Prologue
Kalen woke up.
His heart was beating quietly and steadily, but he couldn't shake off the feeling of unease.
It took him a moment to realize where he was.
Soft, wet ground. Heavy, dead air. Above, a green haze barely illuminated by light. But not sunlight. It was... diffused. As if the sky itself had lost its color.
He sat down, rubbing his temples. The forest. It was the same forest he had seen yesterday—dark, dead, and yet alive.
The roots of the trees twisted, as if they were moving, reacting to his presence. The leaves did not rustle; they were observing.
He got up slowly.
His clothes were dirty and soaked with moisture. Step two was to check if he was hurt. He felt strangely heavy, as if he had slept for a hundred years instead of just one night.
"The body adapts," a familiar voice said inside him. The dragon.
"For what?"
— To the shadow of this world. Everything is different here. Even the magic.
Kalen looked around. The area was unfamiliar, and he couldn't draw a map in his head.
He tried to summon his shadow.
The darkness responded.
A light veil stretched out from under their feet, spreading across the ground. Red patterns flashed on its surface.
"So you still have some strength," he breathed. "At least that much."
He exhaled, concentrated, and felt the mant once again begin to respond. A soft, rustling touch of power against his skin, running through his veins. He extended his palm, and the shadow spread across it, wrapping its claws around his fingers like armor.
As long as you're with us, you're not alone.
Ward's voice.
The shadow in front of him flickered, the silhouette of his senior shadow-guard, whom he had once summoned.
— You're here, too?"
— Always. No matter where you are.
Thirke, the spider king, appeared on the right, as if from nothing. His six scarlet eyes glowed in the dim light.
"We can feel movement... there's something else in this forest. Not ghosts, not monsters. It's... ancient."
"Great," Kalen said, rubbing a weary hand over his face. "Just perfect. I'm in a strange forest, with no map or direction. I'm probably wanted as a fugitive, and now some ancient creature wants my soul for dinner."
"Get used to it," the dragon hissed in his head. "This is your new country, where you will live. Here, you are nothing. Here, you can become everything."
He could feel the tattoo pulsing. On his neck, on his face—it was as if it were alive, breathing with him. Sometimes he could feel the dragon awakening. It was as if his soul and body were now sharing a place with someone ancient, powerful… and unpredictable.
He walked forward.
The forest was silent. No birds were singing. There was no wind. Only the sound of my own footsteps and, occasionally, a distant, barely perceptible rustling, as if someone were watching.
"Do you have a plan?" asked Thirsk, crawling up a tree to scan the area.
— Not yet. First, we need to find water. Then, we need to find food. After that, we need to find out if there are any settlements nearby.
"You're still wanted," Ward reminded him. "You've got a price on your head. Half the world thinks you destroyed the city."
"Not thinks, knows," Kallen chuckled grimly. "They don't know it wasn't really me."
He remembered the moment—the flash of pain when the dragon broke free, when everything was engulfed in flames, when Reyna...
Kallen stopped. He clenched his teeth.
No. Not now. Don't think.
He heard the bushes rustling. He turned around quickly.
No one.
But I could feel that someone was there.
He aimed the shadow in the direction of movement, and it crawled forward like a snake. It touched a branch. It stopped.
No one. But the feeling hasn't gone away.
He continued walking. Hour. Second. It was late afternoon. The light grew dimmer, the air thicker. The forest seemed to live by other laws, alien ones. As if he was watching. I checked it out.
At some point, he came across a stream, dark as oil but cool. He washed his face. He took a few sips, and the water was clear.
"You've grown stronger," the dragon said. "Not just in your body. You've changed on the inside. You've begun to understand who you are meant to be."
"I don't want to become a monster."
"It's too late. But you can be your own monster. The one who decides what's fair."
Kalen sat down on a rock. And he realized that the dragon could do nothing and just act like an ordinary person.
He took a knife out of the shadows. A simple shadow edge. He looked at his reflection in the water.
Black eyes. A tattoo pulsating on her neck.
He was no longer the teenager who had been sent to the academy.
He no longer believed in family or destiny.
"So I guess I'm in the vampire kingdom. Hmm, well, it's a shame that I left Reina's body there and left..."
"My lord," Beste's voice said, "I have her body, and you can bury her later."
— Thank you, Beste. I will be grateful to you.
"Well, you're a fucking dragon," Kalen's voice said. "I'll never trust you until you become my shadow."
"In the meantime, listen to me, my shadows, we need to replenish our ranks. After that, I want to bury Rayna's body in peace." Suddenly, Kalen remembered. "What about Celia?"
