The air on the edge of the Forest of Lost Souls was thick with moss and dew, yet within Kairen burned a memory warmer and more painful than any humidity.
As a child, he had learned early that life had never been kind to him. His father—a silent, fickle man—vanished one dawn, leaving behind only a leather satchel and a sparse note:
"I promised a better future. I hope to find it."
He never returned. For days, Kairen waited for his footsteps on the path home, in vain. Then his mother—consumed by a shadow that devoured her heart—began whispering confidences to the walls: sleepless nights, black thoughts, days when every light seemed to die.
He often found her curled at the edge of the bed, her gaze lost, her hands trembling. When she looked up at him, there was something hostile and accusatory in that deep black:
"You shouldn't even have been born."
Those words pierced his chest like a dagger; the realization that he was unwanted mixed with the relief of no longer feeling like a burden. The house fell silent, and Kairen learned quickly to spend the hours in shadow, invisible to a mother who could not bear his presence.
———
At eight, he found refuge in the old cellar: there lay dusty weapons that had belonged to his grandfather—lances, rusted daggers, a small dented shield. But what caught his attention was a katana, its curved blade and worn hilt sheathed in dark wood.
He touched it with awe: the cold metal felt like consolation. He heard its call, a whisper promising strength and freedom. He began spending entire afternoons there, practicing to hold it, bending his body into a motion that grew ever more fluid.
He studied ancient tomes on strategy and martial ethics found in the attic: copying descriptions of stances, tracing on the floor lines marking the ideal angle of a slash, sketching rough notes on the height of a leap or the distance of a counterstrike.
———
As he grew, he spent dawns in the damp woods: chopping logs, cutting through air, stomping on stones and gravel to refine his balance. Every mistake became a lesson: a blade that bounced off wood, a sore phalanx from a missed strike. Yet, month after month, his movements grew cleaner, his breathing calmer.
When cold dew still trembled on the leaves, he watched the slow flow of the streams and practiced channeling his life energy into every blow, imagining the blade as an extension of his spirit. Each small victory—a clean cut, a perfectly balanced step—imprinted itself on his body like an invisible tattoo.
On moonless nights he studied the primal forces of the world, taking notes only for himself: how the ether seemed to pulse through a stone garden's veins, or how the wind filtered between trees. Those sparse, disordered notes were the sole testament to an apprenticeship no one else could certify.
———
After years of solitude, he finally arrived before the Temple of Vyrr, the stone altar wrapped in red ivy. Each step on the carpet of dead leaves beat like a war drum, an echo of loneliness and rage.
A rustle in the branches, an eerie silence—and Kairen found himself face to face with Micah: once a brother in arms, now guardian of the Lost Brotherhoods, cloaked in white. Micah's gaze was a mosaic of terror and remorse.
Micah: "Two hundred years of life… will never be enough, Kaï."
Those words fell like poisoned feathers. Kairen clenched his fists, his mind sharp as the blade hidden beneath his cloak.
"The Seal of Vyrr will make us eternal."
The deep timbre of that vow left his lips without hesitation. The forest replied with an owl's startled cry and a snapping branch. Micah took a step back, his voice breaking:
Micah: "I saw you master life energy. I realized I created a monster. I'm afraid of you."
For an instant time froze: the moss, the red ivy, the cold stone bore witness to the betrayal unfolding. Kairen drew his katana; the metal caught a shaft of light through the canopy, and the air hummed with electricity. Micah lifted his sword, hesitated, then spoke in a shattered voice:
Micah: "I can't follow you any longer."
A flash of violence erupted in a single motion: Micah's blade plunged into Kairen's back. Warm, bitter blood flowed over the sacred grass like a river of living ashes. Kairen sank to his knees, his vision flooded with red, while his friend retreated, swallowed by remorse. Then darkness.
———
A lapping of water brought him back to consciousness. He awoke in the clearing by the Erel stream, the high sun bathing every moss and smooth stone in warm light. The scent of wet earth enveloped him: the world was the same, and yet everything had changed.
The betrayal had made him immortal in an instant: as life slipped away, the Seal of Vyrr had pulled him back, awakening a thirst for power that forged pain into will.
"I have returned. I don't know how. I don't know why. But one thing is certain: my purpose remains unchanged.
Immortality is the only truth in this world condemned to death. Micah feared my power? He was right. For I will carry it beyond the limits that were imposed on us.
Revenge? That would be pointless. The dead hold no interest for me. But whoever stands in my way… will die. Without hesitation. Without mercy."
There was no hint of remorse in those words, only the certainty of a path marked by blood. The stream sang a hymn of rebirth, each drop an anvil on which to forge his will.
He closed his eyes, letting the sun's warmth glide over his eyelids. Every blade of grass, every ray of light through the boughs, every breath of wind was a clue to the road ahead: a path of war, power, and solitude, to be walked with his blade and his indomitable will.