The main hall of the Vane estate descended into hell in a heartbeat. The clash of metal was deafening as Duke Garrick Vane moved like a crimson storm, his greatsword—Dragon's Fang—cleaving through the air and the bodies of the intruders as if they were made of paper.
Black blood, foul and hissing with acrid smoke, splattered across the white marble floor. "Do not let them near the children!" Garrick roared.
Hidden behind a massive pillar, Elian held Elara tight. His small, frail body trembled—not from fear, but from a terrifying sensory overload. To Elian, the world was no longer just stone and silk; it was a chaotic web of mana threads. He saw his father's Aura blazing like a sun, yet his eyes also caught the tiny, jagged fractures in his father's defense that no one else could perceive.
"Brother... I'm scared," Elara sobbed, burying her face in Elian's chest.
"Shh, don't look. I'm here," Elian whispered, covering her ears to muffle the sounds of slaughter.
Suddenly, Elian's perception screamed. A shadow melted into black liquid, slithering past the knights and solidifying just three meters in front of them. The figure wore a plain white mask with a single vertical eye slit, raising a serrated dagger dripping with purple poison.
"Die, spawn of Vane," the creature hissed.
Time seemed to slow. His father was too far. Elian had no functioning Mana Core and no muscles to fight back. Logically, death was inevitable.
But Elian refused to die. He stared into that vertical eye slit with his pitch-black eyes, and a primal urge exploded from his soul. It wasn't magic. It was a request to the world.
No. Not here. Fall.
CRACK!
The impossible happened. The solid marble floor, which had withstood centuries, suddenly fractured directly beneath the assassin's foot. The creature faltered, its balance broken, and its poisoned blade sliced only thin air. The wind in the room seemed to swirl protectively, shoving the assassin's body aside.
Before the creature could recover, a spear of light—thrown by Duke Garrick—pierced its chest, pinning it to the wall.
"ELIAN!" Garrick leaped over the corpses, landing in front of his children with heavy breaths. "Are you hurt?"
Elian shook his head weakly, cold sweat soaking his temples. The "coincidence" had drained his energy as if his very life force had been siphoned away. He fainted in his father's arms.
***
Two years had passed since that night. The attack had left a massive question mark: How did the Void Walkers penetrate the estate's magical barrier? The answer was simple yet bitter: a traitor.
Elian, now ten years old, sat in the grand library, looking more like a living painting than a boy. His features had become even more delicate, his hair reaching his upper back like fine silk. Any stranger would undoubtedly address him as "My Lady".
"Time for your medicine, Young Master," Hanna, his loyal maid, said as she brought a bitter body-strengthening tonic.
Elian drank it without flinching. Bitterness had been his only companion since birth.
Elara, now eight, marched in. Unlike Elian, she was athletic and already radiating a faint red aura—the mark of a genius. She hugged Elian's arm, her gaze soft yet possessive. She had sworn to be the sword for the brother who could not fight.
"Father is summoning us," Elara mumbled. "There are guests from the Capital. Someone from the Holy Church."
Elian felt a premonition of dread. The World around him suddenly felt cold.
In the drawing room, across from a tense Duke Garrick, sat a Bishop of the Holy Empire and Viscount Morgran. Morgran smiled kindly, but the "sound" around him hissed like a snake.
"Collusion," Morgran said, placing a scroll on the table. "The Empire suspects the Vane family is working with foreign races. We found Void artifacts in your armory this morning."
A setup. Elian realized it instantly.
"Preposterous!" Garrick slammed the table, his golden aura shaking the room.
"Garrick Vane! Surrender on charges of treason!" A magically amplified voice boomed from the sky.
Elian looked out the window. The sky was filled with warships—not from the Void, but from the Empire and the Holy Church. The betrayal was complete.
Garrick looked at his children for the last time—a gaze full of love and farewell. "Hanna! Take them to the secret passage! Run!"
Elian didn't scream. He only watched his father's back as the Duke drew his sword to face hundreds of elite mages descending from the sky. In that moment, something snapped inside Elian.
Kindness meant nothing without power.
As they reached the edge of the cliff behind the castle, a stray magical blast struck the rock. The ground gave way. Hanna caught Elara, but Elian's hand grasped only empty air.
"BROTHER!!!"
Elian fell into the dark abyss. As the wind embraced him, he felt no fear, only a cold realization. He had been discarded by humans.
But before the cold river swallowed him, a primal, ancient voice echoed in his soul.
DO NOT FEAR, CHILD. WE WILL EMBRACE YOU WHEN THEY CAST YOU ASIDE.