The wind howled through the blackened stones of Vareth-Kaal — a city swallowed by ruin and silence. Lidow stood alone on the ashen road, his boots crunching over bones of a time long buried. His hand rested on the hilt of his blade, the veins on his wrist glowing faintly with both Light and Shadow.
He had been sent to scout. Nothing more.
But the silence told him what his parents had feared to say aloud: The Shard was here.
And then… he arrived.
No sound. No ripple of power. Just a shadow, long and tall, parting from the wall like a memory refusing to fade. A man—if he could still be called one—wrapped in layered voidsteel and jagged scars that moved like liquid hate. His eyes were featureless. Just polished onyx.
"Your father never begged," said the figure. His voice was oil on fire. "But he bled. You… you won't even get that far."
Lidow's grip tightened. "I'm not here to beg."
A flash. A heartbeat. A scream.
The Shard moved faster than thought. A blow to the gut drove Lidow backward, slamming him into a broken statue with such force the stone cracked. He coughed blood, gasping—he hadn't even seen the movement.
"You have the scent of arrogance," The Shard hissed, walking forward. "But not the weight of experience."
Lidow roared, unleashing a blast of searing white light from his hands. The ruins were momentarily painted in radiance.
It did nothing.
The Shard emerged through the light like a nightmare untouched. His fist struck Lidow's jaw, sending him into the dirt like a broken puppet. Bones snapped. The boy's vision blurred, dancing between light and black.
He tried to rise.
The boot came down on his spine.
"Son of Shadow," The Shard whispered, pressing harder, "you were never meant to carry this legacy. You're not your father. You're just… noise."
Lidow screamed. The pressure grew. He felt something rupture—his shoulder? A rib? He didn't know.
"Mom… Dad…"
The ground split as his magic surged, a pulse of shadow ripping outward, fueled by pain. The Shard was thrown back—just a few steps—but enough for Lidow to crawl free, dragging himself with one arm.
He couldn't see from one eye.
His vision flickered.
His soul… trembled.
But something inside him still burned.
He turned, raising his bloodied hand. "You won't win…"
The Shard paused. "I already did."
Then came the blade. Down, fast, final.
Lidow screamed—but not from the pain. From the sound his own body made as it was split across the chest. Magic exploded from the wound, uncontrolled, violent.
The world went white.
When he awoke, the sky was black.
Not the sky above — the sky inside his head.
He was somewhere else.
Not dead. But not alive.
Suspended.
He saw flashes of his father — a young Shadow on fire, alone, crawling through blood.
His mother — kneeling in a field of light, tears in her eyes.
And then… himself.
Small. Weak. Trembling.
Alone.
Somewhere far from Vareth-Kaal, Valarie woke with a scream.
Shadow was already standing.
He felt it. The break. The scream of his son's soul.
No one spoke. No one needed to.
Their child… was dying.
There was no air.
No light.
No sound.
Lidow floated.
His body was gone — or perhaps shattered beyond recognition. There was no shape to his form here, only thought, pain, and memory.
The void pulsed like a heart, slow and ancient. Every beat sent a ripple of his memories across the darkness.
Valarie's smile. Shadow's towering silhouette at the edge of the cliff. The way light once danced between his fingertips…
He reached for them, but they crumbled like ash.
This place wasn't death. No. Death was merciful.
This was between — a prison for souls not yet ready to pass, not strong enough to return. The Wound in his chest ached with each phantom breath, even here.
And then, through the endless dark, came a voice.
Not words. Just a hum — low, melodic, impossibly old. It was like listening to stone remember the ocean. Lidow drifted toward it without thought.
He passed fragments of things that once were — floating images like shards of glass:
His mother's tears falling on his forehead as a newborn.
His father's quiet gaze during training — never soft, but never cold.
The moment he touched both light and shadow for the first time… and they touched back.
The hum grew louder.
It formed words now, ancient and cracked:
"You bleed… like your father once bled."
Lidow tried to speak, but only light poured from his mouth. The wound was still open. Still devouring him from within.
"You burn… like fire caught in a storm."
The darkness shifted.
And then — she appeared.
She had no name. No face. But her presence was impossible to deny.
She looked like the sky before the first sunrise — deep, limitless, frightening.
"You are not meant to die here, child."
Lidow's thoughts trembled.
Then why…? Why did I lose?
Her voice darkened.
"Because power is not enough. Blood is not enough. And fate is not kind."
I failed them… he thought, the words drifting like whispers into the void.
