The streets outside the Citadel were waking with the first light of morning, but Lucien moved like shadow, unseen, untouched.
His target was a minor noble, rumored to be trafficking forbidden relics linked to void energy—the same dark resonance that had haunted him in The White. It was a small mission, a test of both strategy and his aura mastery outside controlled conditions. Yet even this minor operation carried danger: nobles rarely trusted outsiders, and every corner of the city hid spies and assassins waiting for a misstep.
Lucien's pale form blended seamlessly into the morning crowd. His aura simmered beneath the surface, subtle, undetectable, ready to coil like a serpent. Every muscle, every nerve, every thought, was sharpened to razor precision.
The clues led him to an abandoned warehouse at the city's edge. The air inside smelled faintly of rot and ozone. On the floor, strange marks glowed faintly—symbols he immediately recognized from The White.
Impossible…
His heart thumped. These markings were not of this world. Not of the city. Not of mortal hands. They were void echoes—the same dark signatures that had carved the monsters he had slain in The White.
A shiver ran down his spine. Somehow, The White had left fragments of itself here, tied to human ambition and greed. And someone had learned to tap it.
He crouched, observing from the shadows as the noble arrived, accompanied by armed guards. The man carried a small chest engraved with thorns and fractured crowns—the same symbol the Chancellor had used during the cult ritual.
Lucien's aura pulsed faintly, sensing the corruption within. The chest contained more than relics; it contained memories, fragments of The White captured by mortal hands, tethered to the world by dark ritual.
So the White is bleeding into this world, he realized. And it isn't done yet.
He struck. Not with brute force, but with precision. Shadows bent, aura blades sliced, and the guards fell before even raising their weapons. The noble screamed, dropping the chest, but Lucien's hands were already on it.
Opening it, he felt the strange pulse of energy, familiar yet alien, as if the void itself was reaching through the cracks. A fragment of memory, a whisper of monsters, a flicker of endless silence.
Lucien inhaled, letting the sensation wash over him. His aura flared, compressing the fragment into a sphere, analyzing, absorbing, learning. The White's secrets were here, encoded in energy and symbols, hidden in the world, waiting for someone like him to uncover them.
He sealed the chest and vanished into the shadows, leaving the noble alive but broken, a warning written in fear rather than blood.
Outside, the city stirred fully. Merchants called, children laughed, and the streets returned to ordinary life. Yet Lucien's mind remained tethered to the fragment in his possession.
The White was not a prison. It was a map.
And Lucien Dreamveil—the Sole Exception—would follow it wherever it led.