, feeling the weapon thrum under his touch, a living thing, a wild thing barely contained.

The professor turned, eyes sharp again, heavy with urgency.

"Listen well," he said. "You have five months."

"Five months to prove you are what the prophecy demands," he continued, "not just another cursed child, not another failure."

His voice lowered into a growl, thick with a weight Ken could not define.

"Five months to become the blade that cuts the darkness before it swallows us all."

Ken stood frozen, feeling the crushing pressure of destiny settle onto his shoulders, heavier than any sword, heavier than any burden he had ever known.

The professor stepped back, his cloak swirling around him, merging with the smoke until he seemed more shadow than man.

Then he was gone, footsteps fading into the broken ruins, leaving Ken alone again beneath the trembling ceiling, the flickering embers, the silent, watching dark.

Ken dropped to one knee, staring at the floor, chest tight.

"I," he whispered to himself, "I am supposed to save the realms."

The thought felt too big, too impossible, and yet he could not deny the pull, the call, the strange certainty blooming like a black flower deep inside him.

He looked down at the Shadow Reaper, its blade gleaming darkly as if smiling at some private joke.

"Five months," he repeated.

Five months to become a savior, or die trying.

He closed his eyes, breathing in the scorched air, feeling the slow, steady pulse of the sword against his palm.

Somewhere deep beneath the ruined city, something shifted, something ancient stirred.

The world was changing, and Ken, whether he was ready or not, was changing with it.

He stood slowly, lifting the blade, feeling its weight settle against his spine, feeling its cold whisper in his mind.

He took one step forward, then another, then another, the ruined sewer stretching before him like the broken spine of a fallen titan.

No turning back.

No more running.

"Five months," Ken thought once more, teeth gritted, jaw set.

"Five months," he whispered to himself, "and the world will either be saved... or burn."