The faceless figure tilted its head.
"Failure is the beginning. Not the end."
Then her hand extended — not quite light, not quite shadow. Something older.
"Do you want to return?"
Lidow hesitated.
Pain was all he knew now. His body lay broken somewhere far away.
But deeper than the pain was something more dangerous.
Rage.
He took her hand.
And in that moment, the void screamed.
Meanwhile…
Shadow stood at the mouth of the portal. Valarie gripped the side of the ancient archway as it cracked from the inside.
Magic — wild and untamed — leaked through. Light and shadow woven together in unstable threads.
"He's not dead," Valarie whispered.
"No," Shadow answered, his voice like steel grinding on bone. "He's awakening."
A shockwave burst from the gate, sending both of them staggering back.
Out of the blast came nothing.
No body.
No son.
Just silence.
And a single feather — black and gold — drifting down like a falling star.
Shadow caught it.
And for the first time in years… he didn't know what came next.
The silence after the explosion was unnatural. Not peaceful. Not still.
It watched.
Valarie crouched beside the shattered stones of the gate, her fingers trembling as she traced the lines of ancient symbols now fractured beyond repair. "He was here," she murmured. "He passed through — but something else… something older… touched him."
Shadow stood unmoving. The black-and-gold feather still lay in his palm. No wind dared take it.
He stared into the space where Lidow had vanished, eyes narrowed. His face gave away nothing. But inside?
A storm.
"Where is he?" Valarie asked.
Shadow didn't answer.
He turned away. The ground beneath him sizzled. The trees bent. Even the air recoiled from his aura. "This place is closed," he growled.
"But—"
"He's not here anymore."
"Then where?!"
Shadow didn't stop walking. "Everywhere."
Three weeks later
The demon lands of Varnak had not known peace in centuries. Yet now, there was a haunting stillness in the air — the kind that made even monsters hide.
Valarie moved through the ash-covered forests alone.
Rumors spoke of a being — cloaked in burned fabric, faceless, half-light, half-shadow — who had appeared on the cliffs of the dead.
A being who spoke no words.
Who bled no blood.
But whose presence made the sky flicker and the earth hum.
She found the old witch near the edge of the world.
The crone's eyes were pale and full of nightmares.
"You seek the boy who is no longer a boy," she rasped.
Valarie nodded. "My son."
"You won't find him with love," the witch said. "Only with fear."
"…What?"
"He's not running toward the light. He's falling."
Valarie's breath caught. "Then I'll follow."
The witch chuckled, teeth like shards of ice. "Even his father's shadow won't reach him now."
Valarie clenched her fists. Her aura blazed for a moment, like lightning trapped in her chest.
"No," she said. "It will."
Elsewhere…
A figure knelt at the edge of a black river.
No name.
No past.
Just fire and cold running in his veins.
The void had given him something in exchange for pain: clarity.
He remembered everything now — the betrayal, the humiliation, the fight he could not win. And what burned deepest was the shame.
He had been born from light and shadow.
But he had not been ready.
He would be.
Soon.
The whispers of the void echoed in his ears still. They did not speak in words anymore. Only promises.
He stood.
Wherever he was, the world around him bent under his footsteps.
A single word rang through his skull, like prophecy:
Lidow.
Meanwhile… in the capital of the celestial realm
The Saint, cloaked in silver flame, stood before the High Council.
"Your weapon failed," spat one of the elders. "The hybrid boy was weak."
"No," the Saint replied calmly. "He wasn't ready."
"Then he is of no use to us."
The Saint turned, eyes narrowing.
"On the contrary. Now… he is finally becoming what we feared he might."
"Then end him."
"No," said the Saint. "Let him rise. And when he comes for vengeance… I will face him myself."
The sand was black and ancient — cracked, hot, whispering.
Lidow walked barefoot through it, cloaked in a rag torn from a dead war priest. His skin bore the marks of his failure: long burns down his chest, healing slowly. His eyes no longer shimmered with innocence. Only the void of determination.
He had been gone for weeks. Maybe months. Time in this place didn't move forward — it coiled.
Each day, he trained in silence.
Each night, he listened to the voice. Not from a god. Not from Shadow.
From within.
"Your name was taken," the voice whispered. "Take another."
"No," Lidow murmured. "I'll make them remember it."
His powers stirred slowly now. Before, he used light like a sword, and shadow like a shield.
Now?
Now they clashed. Battled. Burned inside him like wolves fighting for a single soul.
And he was learning to control them together.
