They say time is the ultimate healer of wounds, but in the twisted reality of Draka, time is no physician; it is a butcher, meticulously sharpening its knives. Eight years—ninety-six long months—have crawled by like eons forged in ice and fire. These were not merely days checked off a calendar; they were suffocating layers of darkness accumulating over our souls until we had almost forgotten the shape and warmth of the sun.
During these years, Draka ceased to be a kingdom teeming with superficial life. It changed, its streets staining with a pervasive, silent terror. Dan had vanished completely after that ill-fated night he devoured the Dragon's Heart. No one saw him, and no one heard his guttural laugh. Yet, his absence brought no relief; it was a crushing weight upon the collective chest of the city. It was the unnatural stillness of a dormant volcanic crater—we knew, with terrifying certainty, that the magma was boiling just beneath the surface. The people no longer feared the screams of Dan's victims; they feared the "Void" he had left behind. They walked the desolate roads glancing over their shoulders, perpetually expecting the laughing monster to step out of every shadow.
But within the heart of this terrifying vacuum, something else was born—something more precise, more calculating, and infinitely colder. The legend of the "Ghost" was born.
I was no longer the assassin who left behind a trail of blood and viscera to testify to his strength. In the first four years, I refined myself until I became the personification of Nothingness. I entered the fortresses of the high nobility and exited with their lives without disturbing a single curtain or allowing a door to creak. I erased my targets from existence before they even realized they were dying. And in the four years that followed, I did not work alone.
The Ryumin syndicate had ascended from a desperate group of mercenaries in a damp basement to become the "Shadow Government" of the kingdom. Skyro, with a mind that outweighed an entire empire, wove a spider-web of spies, merchants, and corrupt politicians until he held the keys to Draka's economy in his pocket. Nero, the once-timid youth, had transformed into a human fortress—a field commander feared by the most hardened criminals. And Gina—that fierce, predatory cat—had become the "Queen of Whispers," a mistress of information from whom not even a crawling ant in King Baron's court could hide.
However, despite all the absolute power we had constructed, there was one "Secret"—a thin, hidden thread that I alone held, far from the eyes of even my closest allies.
[The Secret Council: Under the Shadows of Doubt] In the deepest basement of the Ryumin headquarters, at a level where no ordinary member had ever set foot, the walls were deaf and cold, constructed from black basalt that greedily swallowed both light and sound. Outside, the wind howled like starving wolves, but here, in this isolated chamber, the silence was more terrifying than any storm.
A single candle stood in the center of a massive wooden table, its flame battling the encroaching darkness, casting our distorted, giant shadows against the stone walls like ancient monsters meeting to divide the world.
I sat in the darkness, my shroud covering half my face, while Skyro sat opposite me. I saw his hand tremble slightly as he adjusted his spectacles—a micro-movement only someone who had known him for years would notice. His eyes, usually cold and analytical, shone tonight with a sharp suspicion, a doubt that was beginning to crystallize into a painful certainty.
"Ray..." Skyro began, his voice calm yet carrying the weight of a mountain. "We haven't entered this room since the early years of our foundation. Why have you summoned us here tonight? Why have you dismissed the guards and the advisors?"
He leaned forward, the candlelight reflecting off his lenses. "The air here is saturated with the scent of a secret you have yet to speak... Do you doubt us? Is there a traitor in our midst? Or has the 'Ghost' who fears nothing finally begun to fear his own shadow?"
Behind Skyro, Nero stood like a monolith. His massive arms were crossed over his chest, but his right hand remained dangerously close to the hilt of his colossal greatsword. His eyes scanned the corners of the room with a primal anxiety, as if expecting the walls themselves to launch an assault.
"Speak, Ray," Nero grunted, his voice gravelly. "Your expression tonight, and your silence throughout the past week... it makes me feel like the world we built with our blood over eight years is about to collapse onto our heads. What are you hiding beneath that shroud?"
I took a deep, steadying breath, feeling the weight of a burden that had gnawed at my bones for eight years shifting in my chest. I looked at them with a facade of coldness, but inside, a volcano was nearing eruption. I knew this moment would change everything. It would alter our friendship, our loyalty, and our very purpose.
"Eight years, Skyro..." I said, my voice low and resonant, echoing through the chamber. "Eight years you have wondered about my disappearance every dawn. Did you think I was going out to hunt? Or that I was chasing peace in the forest? Did you think I sought solitude to hide the scars of the Eyes of Sin?"
I paused, letting the silence hang heavy in the air before dropping the bombshell with clinical coldness.
