Author's Note:
Dear readers, this chapter is just the beginning of Edward's journey.
If you want an epic glimpse of his powers, the realms, and the high-stakes battles that await,
please check out the Auxiliary ARC Volume I – "The Shattered Awakening : Preview Chapter."
It can be read before or after the main story for a fuller experience.
Episode 01 :
Rain drowned the night over Castrone City.
Neon lights bled across puddles, mixing colors like wet paint.
The air smelled of smoke and rust the kind of night that felt too quiet to be safe.
Under the crooked tin roof of a small noodle shop, Alok Fanando sat alone.
Steam rose from the bowl before him, curling into the damp air.
He wasn't in a hurry to eat… or to leave.
His reflection stared back from the glass window a young man of twenty-four, with sharp eyes that searched for something unseen.
His black hair hung in messy strands, and the dark hoodie on his shoulders made him look like a drifter.
But beneath that quiet calm, unease stirred.
Something was wrong tonight.
The streets outside were nearly empty.
Every time Alok looked up, he felt it a presence watching him through the rain.
It had started three days ago.
A street vendor had sold him a pendant a small black gem set in a silver crescent.
It hadn't seemed valuable, just another trinket among forgotten things.
The vendor had been an old man with clouded eyes.
He'd said, "You cannot choose the pendant. The pendant chooses you."
Alok had laughed back then.
Now the pendant hung against his chest, hidden beneath his hoodie.
Sometimes it pulsed with faint warmth like a heartbeat that wasn't his.
When the shop owner stepped into the back to refill the pot, Alok touched the gem.
The world stopped.
Rain froze in midair.
The hum of the city vanished.
Color drained until everything turned silver and still.
Then he saw her.
A woman stood in the middle of the road.
Barefoot.
Her pale dress clung to her skin, soaked by the frozen rain.
White hair drifted as if stirred by a wind only she could feel.
Her eyes violet and endless looked directly into him.
She smiled.
"You are the one," she said softly.
Her voice echoed near and distant all at once.
Alok tried to speak, but no words formed.
She stepped closer, her bare feet silent against the wet street.
"You do not belong in that world," she whispered. "When the time comes, I will bring you to mine."
And then the world shattered like glass breaking underwater.
Sound returned.
Rain fell again.
The shop owner reappeared with a fresh bowl of noodles, as if nothing had happened.
Alok told no one.
He blamed stress, fatigue, anything that sounded rational.
But the days that followed proved him wrong.
He saw her reflection in a bus window.
A flicker of white hair in a crowded train station.
And in his dreams always the same place:
A field of silver flowers beneath twin moons.
Each time, her violet eyes pulled him closer.
On the fourth night, the rain came harder.
Alok stood behind his apartment, the alley dim beneath a flickering light.
That's when he saw it a shadow moving at the far end.
It didn't walk. It glided.
The pendant against his chest pulsed faster alive, panicked.
The shadow paused.
For a heartbeat, Alok thought he saw a hand reach out fingers far too long to be human.
Then it vanished.
Far above the storm clouds, something unseen opened its eyes.
That was the night Alok Fanando's fate began to change.