The city's skyline burned with the last embers of the fires Lucien had left behind. Smoke curled into the sky like black serpents, carrying the echoes of chaos through the streets.
Lucien stood atop a collapsed tower, the wind tugging at his cloak, his aura simmering beneath the surface. The noble houses had underestimated him, and the first retaliation had been crushed. Yet his mind was far from satisfied.
The void did not sleep. It whispered.
From the remnants of the cult's chest—the fragments of The White—Lucien had felt something stirring. A pulse, faint but distinct, calling him beyond the city, beyond the known lands. He touched the fragment, and images flashed: monsters, cities swallowed by endless whiteness, and a single figure walking alone through eternal void.
He understood then: The White was not just a prison. It was a remnant of the First World.
Long before humanity had ruled the continents, before kings and empires rose, there had been the First World—an infinite expanse ruled by consciousness far older than mortal comprehension. It was a place of endless creation and annihilation, a realm of pure energy and thought where time itself was a living entity.
The First World had fractured, torn apart by the War of Eclipsed Sovereigns, beings of unimaginable power who sought to reshape existence. The echoes of their battles had spilled into the mortal realm, leaving behind void fragments—pieces of a universe that could not exist here, bleeding corruption, monsters, and power into the world.
The White was one such fragment, a test of survival, a crucible to shape those who could wield its power. And Lucien… Lucien was not born by chance.
He was the Sole Exception.
A being forged not by the world, but by the void itself. One who could survive the impossible, manipulate aura beyond comprehension, and turn the echoes of a shattered world into his dominion.
His eyes glimmered with understanding as the fragment pulsed in his hands. From here, he could follow the thread of The White, uncover other fragments, and trace the remnants of the First World back to their source.
And he would.
But first, something happened that drew his attention sharply:
A disturbance in the city's northern quarter—an unnatural tremor, the streets cracking and splitting as if the earth itself rejected reality. A shadow, larger than any human, larger than any beast Lucien had ever seen, emerged from the cracks. Its form was jagged, fractal, constantly reshaping—a monster born from the void itself.
Lucien's aura flared violently. The city trembled under its presence.
The Sole Exception smiled faintly, pale eyes gleaming.
"So… the First World is calling," he murmured. "And it sends monsters to test me."
The city became silent. Not a single creature dared move. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Lucien leapt from the tower, aura compressing into a spear of pure energy, and descended toward the void-born terror.
This was no ordinary fight. This was a clash of a fragment of the First World against the one who had survived The White.
And the world itself would remember this night.