"I was never alone. In that forest... behind the Rusting Waterfalls... I was nurturing a thunderbolt that will incinerate all of Draka."
Skyro froze. Nero's eyes narrowed.
I continued, my tone sharpening. "The child I saved eight years ago from the Brinn Tavern... he was not just an orphan of the commoners. He was not merely a charity project. That child... his name is Ryo."
I raised my head and looked directly into Skyro's eyes. "He is Ryo, son of Arthur... the legitimate and sole heir to the Pure Royal Bloodline."
The silence fell upon us like a collapsing mountain. It felt as if time itself had stopped within that damp, basalt room. Nero took a staggering step back, his hand slamming into the stone wall for support, as if the shock had robbed him of his balance. His eyes bulged, and his mouth fell open in a state of bewilderment I hadn't seen in him even during our bloodiest battles.
As for Skyro, the mastermind... his hands froze in mid-air as he tried to adjust his glasses. They slipped from his fingers and struck the wooden table with a dull thud, but he didn't care. His gaze was lost in the void, and his face turned ashen as if he had seen an actual phantom.
"Arthur...?" Skyro whispered, his voice cracked and broken, as if uttering a name from forbidden legends. "The Kind King? The King whom Baron murdered through treachery and claimed had merely passed away? You... you are saying his son is alive? And that you... you hid him under our noses for eight years?"
Suddenly, Skyro slammed both hands onto the table, a roar of frustration shaking the candle until it nearly died. "How, Ray?! How could you withhold a secret that weighs as much as an entire kingdom?! We thought you were seeking tranquility... we covered your absence and guarded your back... while you were building a throne of embers in the dark without telling us!"
Nero punched the table so hard the wood splintered. "Why didn't you involve us?!" he shouted, his voice choked with a sense of betrayal. "Eight years we've fought in the shadows like common thieves! If we had known we were protecting Arthur's son... if we had known there was a rightful King... we would have shattered the palace walls long ago! Were we not worthy of your trust? Were we not your brothers?"
I looked at them with my Red Eye, which began to glow with a killing frost. I stood up slowly, allowing my aura to fill the room, a stark reminder of who I was.
"I did not tell you... not because I doubted your loyalty, but because I feared for him," I said sternly. "Trust in Draka is a currency killed by greed. Baron has eyes in our very breaths... in the walls... in the wind. A single slip of the tongue, a wrong look, a whisper in a moment of drunkenness or weakness... it would have meant his head, and all of your heads."
I walked around the table, approaching Skyro. "I wanted him to grow up far from the filth of syndicate politics. I wanted him to inherit his hatred from me alone. I wanted him to be a pure blade, one that knows no compromise and no mercy... so that he could become a King capable of slaughtering Baron."
Skyro's breathing gradually steadied. His analytical mind began to work with frantic speed. He picked up his glasses, wiped them slowly with the hem of his shirt, and the look of shock transformed into something else—a cunning, terrifying smile began to etch itself onto his lips.
"Now..." Skyro whispered as he slid his glasses back on, his eyes gleaming with a demonic intelligence. "Now I understand everything. The architectural blueprints you requested for the palace's secret tunnels two years ago... your obsessive study of the weaknesses of the remaining five Asura guards... your request to gather the rarest minerals... none of it was for your personal revenge, Ray."
Skyro looked at me with an admiration laced with dread. "You were paving the way for a King's march. You were drawing the map of death for Baron and his sons, Muriel and Cyril, so that Ryo could walk over their corpses to the throne."
Skyro stood with absolute gravity, adjusted his collar, and bowed his head slightly as if swearing a new oath to a greater loyalty.
"Bring him here, Ray. The cottage is no longer his place. The forest is no longer safe for a King. This entire headquarters is his fortress from this moment on, and the Ryumin syndicate is no longer just a group of assassins..."
Skyro raised his head, looking at Nero and me with a gaze overflowing with ambition. "We are the 'Shadow Army' of the True King. We will cook a hell for them that the history of Draka has never witnessed."
[The Mother's Grave: The Ghost's Consolation] I stepped out of the headquarters, the night still cloaking the world in its shroud. I headed toward the eastern forest, passing by the ancient oak tree—the tree that had witnessed our training, our laughter, and our tears.
There, beneath the damp soil, Ryo's mother rested. In the fifth year, illness had taken her. It wasn't an ordinary disease; it was the sickness of "oppression" and exhaustion. Her body, which had endured years of poverty and flight, could take no more. I remember her final night; she held my hand with a weakening grip, her eyes overflowing with tears.
