Five years in the Sector of Sighs can turn a man into a monster, but for Cian Kaelen, it turned him into a myth.
At fifteen, Cian was no longer the small boy who had collapsed in his mother's blood. He was a lean, pale phantom with hair as white as the moon—a side effect of his soul constantly brushing against the Void. His vocal cords remained a jagged ruin, leaving him a silent observer in a world of loud, arrogant killers.
He lived in the "Grave" more than the real world. Under Valeria's brutal tutelage, he had mastered the art of Partial Phasing. He could make his skin intangible to a blade while keeping his muscles solid enough to deliver a killing blow. But the cost was heavy. Without the Dragon Heart, his body was "thinning." Sometimes, he would look at his hand and see the floorboards through it, not because he willed it, but because his existence was literally fading.
Two Years Ago
In his third year of training, the friction within the Guild reached a boiling point.
Kael, a nineteen-year-old prodigy and an A-rank [Shadow-Stalker], had been the Guild's rising star until Cian arrived. Kael had spent a decade perfecting his craft, yet Valeria ignored him to spend hours in the private pits with the "Mute Ghost."
"You're nothing but a charity case, Kaelen!" Kael roared, slamming his daggers onto the stone table of the training hall.
The Guild members—assassins, poisoners, and cutthroats—gathered in a circle. Valeria stood on the balcony above, her arms crossed, watching with a cold, unreadable expression.
Cian didn't look up from the whetstone he was using on his scalpel. He didn't have a voice to answer, and he didn't have the energy to care.
"Fight me!" Kael hissed, his shadow stretching out like a living beast. "If I win, you leave the Guild. If you win... well, a C-rank trash like you won't win."
Cian stood up. He didn't draw a sword. He simply stepped into the circle.
Kael moved like a blur. As an A-rank, his speed was legendary. He vanished into the shadows and reappeared behind Cian, his daggers aimed at the base of Cian's skull.
The crowd gasped. It was a kill shot.
The daggers passed through Cian's neck as if he were made of smoke. Kael stumbled forward, his momentum carrying him through the ghost-like boy. He spun around, snarling, and unleashed a flurry of strikes.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
Every blade met nothing but air. Cian moved with a terrifying, rhythmic stillness. He wasn't dodging; he was simply not there when the metal arrived.
The self-hatred that fueled Cian's daily life suddenly found a target. He saw the glee in Kael's eyes—the same glee the Inquisitors had shown while murdering Elara.
The air in the room grew heavy. A localized vacuum formed as Cian triggered the Ex-Rank [Void Pressure].
Kael froze, his lungs suddenly unable to pull in oxygen. Cian appeared in front of him. To the observers, it looked like he had teleported, but he had simply phased through the intervening space-time.
Cian's hand, translucent and glowing with a faint white light, reached out. He gripped Kael's forehead. Kael tried to scream, but Cian's other hand gripped the back of Kael's neck.
The Guild watched in paralyzed horror. This wasn't an assassin's kill. It was an extraction.
Cian solidified his grip. The Ex-rank power hummed, vibrating Kael's skeletal structure at a frequency that detached bone from ligament. With a slow, agonizingly steady pull, Cian hauled upward.
The sound was like a wet branch snapping.
Cian ripped Kael's head clean off. Because of the Void's influence, the skin didn't just tear—the entire spinal column followed the skull, trailing out like a white, dripping tail of bone and nerve endings.
Cian stood in the center of the ring, holding the head and the five-foot trail of spine. There was no blood on his clothes; he had phased the spray away.
He dropped the remains with a wet thud. He looked up at Valeria. He didn't need a voice. The message was clear: Do not waste my time with children again.
From that day on, the Guild didn't call him Cian. They called him The Silent Flayer.
The First Mission
Cian stood on a rooftop overlooking the Capital. It had been five years since the Night of Red Ash.
His first official mission was not an assassination. It was a "Message."
Target: Viscount Harlen.
Crime: He was the man who had provided the "Demonic Heart" to be planted in the Kaelen cellar. He had grown fat and rich on the lands stolen from Cian's father.
Cian slipped through the stone walls of the Viscount's manor. He didn't kill the guards; he simply walked through them, leaving them with a lingering chill they couldn't explain.
He entered the master bedroom. The Viscount lay snoring, draped in silks.
Cian didn't use a dagger. He reached into his [Mourning Grave] and pulled out a single, frozen rose—one he had taken from his mother's conservatory before it burned.
He placed the rose on the Viscount's chest.
Then, he reached his hand into the Viscount's stomach, solidifying only his fingertips inside the man's gallbladder.
The Viscount woke up with a silent, wide-eyed gasp. He saw the white-haired ghost standing over him. He saw the eyes that looked like his old friend Kaelen's.
Cian leaned in close, his lips moving but no sound coming out. The Viscount, through the haze of agony, read the boy's lips:
"Agony."
Cian didn't kill him quickly. He phased the Viscount's own bedsheets into his lungs, watching as the man suffocated on silk while his internal organs were systematically rearranged.
When the guards broke in the next morning, there was no sign of a struggle. There was only the Viscount, turned inside out with surgical precision, his heart placed neatly on a silver platter next to a frozen rose.
The Call to the Academy
Valeria met Cian in the alleyway after the mission.
"The Emperor is spooked," she said, tossing him a packet of documents. "The Viscount's death was too... specific. They know a Kaelen is alive."
Cian took the documents. It was an enrollment form for the Aethelgard Hero Academy.
"You're going in as 'Ian,' a commoner scholar with a C-rank utility ability," Valeria said. "The Dragon Heart is in the vault beneath the Headmaster's office. If you don't get it in the next six months, the Phasing will delete you."
Cian nodded. He looked at the Academy spire in the distance.
The Hero, Lucian, would be there.
The Saintess, Evelina, would be there.
The children of his family's killers would be there.
He wasn't going there to learn. He was going there to perform surgery on the Empire, one limb at a time.