The Dragon Heart didn't just fuse with Cian's mana-veins; it acted as a defibrillator for his consciousness. As the crystalline engine hummed with a primordial, golden-black light, the agony of the graft forced his mind to retreat into the only place that was safe: the past.
Before he was the "Ghost," and before he was Cian Kaelen, he was a ghost of a different kind.
The Concrete Orphanage
On Earth, his name was irrelevant—the system had reduced him to a file number long before he could even tie his shoes. He was a quiet, shy boy born into the grey indifference of a state-run orphanage. While the other children fought over plastic toys and attention, he sat in the corner, staring at the way the light caught the veins in his own wrist.
He was a survivalist by necessity. By the age of eight, he knew how to move through the streets without being seen, how to barter for an extra slice of bread, and how to "read" the adults—to tell which ones were tired and which ones were dangerous.
His obsession with medicine started in the gutter. He had found a discarded, water-damaged biology textbook in a dumpster behind a library. To the other orphans, it was trash; to him, it was a map. He became the "street-medic" for the neighborhood runaways. With nothing but a sewing needle, stolen high-proof alcohol, and a preternatural calm, he would stitch up gashes and set broken fingers for kids who were too afraid to go to a hospital.
He didn't do it out of a hero complex. He did it because he was the only one who could. He was smart—terrifyingly so—and he learned to adapt to the harsh reality of the streets with the clinical precision of an adult.
The Silent Scholar
High school was a different kind of battlefield. To his classmates, he was the "quiet weirdo" who wore the same thrift-store hoodie every day. He was the ghost in the back of the classroom, the boy who never spoke unless called upon, and whose eyes seemed to see right through people.
He struggled. Not with the curriculum—the work was insultingly easy—but with the humanity of it. He didn't understand the social hierarchies, the loud laughter, or the triviality of teenage drama. He was an orphan who spent his nights studying by the light of a streetlamp while his peers spent theirs on video games.
He was bullied for his silence, for his cheap shoes, and for the fact that he lived in a group home. He took the beatings with the same stoicism he used when he stitched himself up afterward. He didn't seek revenge. He just looked at his attackers with a distant, analytical pity. He knew their anatomy; he knew where their nerves were; he knew how fragile they truly were.
He realized then that he was different. He didn't feel the "warmth" people spoke of. He felt a profound, icy clarity.
The Renowned Machine
He clawed his way into medical school on a full scholarship, fueled by a singular, obsessive drive. He became a Chief Surgeon by the age of thirty-two—the youngest in the country.
He was renowned, but he was not loved. His colleagues called him "The Machine." He had a 100% success rate on the operating table because he removed the "human" element entirely. To him, a patient wasn't a person with a family; it was a complex biological puzzle. He would stand for eighteen hours over an open chest, his hands steadier than the machines monitoring the heart.
He was a man of the white coat, a savior of the elite, living in a penthouse that was as sterile and cold as his surgical suite. He had finally mastered the "Life" he had once struggled to understand in the orphanage.
Then came the accident. A rainy night, a distracted driver, and a sudden, violent end to a life that had only ever known the cold.
"Cian! Look at me!"
The memory of the car crash faded, replaced by the crushing pressure of the Vault.
Cian's eyes snapped open. He looked down at his fifteen-year-old hands, now glowing with a dangerous, violet-black aura. The shy boy from the orphanage and the cold surgeon from the hospital had merged into something entirely new.
He felt the Dragon Heart settle into his chest. It didn't just give him power; it gave his natural sociopathy a divine anchor. He no longer felt the "struggle" of his high school years. He no longer felt the need to "adapt" to the streets.
His golden-black eyes unblinking. He realized that in his previous life, he had been a surgeon of the flesh. In this life, he would be a surgeon of the world.
He stood up, his white hair flowing in the mana-storm he had created. The orphan who wanted to be a doctor was gone. The Ghost was gone.
The Chief Surgeon of the Void had arrived.