"Ray..." she had said in a raspy voice. "Make him a strong King... do not let him show mercy to those who robbed him of his father... promise me you will be his sword and his shield."
I promised her. And since that day, I became Ryo's father, his teacher, and the monster that directed his rage.
I reached the hidden training grounds behind the waterfalls. The mist was thick, covering the earth like a carpet of white smoke. But... something was tearing through that mist. An aura of raw power emanated from the center.
There stood Ryo.
At sixteen years old, Ryo had become a human miracle. He was no longer that scrawny child. He was tall, his massive frame defined by muscles that were both rock-solid and supple, as if carved from mountain stone.
But the most striking and terrifying change was his hair. The black had vanished. His hair had turned entirely to a shimmering silver-white, like the reflection of moonlight on snow. It was long, cascading over his broad shoulders, rippling with his own aura even in the absolute stillness of the wind. This whiteness was not the sign of age—it was the evidence of the awakening of the "Pure Dragon Blood" within him. The ancient royal genes had overwhelmed his humanity.
He wore loose black trousers, his bare chest showing the scars of the brutal training we had endured together. He turned the moment I set foot on the grounds. His eyes... they were no longer human. They were golden, with vertically slit pupils, glowing with a terrifying and sacred royal brilliance.
He drove his massive training sword into the ground and bowed with respect, but it was a bow that carried an inherent majesty. "Master Ray... you are late today."
His voice was deep and resonant, possessing a natural authority that commanded attention, like an echo coming from an ancient throne room.
I smiled beneath my shroud. I had succeeded. I had forged the monster that would consume Baron.
"Ryo... the time has come," I told him as I approached.
[The Great Confession: The Truth of Blood and Fire] We sat by his mother's grave, under the shadow of the tree. Ryo looked at the grave in silence, his hand gently stroking the dirt.
"Master Ray..." Ryo said without looking up. "For years I have asked you about my father... and the reason we live in this exile. And about this white hair that grows, and the power that boils in my veins and threatens to tear me apart... you always said: 'Not yet.' Has the time finally come?"
I looked into his golden eyes and saw a maturity that far surpassed his years. "Yes, Ryo... today I will give you the full truth. The truth that will change your destiny and the destiny of this world."
I began to tell him the tale. I did not sugarcoat it, nor did I soften the blow. I told him of his father, Arthur, the King who truly loved the people, and how he would slip from the palace like a thief to see Ryo's mother, because he found in her cottage the love he missed in his cold palace. I told him of Baron—the uncle who smiled in his brother's face while sharpening his dagger behind his back.
"The night of the coronation..." I said, my voice filled with sorrow. "Your father did not abdicate the throne as the fake history claims. Baron... stabbed his older brother in the back. He stole the crown from his head while he was bleeding. And he didn't stop there... he ordered his guards to drag your father's body, tie it with weights, and throw it into the sea for the fish to scavenge and hide the crime."
As I spoke, I watched Ryo's features. I expected him to cry. I expected him to scream. But he did not.
His face froze. His features turned into a mask of pure, cold hatred. The ground began to tremble beneath him. Small pebbles began to rise into the air around him, propelled by the pressure of the mana emanating from him. I saw his white hair billow violently despite the lack of wind. A transparent, golden aura—terrifying and heavy—began to leak from his body, pulverizing the small rocks around us.
"So..." Ryo whispered, his voice sounding like the grinding of two massive boulders. "Baron... and Muriel... and Cyril... they live in my father's palace? They sleep in his room? They drink from his cup? While the fish ate my father's body?"
Ryo stood up slowly. As he rose, the magnitude of his aura doubled until I, the Ghost, felt a pressure forcing me to take a step back. His eyes turned entirely into glowing gold.
"Master Ray..." He turned to me, and there was no child left in his eyes. "Thank you for keeping me alive. And thank you for teaching me how to kill."
He pulled his sword from the ground and raised it toward the moon.
"I swear by my father's blood that was shed in treachery, and by my mother's patience as she died of grief... that I will make Baron's family beg for death." He grit his teeth, small sharp fangs protruding. "I will burn their palaces stone by stone... I will grind the bones of their guards... and I will reclaim my crown, even if I have to wash it in all of their blood."
I looked at him and saw an heir who knew no mercy. I saw the Dragon that had awakened and would not sleep until it was satiated.
I smiled behind my shroud. "This is my King," I whispered to myself. "Prepare yourself, Baron... Hell is coming for you."