The third SS9 enforcer died with a wet gurgle as Ken's blade opened his throat in a jagged line of crimson. Thirteen-year-old Ken Vaelstron watched the light flicker out of the man's eyes without a shred of pity or guilt. He processed the kills as a solved math problem. Three variables subtracted. One objective secured.
The freezing rain slammed into the capital's slums, drumming against rusted roofs and washing the blood into the gutters. Ken vanished into the shadows without leaving a single footprint. He moved like a fragment of corrupted code, present but impossible for the system to track. His heart hammered against his ribs—a biological weakness he despised—so he forced his pulse to slow by sheer willpower. He was inherently lazy, loathing any unnecessary movement, yet this clinical efficiency was the only way to ensure he could return to his bed without further effort.
He knelt by the lead inquisitor, a piece of trash named Rorke who had spent a decade snapping bones for the Empress. Ken ripped the prismatic data-core from the man's cooling coat. The device was a fusion of crystal and silicon pulsing with a jaundiced yellow light.
"Show me the bugs," Ken rasped.
He activated the Eye of Truth. His right iris fractured into three concentric, glowing rings of silver light. The world transformed into a wireframe of fading mana-signatures and bio-electric currents. The rain became falling lines of vertical script—the source code of the weather. He focused on the data-core, bypassing the logic gates of the Tier-4 Dominion firewall with a micro-burst of raw chaos. The files unspooled: Names. Addresses. Energy signatures. A list of "Umbral-touched" families marked for "Correction." His mother's name wasn't there yet, but the infection was moving toward the palace.
"You're late for your appointment with the void, Rorke," Ken whispered.
He felt a sharp pang of grief for the boy he used to be, but he suppressed it; emotional processing was a drain on his energy. He etched a flawless circle into the damp brick with a heated ceramic stylus. The Null. In his world, 'Null' meant the value was zero. It meant the entity no longer existed.
Distance to Palace: 4.2 Kilometers.
Probability of detection: 0.04%.
A boot scraped on metal. Ken vanished into a recessed alcove, becoming one with the dark architecture. His mind instantly calculated the threat. A young scavenger girl crept into the light, her rags held together by duct tape. She stared at the bodies with a strange, desperate hope. A purely logical mind would see her as a risk factor, but Ken justified sparing her. Killing a non-combatant required too much paperwork and cleanup. He was far too lazy to engage in a kill that provided no strategic gain.
He slid into a ventilation shaft leading to the sub-rail maintenance tunnels. The pipes hummed with mana-leakage, but Ken navigated the labyrinth with his eyes closed. At the palace service entrance, he began the agonizing mental defrag. He had to bury the monster under layers of fake clumsiness and stuttered words. He shoved his blood-speckled tunic into a hidden incinerator, watching the fabric vanish in a white-hot flash.
He checked his reflection in a pool of stagnant water. Dull eyes. Slumped posture. He looked like the "Weak Prince" everyone expected—a boy so lazy he barely seemed to have a pulse. He stepped through the final security bypass, a ghost in the peripheral vision of the gold-armored guards.
He reached his mother's chambers and paused. His Eye flickered on, revealing her pale, flickering energy signature through the wood. The Empress's toxins were eating her alive.
Diagnostic: Cellular decay at 12%. Recovery window closing.
Ken gripped the handle with white knuckles. He was the most dangerous person in the city, but he still couldn't fix her. Not yet.
"I'm back, Mother," he said in the soft, hesitant voice of a boy who needed protection.
He entered and saw her smile. He sat by her bed, hiding his trembling hands. To the court, he was the prince who spent his days napping and avoiding his tutors. To her, he was just Ken. He watched her sleep, his silver rings fading back into a dull blue. He didn't need a crown; he needed the relics. He needed to become the God of the Code.
As the sun began to shine over the horizon, Ken Vaelstron, the prince of nothing, swore a silent oath. He would find every relic. He would kill every inquisitor. He would delete the Empress from reality itself.
The Interval: Four Years of Stillness
In the four years that followed his first hunt, Ken perfected the art of being invisible. He became the "Zero Variable" of the Royal Court. While his half-brother Dorian mastered the sword and the Empress expanded her reach, Ken mastered the art of doing nothing.
He sat in the back of lectures, his head resting on his hand, appearing to doze while his Eye of Truth recorded the frequency of every spell cast by the instructors. He intentionally failed combat trials by "tripping" at the exact moment a killing blow was required, earning him the reputation of a frail, lucky coward.
In the shadows, however, the Phantom grew. Working with Selene, his half-sister, he built a hidden network. Selene was a sly schemer playing a complex game of 3D chess, moving people like pawns on a board only she could see. She didn't work with Ken out of simple sibling affection; she saw him as the ultimate "Queen" on her board—the one piece capable of breaking the Empress's rules. To Selene, the Dominion was a game of rigged odds, and she was positioning herself to be the one who finally called checkmate. She provided Ken with data and palace intelligence, not just to help him, but as part of a much larger, darker calculation for the throne. Together, the two siblings operated in the dead zones of the Empress's surveillance, each for their own endgame. By age seventeen, the SS9 feared the Null symbol more than the king's justice.
Now, the summons has arrived. The Stellar Ascendancy Academy—the "Meat Grinder"—awaits.
End of Chapter 1.