A new power was coming. But it needed one more thing:
Pain.
Elsewhere, in the realm of ash
Valarie moved quickly through ruined temples, still dressed in her battle armor, hunting any clue of her son.
She knew he was alive.
The problem was — she wasn't sure he was the same.
Demons she questioned trembled at the mention of him now.
"The walker…" they called him.
"The boy with black eyes and white flame."
"The one who doesn't sleep."
Shadow watched her quietly from the cliffs above.
"Say it," she said without turning around.
"You know what I'll say."
"He's not lost."
"He's changing."
"So did we."
Shadow didn't argue.
Instead, he looked to the eastern sky.
"Someone else is watching him," he said at last.
Valarie tensed. "The Saint?"
"No," Shadow replied. "Someone… older."
Meanwhile — deep in the ruined city of Ovrak
Lidow stood alone in the center of an ancient ring of stone.
Above him, the sky rippled.
His breathing slowed.
He extended one hand. A sphere of pure light rose from his palm. But this time — shadow licked at the edges of it, intertwining like roots around a seed.
He didn't fight it.
He let it burn.
And in the stillness, something responded.
A creature emerged from the dark below — crawling from beneath the city's broken streets. Tall, skinless, eyes like hollow stars.
It stared at Lidow.
"You walk the edge of oblivion," it hissed.
"I was born there," Lidow answered.
"You wish to fight your fate?"
"I want to own it."
The creature lunged.
Lidow didn't flinch.
His light didn't blind.
His shadow didn't crush.
But together — they ripped the creature apart from the inside.
Afterward, Lidow stood, chest heaving.
His hands burned. Not from the power — from the restraint.
He knew he could have killed more.
But something inside him was whispering again.
Not the voice of the void.
Not the call of his father.
Something new.
He wasn't sure yet whether it was dangerous.
But he knew this:
He would return soon.
And this time — not even heaven would be ready.
The black sky over Inferra cracked with thunder, though there were no clouds. Only smoke. And silence.
Shadow stood at the top of his citadel, the Throne of Obsidian beneath his feet. But he wasn't seated.
He was watching.
Watching the winds shift. The power ripple.
"You feel it too," Valarie said as she stepped beside him.
"Yes," he replied. "He's close."
Valarie didn't look surprised. Her armor was back on. Hair tied in a war braid. Her eyes held the glow of a mother who had already lost too much.
"Are we ready?" she asked.
Shadow didn't answer. Not yet.
Instead, he asked, "What would you do if he returned… not as a son, but as a storm?"
Valarie exhaled, sharp and low.
"Then I will meet that storm as his mother. And if I must fight it…"
She looked down, then up.
"…then I'll burn alongside it."
The chambers below the throne room had not been touched in years.
They were once used to train generals — demons forged from suffering, kings baptized in chaos.
Now they stirred again.
Six new commanders stood in silence as Shadow entered. His presence turned the air heavy, like molten iron.
"You all know why you're here," he said.
They nodded.
"You all fear the same name," he continued.
"Lidow," whispered one.
"Lightbreaker," said another.
"The heir of both ends," murmured the last.
"No," Shadow said, and the room fell still.
"You fear the uncertain. Because you don't know who returns to us."
He looked at each of them in turn.
"You are not here to fight him," Shadow said.
"You are here to witness him. To survive him. And if you cannot…" — his voice dropped — "…then step aside. This world is not built for the weak."
Meanwhile, across the fractured continents of the surface world, whispers of Lidow's return bloomed like fire in dry fields.
In a ruined monastery, an old Lightkeeper watched the skies.
"The boy lives," he whispered to the ash. "The Riftblood… walks again."
At the shattered gates of the Sky Bastion, where angels once reigned, a lone figure gazed into the abyss.
She wore gold around her arms. Her wings were clipped. But her smile was cruel.
"So," she muttered. "The little prince survived."
Behind her, a beast stirred. A weapon long lost.
It opened its mouth.
And said only one word:
"Soon."
In Inferra, the sky broke open.
Shadow and Valarie stood again at the Obsidian Throne, but this time the wind was colder.
There was no storm.
Just a single light in the sky, falling — slow — like a dying star.
They both knew.
Valarie took a breath. Her voice cracked, soft and sharp:
"It's him."
Shadow nodded.
"But is it our son…" he murmured, voice low.
"Or something else entirely?"
The flame feared what it could not consume.
The dark feared what it could not silence.
And together — both turned to face the one being they once called child.
And now… called King.