Chapter 1: The Name That Refuses to Die

There was no light. No sound. No time. Not even the memory of space. It was an absolute void, so complete that even the concept of "emptiness" felt too full to describe it.

Yet within that silence, something existed.

It did not form from atoms. It was not born from a god's whim, nor carved from chaos, nor shaped by any rule or reality. It simply was. It had always been. And it could not be unmade.

Even when entire universes were erased—reset by divine hands or cosmic entropy—this one thing returned. Again and again. Carved into the edges of reality like a scar that refused to heal.

Ketzerah.

A name.

An existence.

A contradiction.

And, in every world it touched, a threat.

---

In a peaceful world known as Sarlion, spring had just arrived. The earth was waking up. The snow had melted from the northern hills, and fresh flowers poked through the soil. Villagers were returning to their fields, the markets buzzed, and children chased each other under the new sun.

But far from civilization, deep in the forgotten western valleys, nestled beneath cliffs older than the gods, lay a ruin so ancient that no one dared approach it anymore.

There, amidst moss-covered stones and crumbling pillars, a child opened his eyes.

He had no heartbeat.

No breath.

And yet, he was alive.

His hair was ash-gray, as if burnt by a fire that had never happened. His eyes had no color. No iris, no pupil. Just endless opacity—like fog trapped inside glass. His skin was unmarred, his body small and fragile.

He was naked, barefoot, and standing in the center of a cracked altar inscribed with words no living soul could decipher.

He did not cry.

He did not speak.

He simply existed.

And as his eyes opened—

the entire world shuddered.

---

Far to the north, in the frozen empire of Norzreid, Grand Archmage Eltrane stumbled from his tower balcony, coughing up blood.

"Impossible…" he rasped, clutching his staff. "That… entity was sealed. That ritual erased it—! Why… why can I still feel it?!"

In the farthest depths of the Boundless Sea, a titanic dragon awoke from its thousand-year slumber, roaring into the deep waters.

And within the realm between realms, a dimensionless space untouched by time, a figure robed in black snapped his writing quill.

He gazed upward toward a sky that did not exist, voice hollow.

"…You returned."

---

Back in the forgotten valley, the ash-haired child took his first step.

He did not know why he moved. He had no memories, no sense of self. But something within him compelled him to walk—to leave the altar, to descend the mossy steps, and to enter the surrounding forest of silence.

His feet left no prints on the earth.

Birds did not chirp.

The wind itself avoided him.

And yet, the world seemed to notice him anyway.

---

An old woman, bent with age and carrying a basket of herbs, emerged from the lower forest path. Her eyes squinted in the dim light as she looked toward the boy.

"Oh… my, where did you come from?" she asked, surprised but not afraid. "Are you lost, child?"

The boy tilted his head. He understood her words, somehow, though he did not know how. He could not speak. He had no name. No memory. He did not even know what "lost" meant.

But the old woman didn't seem to care. She smiled gently, reaching out her wrinkled hand.

"Come. It's not safe out here. You must be hungry."

She took his hand.

And for that moment, the world did not shatter.

---

The woman brought him to a small cottage at the edge of the woods. The house was made of wood and stone, crooked but warm, with a garden of wilted herbs and a water wheel that no longer turned.

Inside, she lit a small fire, fed him a bowl of carrot soup, and gave him worn clothes that once belonged to her grandson—now long gone.

"I suppose I should give you a name," she mused, watching him sit in silence. "How about... Lian? Yes, that suits you. Your hair reminds me of the mountain mist."

Lian.

The boy didn't respond, but something deep inside him recoiled at the name.

It was not his name.

He knew that.

But he didn't know how to explain it. He didn't know how to speak.

Yet, far beneath his fragile exterior, a whisper stirred.

"Your name is not Lian."

"You are not a child."

"You are Ketzerah."

And the world trembled, softly.

---

Days passed.

The old woman treated him like her own. She showed him how to use a spoon, how to wash his hands, how to tie a belt. She talked to him every day, told him stories, never asking why he never spoke.

He watched. He listened. He learned.

Too quickly.

He never got sick. He never yawned. He never blinked. He only ate because she asked him to.

He did not sleep.

He simply sat by the window, eyes staring into the night, unmoving.

Sometimes, the flowers in the garden would bloom overnight—even though they were dead the day before. The dried-up spring beside the house began flowing again.

Birds that hadn't been seen in the region for decades returned and sang from the trees.

The old woman laughed.

"You're a little blessing, Lian!" she said one morning, hugging him. "Maybe the spirits sent you to me."

But the boy—Ketzerah—knew the truth.

This was not a blessing.

This was reality reacting to his existence.

---

Beyond the valley, whispers began to spread. Minor earthquakes. Unexplained visions. The Pope of the Church of Light declared a "Sign of the Final Cycle." The Astral Observatory reported anomalies in star patterns.

In distant lands, old beings remembered old names.

And one evening, as the sun dipped behind the mountains, a black-robed woman arrived at the cottage.

---

She stood just outside the fence, watching the boy through the open window.

He saw her.

And he recognized her.

Or rather, he remembered being destroyed by her.

She had ended him once.

But he was here again.

---

"You're not Lian," the woman whispered, her voice like broken glass softened by wind. "You never were."

The boy stepped out of the house, barefoot, eyes locked onto her.

"What do you want from me?" he asked—not with his lips, but with something deeper. A vibration in the air. An ancient tone.

Her breath hitched.

"…Answers," she said.

"Why are you still alive?"

"Why do all ends fail to touch you?"

"Why can't the seals hold you, the erasures consume you?"

"Why can't I forget you… no matter how many realities pass?"

Tears welled in her eyes.

"…Why are you the only one who never disappears?"

Ketzerah said nothing.

He could not answer.

He himself did not know.

He only knew one thing:

He could not die.

Not because he was immortal. Not because of strength. Not because of magic.

But because even in a state of absolute nonexistence, he still existed.

Not even "nothingness" could exclude him.

And because of that, he could not live normally, either.

---

That night, the old woman died peacefully in her sleep.

No pain. No warning. Just quiet.

Ketzerah sat by her body for hours.

He did not cry.

He could not.

He only sat there, staring.

And for the first time, the world did not tremble.

He buried her beneath the garden, marking her grave with stones and wildflowers. Then, without a word, he left the cottage.

The woman in black followed him, silently.

---

The sky was dark.

The wind was cold.

The path forward was unclear.

But Ketzerah walked anyway.

He did not know who he was, where he was going, or what he was meant to become.

But he knew—beyond all doubt—that he was something the world could never forget.

A truth that could not be erased.

A presence that existed even in absence.

He was Ketzerah. The Eternal Entity.

The name that refuses to die.

---