"And then all the shadows said they didn't know."
***
As night fell, Kalen came out of the forest and found the nearest town. When he entered, everyone was shocked to see a human.
Two people approached him in the central square near the market.
Vampire officers. They wore black leather uniforms with the emblem of Nirwald on their chests: a stylized drop pierced by a triangle. One of them carried a halberd, while the other wielded a chained cane. Both had sharp eyes and slight grins.
"Hello," one said. The voice was polite but cold. "Human. How did you get lost in our lands?"
Kalen bowed his head slightly, pretending to be a tired but calm traveler.
"I don't know," he replied evenly. "I woke up in the woods. Without a map. Without a direction. Without any memory of how I got here."
"Without a memory?" the second man repeated. His nose twitched slightly, as if he could smell something. "And without any identification, I suppose?"
— No. Nothing with me.
- hm.
Kallen knew this could be the end. Vampires didn't like outsiders. Especially ones that didn't smell like fear.
But the first officer suddenly nodded.
"There are often... strange things here. The forest sometimes throws out. You'll come with us. We'll register you. You may be questioned later. What's your name?"
Kallen froze for a moment. Then he exhaled:
"Marty."
He still remembered his real name from the last world, when he was just an ordinary student trying to make some money.
"Marty," the officer repeated, writing something in a black notebook. "Good. Follow us. We'll take you to the South Block. It's safe there. You'll be temporarily housed in the non-status section."
They were walking.
He could feel them assessing him. Scanning him. Vampires didn't breathe like humans, but the air around them was different—rich, viscous. Magic permeated every corner of the city.
The building he was taken to looked austere: black stone, a tall arch, the symbol of Nyrwald above the entrance. Beneath it were words in an ancient tongue:
"Order through blood. Law through will."
"Welcome to the Office of Non-Status Accountability and Integration," one of the officers said.
"What did you say?" Kallen repeated.
— Just "UUIN". Or "Primary Reception Department". This is where those who are not listed in the Book of Blood go.
Inside, it smelled of iron, magic, and something spicy. On the left sat a thin scribe, most likely a half-mage. On the right were several other newcomers: two ragged men, one girl with translucent skin and blank eyes.
"A queue?" Kallen asked.
"You have a private appointment," the second officer chuckled. "We haven't had a case with a human in a long time."
He was shown into a windowless room.
There was a vampire woman sitting at the table. White hair, dark-lensed glasses. Her gaze was level, almost bored, but... tenacious.
"Sit down," she said without looking up from her papers. "Name?"
"Marty."
"Race?"
- A person.
She raised her head. Slowly.
"Magic specialization?"
Kallen paused. Then, with a straight face, he replied:
- Shadow.
The woman's hand hovered over the papers. For a moment. And then it continued moving as if nothing had happened.
"Interesting," she remarked. "It's rare for humans. Especially here. But we don't discriminate. As long as you're not in the Book, you're just a person with magical potential."
She handed him a few sheets of paper.
— Fill it out. Next, we will issue you a temporary third-level citizen card, a registration certificate, and starting credits. For now, you will receive 30 karns. This will cover a modest hotel and food for a few days.
"Thank you," he said.
— Do you plan to stay here?"
"So far, yes.
— We recommend that you register with the Adventurer's Guild. This is the easiest way to earn money legally and gain status. Especially for non-status individuals with magic.
She snapped her fingers. Another employee entered, a man with a mechanical eye and a soft gait. He handed Kalen a small black card with a red stripe and three paper documents.
"You've been assigned a room at the Pale Lily Hotel in the southern quarter. It's not far from the central Guild. The conditions are simple: don't disturb the peace, don't use magic in public, and don't provoke the locals."
Kalen took the papers and stood up.
The woman looked up:
"Welcome to Carmor, Marty. Try not to die in the first week. Especially at night."
The night greeted him with silent streets and stillness.
The city of Carmor never slept, but it didn't make any noise either. There were no screams or bright lights. Just a faint glow.
He found the Pale Lily quickly—a tall gray building with dark curtains and a dead sign. The old woman at the front looked at his card, silently handed him a key.
The room was small, but clean. A bed, a washbasin, and a mirror. That was it.
He closed himself in, locked himself in, and lay down.
But I didn't sleep.
It was still raging inside.
He could feel them: the shadows. They breathed with him, looked through his eyes. But he kept them. He hid them. No one had to know. Not yet.
In the morning, he headed to the Guild building.
The queue. Hundreds of different people: vampires, mutants, half-breeds, and rare humans.
