The Ash God’s First Step
The sky tore open.
Not like thunder cracks or magical rifts.
It peeled—like skin being ripped away from a lie.
From the gash above the horizon, darkness spilled. Not ordinary night, but a crawling, living shadow that bent reality like it was made of wax and shame.
It was no longer just a storm.
It was a birth.
The Name Eater had taken form.
And now…
It was learning how to walk.
In the capital, time stuttered.
A merchant aged fifty years in seconds, collapsing into dust as her name slipped from the world.
Elsewhere, a child cried, only for the sound to come out as flowers that wilted before hitting the ground.
People began to forget what they were.
Not just their identities.
But their functions.
A king no longer remembered what ruling meant. His orders came out as riddles and ink.
A mage forgot how to cast fire. Instead, when he tried, his own skin glowed red—and he burned from the inside out.
Eidor knelt on the mountain's edge, gripping the cold, stone earth as if it could keep him anchored.
But even the mountain had begun to tremble.
It remembered names too, and those memories were being ripped from its roots.
"It's rewriting the world," he muttered. "Not just erasing names. It's making new meanings—meanings that serve it."
Rina stood beside him, arms wrapped tightly around herself. "So what do we do? How do you fight something that's changing the rules as it walks?"
Eidor looked over his shoulder, a small smile dancing on his lips.
"You stop playing by the rules."
He stood, slowly.
The cursed fire around him didn't glow gold or red anymore—it was dark blue. Cold flame. Starfire made from lost things.
It was the same magic that the world had once rejected.
The same magic that had once rejected him.
Now, it listened.
"I'm not here to save the world," he said. "I'm here to burn it clean."
The first clash happened not in a city…
But in a memory.
Somewhere within the Ash God's walking nightmare, a battlefield reformed. Not real, but real enough.
It was the moment Eidor was laughed out of the Mage Ascension Trials. The voices returned like knives wrapped in smiles.
"Trash."
"Rankless."
"Worthless."
But this time… he answered.
The version of him standing there—the one from years ago—stood still and trembling.
But the real Eidor walked into that memory with fire leaking from his veins.
He placed a hand on his younger self's shoulder.
"Let me show you what trash can become."
With a roar that shattered the air, Eidor burned the memory.
The judges turned to ash.
The banners dissolved into dust.
The arena collapsed into smoke.
He didn't just destroy it.
He rewrote it.
In its place stood a black throne carved from broken names. Upon it, the word "TRASH" was etched in glowing letters.
Not as an insult.
As a title.
The Ash God faltered. It paused, as if confused. It had never been defied within the world of memory.
But Eidor was no longer bound to reality.
He was a mage without a name.
And that made him the only thing the Name Eater couldn't predict.
Back in the real world, the sky cracked again.
This time, light came through.
Tiny slivers—like strands of hope refusing to die.
People stopped forgetting.
If only for a breath.
But that was enough.
Vann, bloodied and panting, stood atop a crumbling watchtower. "He's pushing it back."
Rina smiled through tears. "He's not just fighting. He's winning."
The Name Eater screamed.
But its scream didn't sound like pain.
It sounded like regret.
Regret that it had left him alive.
That it had let the Trash Mage survive.
Because now, the Ash God had risen.
And it was furious.
"Come on then," Eidor growled, standing alone in a sea of darkness. "You've swallowed kings, crushed names, and broken truths."
He clenched his fist. His magic surged.
"But you never met someone who wasn't supposed to exist."
He lunged forward.
And the sky fell apart.