_Majin_

Betrayed. Buried. But never broken.

Lucien was a prodigy—gifted with a power the world feared, envied, and ultimately destroyed. Framed by his mentors, abandoned by his lover, and cast into the deepest prison by the gods themselves, he was left to rot in darkness… alone.

But in the silence beneath the realms, something ancient whispered to him.

Centuries passed. Kingdoms rose and crumbled. Gods fell. And in the depths, Lucien changed. Hardened by solitude. Sharpened by pain. Molded by the Void.

Now, the world has forgotten him.
But he remembers everything.

He walks free—not as a hero, not as a villain—but as a force that bends reality itself. As realms clash and war consumes the skies, one name will echo louder than the gods:

Lucien. The Void’s chosen.

Whisper of the void

The night pressed down like a beast, and the forest had stilled into unnatural silence. Trees that once rustled with wind now stood frozen — as if paying homage to something long buried.

Lucien stood amidst the bodies, still cloaked in tattered robes, blood soaking the dirt beneath his bare feet. The late Nascent Soul cultivator had been reduced to a lifeless husk, his spirit shattered before his blade could finish forming.

Above him, the stars blinked warily. The moon trembled behind clouds.

A slow breath escaped Lucien's lips.

He turned his head slightly as the Whisper emerged from the shadows behind him — not walking, not floating, just appearing, like the darkness itself bent around her.

"More than remember," she said softly. Her voice was smooth, smoky — edged with something ancient. "They fear it."

Lucien tilted his head, expression unreadable. "And yet they send insects."

"They sent what they could afford to lose," she replied, eyes flickering with faint violet light. "You weren't supposed to survive the pit."

Lucien reached down, wiping a smear of blood from his hand onto the cloak of the fallen assassin. The cloth hissed, disintegrating under his touch.

Silence fell again. Somewhere in the forest, a bird dropped dead mid-flight — its soul extinguished before it could cry.

"Do you want me to name them?" the Whisper asked. "The ones who tremble now? The ones who spoke your name with trembling lips when the seal broke?"

Lucien didn't respond immediately. Instead, he gazed into the trees — eyes glowing faintly, like dying embers.

"Not yet," he murmured. "Let them wonder. Let them hope I'm still beneath the earth."

The Whisper grinned. "Spoken like a king."

"No," Lucien said. "Kings are crowned. I am what remains when kingdoms burn."

Just then, the ground rumbled faintly beneath his feet. Not from footsteps — no, from fate. Somewhere far away, in a floating temple bathed in starlight, an old man's eyes snapped open.

"The anomaly walks again," he whispered. "The Void is bleeding."

In a floating city of jade and thunderclouds, a council gathered. Dozens of cultivators, each one capable of slaughtering armies, sat in silence as a masked woman stepped forward. Her aura reeked of frost and old blood.

"We confirmed it," she said. "The boy they buried… lives."

"Send more," someone growled. "We'll bury him again."

"No," the masked woman said. "The Late Nascent Soul cultivator we dispatched is missing."

"His jade token shattered. Soul extinguished."

Someone at the back stood slowly. A man draped in gold and voidsteel. "What's his name?"

The masked woman hesitated, then finally said it:

A heartbeat passed before someone whispered, "He was just a boy…"

Back in the forest, Lucien knelt beside the corpse of the man he'd just ended.

He whispered, "Tell your masters I'm coming."

And then, like smoke on wind, he vanished.

Chapter 7 Of Shadows and Names