My Name, Silence
The world dissolved into an endless, suffocating void. This was Umbra's Shadow-devil Domain, a place without light, sound, or hope. It was Michael's forge, his hell, his home.
Every night, for six agonizing hours, the ritual began.
He swallowed the bitter pill Master Bellam had brewed, its acrid taste a familiar prelude to the torment.
Then Veyrith would step from the oppressive dark, the black sword in his hand seeming to drink what little non-light there was.
The sword was raised. And brought down.
There was no sound, but the impact was absolute. It didn't strike flesh or bone.
It struck the very fabric of his being, the shimmering golden cage wrapped around his soul.
Pain.
It wasn't a sensation his body could process. It was the metaphysical screech of reality being torn, a fire that burned his consciousness without consuming it, leaving him to writhe in a silent, white-hot universe of pure agony.
"AAAAARGH!" he screamed, but the sound was trapped in his mind, echoing in the prison of his skull.
A voice, as cold and sharp as ice, answered him from within. It was his own voice, yet utterly alien.
VOICE: Good. Use the pain. Let it be the hammer that shatters these chains. Do not break, Michael. Not yet.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He could only exist within the torment, a single, frayed nerve of suffering.
After the first week, something changed.
As Veyrith raised the sword for another strike, a new figure shimmered into existence beside him.
A woman, her form spectral and translucent, her face a mask of ancient, profound grief.
It was Elira.
She reached out a ghostly hand, and Veyrith, without a word, passed her the sword.
Michael's mind, fractured as it was, reeled. A new tormentor?
She looked at him, and her eyes, though full of sorrow, were as relentless as Veyrith's.
She swung the blade. The impact was identical, yet carried with it a whisper of regret that was almost more painful than the blow itself.
ELIRA: (A whisper that was felt, not heard) Forgive me, my descendant. This is the only way.
And so, the nights bled into a year. A year of being unmade and remade in a crucible of agony.
The constant, soul-flaying torment forged his spirit, his will, into something hard and unyielding.
The boy who had cried in despair after his first defeat was burned away, leaving behind a core of diamond-hard resolve.
Master Bellam, sensing the immense spiritual toll, had started leaving stockpiles of Seal-Breaking Pills and potent Soul-Fortifying Elixirs outside his conjured house.
No notes, no words. Just the silent support of a grumpy alchemist who knew a desperate cause when he saw one.
NICO: (His voice a frantic buzz from the Feiling Sword, which lay on the glowing grass outside the domain)
Kid, are you still in there? I can feel the backlash from here!
It's like my edge is getting microwaved! Whatever you're doing, it's either going to kill you or turn you into a god. I'm not sure which would be more annoying.
Then, one night, amidst the familiar symphony of his soul screaming, something shifted.
The relentless flood of Primordial Aether he'd been absorbing, the power that had been stagnant for years, suddenly found a new path.
The pain wasn't just a destructive force anymore, it was a catalyst.
The bottleneck in his cultivation didn't just break. It detonated.
BOOM!
A shockwave of pure energy erupted from Michael, so powerful it made the Shadow-devil Domain itself tremble.
The Aether inside him, goaded by the endless torment, shattered the dam between realms.
He didn't just crawl past the peak of Aether Weaving, he blasted through it in a geyser of power, rocketing into the next stage entirely:
Aether Forging.
His body was remade on a fundamental level. His bones grew denser, his muscles coiled with latent power, and his Divine Sense sharpened from a blunt instrument into a razor-sharp blade that could perceive the most subtle flows of energy.
NICO: Whoa! Holy hell! The kid actually did it! He broke through to Aether Forging!
Hey, ghost-lady! Hit him again! It's working!
The nightly ritual continued, but now Michael had a weapon.
His newly forged Divine Sense could push back against the agony, reaching past the fire to touch the golden seal directly.
For six more years he endured, and by the end of the seventh year in the Sanctum, he could finally see it clearly.
A shimmering golden sphere, covered in cracks, caging a furious, dark light.
He focused all his will, all his rage, all the burning, bottomless grief for a mother he couldn't remember, and he pushed.
And for the first time, he felt the soul trapped within. It felt… like him.
Michael: (Telepathically, his voice raw and trembling) Who are you?
A wave of pure, undiluted fury and pride crashed against his consciousness.
The voice was no longer a cold whisper; it was a triumphant roar.
DEVIL SOUL: I am the strength you were denied! I am the fire your father tried to extinguish! I am the truth of our blood! I am Michael Ashborne! And it is time we became whole!
With his other self now awake and battering the cage from the inside, the process accelerated.
The cracks on the golden seal spread like wildfire across a parched continent.
Finally, on a night that marked his tenth year in the Starfall Sanctum, it happened.
Elira raised the Silence sword one last time.
Her ghostly eyes met Michael's, and for a fleeting moment, he saw not a tormentor, but family. She brought the sword down.
There was no sensation of impact. Only a sound. The sound of eternity shattering.
The Umbral Seal, the golden cage forged by his own family to keep him weak, disintegrated into a fine, glittering dust.
A tidal wave of memories, power, and personality crashed into him.
He wasn't just Michael, the rebellious son. He was Michael, the inheritor of a dark and powerful bloodline.
He saw a life lived in shadow, a power that felt as natural as breathing, a heritage of darkness and pride.
And through the storm of reclaimed memories, one image burned brighter than any star, a memory so precious and painful it brought him to his knees.
A woman with his eyes and a sad, beautiful smile, her voice a gentle song.
His mother. Selene.
He let out a roar that was half grief, half triumph, a sound that finally broke the silence of the domain.
The Umbral Core in his Sea of Lo flared, its cold, dark energy merging seamlessly with the warm light of the Aetherium Core.
His power didn't just increase: it evolved. He had mastered the third tier of the Umbral Weaving Art.
He was no longer a boy with a sealed power.
He was whole.
He stood, his body crackling with a new, terrifying energy.
The agony was gone, replaced by a chilling calm.
He looked at Veyrith, then at the spectral form of Elira, who was now fading slightly, her duty done.
Michael: "Thank you." His voice was different. Deeper, layered with the confidence of his other half, edged with the cold steel of his ten-year ordeal.
Elira gave a faint, sorrowful nod, her form dissolving into motes of light that vanished into the cenotaph.
Veyrith remained, his face as impassive and unreadable as a stone cliff.
He sheathed his sword, the simple act seeming to bring a final, heavy finality to the decade of torture.
Michael looked at the silent man who had been his tormentor and his savior. He was no longer afraid of him. He was no longer anything but himself.
Michael: "You never told me your name."
The man in black turned his head slightly, his eyes like chips of obsidian reflecting an endless night.
VEYRITH: "My name is Veyrith." He paused, his gaze falling to the unadorned black blade at his hip, the weapon that had caused him so much pain and given him so much freedom.
"But the sword… the sword is called Silence."