At the entrance, there is a symbol of a blade cut by a chain. The Adventurer's Guild.
A chance to start.
He signed up. He was given a fourth-rank token, a mission card, and a leather sash for storing crystals.
***
The morning in Carmore was no different from the night.
The sky was the same color—gray, lifeless. The moon was red. Kalen woke up early. His body ached a little, but his mind was clear. He washed up, put on the clothes they had given him—simple, gray, and featureless—and, with the map tucked into his belt, left the Pale Lily.
The streets were crowded. But the noise was drowned out by the city's unique atmosphere. It was as if Carmor itself was absorbing the extra sounds. Vampires with pale faces, hybrids wearing masks, and mutants in cloaked robes... People were rare, and almost all of them were accompanied.
Kalen headed towards the Guild building.
He walked along the black stone pavement, feeling the stares. His appearance was human, but there was no fear in his eyes. This was what attracted the locals.
"You're up early," Ward's voice said in his head. The telepathic link between them was stronger after the night. "Don't forget: don't reveal your full power while you're among them. Don't underestimate, but don't shine either. Be gray. Gray is the mask of survival."
"Understood," Kalen replied curtly.
It was noisy inside the Guild.
The registration desk, the quest board, a group of mercenaries discussing a failed quest... He took his turn, waiting almost half an hour before being called to the magic ID.
"Name?" asked the girl with the bronze eyes. A half-blood.
"Marty."
"First rank?" "What is it?" she asked, entering data into the artifact. "Magic class?
- Shadow.
She nodded and placed the artifact on his chest. The metal circle with the core inside flared up with crimson light, began to vibrate.
"Wow," she whispered.
The letter A appeared on the crystal.
A second of silence.
"You've been hiding your power?" Her voice became sharper.
"Not really," Kalen replied honestly. "I just didn't know what my level was here. The place... affects it."
She looked at him for a couple of seconds, then handed him a badge with the letter "A" engraved on it and a short registration number.
"This is rare. From today on, you're officially registered as a fourth-rank adventurer with priority access to mid-level missions and access to the central board. But..." she lowered her voice, "a word of advice: don't jump into the deep end right away. It's not about being the strongest. It's about being the most undetected."
Kalen nodded, thanked him, and headed for the blackboard.
The missions were full of names:
"Detecting Illusions near the southern walls" "Missing children in the Hunter's Quarter"
Delivery of reagents from the Grey Deposit"
"Checking the activity of an ancient burial site in the Forest of Teeth" (Rank B-A)
He liked the last one. The forest. The darkness. He knew places like that. And most importantly, they rarely attracted the attention of the crowd.
"Do you want this one?" a voice asked from the side.
He turned and saw her.
She's shorter than him, about 167 centimeters tall. She has silver hair. Her armor is gray, with subtle engravings and traces of a recent battle. She's a beautiful girl. Her eyes are white, piercing like blades. Surrounding her is a half-circle of astonished onlookers.
"That's her…
"Look, Lyra Walmer..."
- Valmer family Armor…
The name was like a whisper through the crowd.
Lyra Valmer.
Kalen nodded calmly, without showing any emotion.
— Yes. I think it will be a good test.
"Bold. Many adventurers did not survive to return from those forests," her voice was dry, but there was an assessment in it. "Especially without a group."
— Are you going alone?"
"I don't need protection," she replied coldly.
"Me too," Kalen shrugged.
For a second, their eyes met. Red against black. An explosion of unspoken meanings. Then she nodded briefly.
"Then we'll meet at the exit. In an hour."
Then she left.
"Wow," came a voice from the side. "Did he just talk to Lyra? How is he still alive?"
Kalen didn't pay attention. He headed to the storekeeper, received a leather sling with six slots for crystals, a survival kit and a map of the southern borders. Checked the condition of the manta. Everything is stable. The shadow obeyed, but there was a tension inside. As if something in the city prevented her from unfolding completely.
He knew that as long as he went by the name of Marty, he was a shadow.
After leaving the Guild, he headed towards the southern gate.
Even from there, I could see her — Lyra-standing on the outskirts of the city, near the magic stabilizers. Gray as night, the color of the city. One. Gazing into the forest that began in the distance.
When he approached, she didn't turn around.
— On time. That's good.
"Do you think I'm new here?"
"I think you're stupid. But sometimes even the dead need courage," her voice remained emotionless. "Don't interfere if you can't control your power. And don't save me. It's annoying."
"Then don't die," he chuckled.
She glanced at him.
"We'll see, Marty.
They headed deeper into the southern forest.