The city of Lunareth had always slept under a strange silence
a silence too calm to be natural, too perfect to be pure.
But tonight… the air screamed.
The sky was bleeding violet. Clouds swirled like torn veils, trembling as if they feared what was about to descend. The moon hung broken, its light fragmented into streaks that cut through the city's skyline like shattered glass.
It had been months since Adrien Blackwood vanished from the public eye.
Months since the night that changed him forever.
Some said he died.
Some said he became the monster that destroyed half the north sector.
But the truth was simpler…
He walked away.
He had chosen solitude, hiding in the ruins beyond the Aetherline River, mastering the three energies that pulsed inside him "Mana", "Aether", and the forbidden current known as "Lnx", the Law of Shadow.
Each night, he could hear the whispers of that energy deep, ancient, and merciless.
"You were born from dusk, Adrien. You were never meant to protect the light…"
He used to ignore it.
Now, he didn't even try.
Tonight, Lunareth trembled again.
The second chosen had awakened.
The first tremor came from the south district a burst of blue-white light that cracked the ground like thunder. Then came the sound a roar, not human, not divine, something in between. Adrien felt it ripple through the shadows like a call to arms.
He stood on a tall clock tower, cloak fluttering like black smoke, eyes glowing faintly violet.
Below, the streets were chaos people running, screaming, lights flickering, alarms blaring.
And at the center of it all, stood "Lysander Vale", the Second Chosen.
The boy Adrien once saved.
The boy he once thought could understand the curse of power.
Now, Lysander's body burned with blue Aether fire, veins glowing like molten cracks, his expression twisted in fury and pain.
Buildings bent around him as if the air itself bowed to his rage.
Adrien whispered to himself,
"...so it finally begins."
He could've walked away again.
He almost did.
Until he saw her a woman, clutching her two children, running barefoot through the chaos. A beam of broken metal fell toward them, and Adrien's instincts screamed. His body moved before his thoughts caught up a flicker, a burst of shadow, and the debris vanished into mist.
The mother froze, trembling, realizing they were still alive.
For a moment, her face overlapped with another his own mother's from years ago.
Her soft voice echoing in his memory.
"Even if the world turns against you, Adrien… never forget what makes you human."
Something inside him cracked open.
His jaw clenched.
His violet eyes burned.
He looked toward Lysander the boy surrounded by swirling Aether flames and whispered,
"Enough."
Lysander turned. His face was half-lit by the glowing energy, his expression unreadable, somewhere between pain and madness.
"Who are you to tell me what's enough?" he snarled, voice shaking the air. "You Adrien Blackwood left this world to rot while I was used like a puppet!"
Adrien stepped forward slowly, the air around him darkening, shadows thickening at his feet.
"Lysander," he said quietly, almost gently, "You've lost control. Stop before it consumes you."
"CONTROL?" Lysander laughed, broken and hollow. "Control was the first thing they took from me! Do you know what it feels like to be a god trapped in a cage built by men?!"
His hands lifted and the ground split apart.
Aether energy surged upward, forming tendrils of light that wrapped around the nearby towers, dragging them down like fragile toys.
Adrien's expression hardened.
The wind picked up, swirling violently, pulling shadows toward him like gravity.
"Then I'll break the cage," he said, his voice deepening with power. "Even if it means breaking you."
THE FIRST CLASH
Lysander lunged.
Aether erupted from his body, forming spears of light that rained down like divine judgment. Adrien moved like a blur each step leaving a ripple in the air, each motion accompanied by whispers of Lnx energy.
He dodged the first, parried the second shadows forming blades around his arms then countered with a pulse of pure Mana, sending shockwaves through the concrete.
The street shattered under them, waves of energy exploding outward, glass raining down like silver shards.
Adrien's strikes were clean, precise, merciless.
Lysander's were wild, destructive, fueled by anger and agony.
Each impact tore the night apart.
Each breath they took echoed like thunder.
"WHY DO YOU FIGHT THEM?!" Lysander roared, eyes glowing like blue stars. "You could've joined me! You could've ended this corrupted world!"
Adrien's voice trembled not with fear, but conviction.
"Because I saw a mother save her children tonight."
For a moment just a heartbeat the fury in Lysander's face faltered.
"...what?"
Adrien's eyes glowed violet-blue, his cloak burning away into tendrils of Lnx.
"I realized something," he said quietly. "You destroy what you hate. I protect what I've lost."
THE SECOND WAVE
Lysander screamed not out of rage this time, but grief and unleashed everything.
Aether exploded like a sun.
Adrien lifted his hand and shadows swallowed the light.
The entire city flickered.
Darkness and light collided, tearing the night apart in two colors violet and blue clashing in every direction.
For minutes, nothing could be seen but light.
Nothing could be heard but power.
And then silence.
When the smoke cleared, Adrien stood over Lysander's body, his sword of Lnx piercing through the boy's chest.
Lysander coughed, blood shimmering like liquid light.
His eyes softened for the first time in months.
"...You could've killed me sooner," he whispered.
Adrien looked down, eyes heavy.
"I already did," he said. "The day I let you walk this path alone."
Lysander's smile was faint almost peaceful.
"Maybe… in another life… we could've been the same person."
Then he was gone.
Adrien stepped back, breathing ragged. The moonlight flickered above fractured, just like him.
And then… the voice returned.
"You killed one of your own. Do you feel it, Adrien? The bond breaking? The dusk spreading?"
He dropped to his knees, clutching his head as whispers flooded his mind the same ones that haunted him when he first gained the Lnx energy.
"You are no longer human… you are the balance between ruin and rebirth…"
"Walk alone, as the world remembers your sin…"
The ground beneath him cracked —violet symbols spreading outward in intricate spirals.
People who survived the fight looked up but Adrien was already gone.
The wind carried his voice faintly as he disappeared into the mist.
"I saved them… but I lost myself again."
The city would call him a monster again.
A savior.
A curse.
But none of those mattered.
Because for Adrien Blackwood…
the boy who walked alone…
the war had only just begun.
THE ECLIPSE OF TWO SOULS
Lunareth had changed again.
The same city that once whispered now screamed.
Ash drifted through the air like black snow. Windows rattled. Somewhere, a tower folded in on itself with a groan that sounded almost human. I stepped over the cracked stones, coat fluttering in the heat-stained wind, and for a moment, the world felt like it was breathing in pain.
It had been three months" since the cursed dawn three months since the eclipse had torn open the sky and carved a wound into every soul that lived beneath it. I had disappeared after that night, burying myself in the forgotten quarter of Lunareth where even hope refused to walk.
But tonight… the city burned again.
I followed the tremor of energy until the streets bent in a wave of violet light.
A crater split the plaza ahead, and in the center stood 'him' the second chosen.
He was taller now, his frame trembling with raw energy that crawled up his veins like lightning. His eyes glowed the color of fractured aether, and every breath he took sent cracks across the marble beneath his feet. Buildings trembled around him, their glass windows bleeding dust.
I had once pitied him. Another child of the eclipse another one cursed to carry something he didn't understand. But pity had no place here anymore.
"Stop," I said. My voice barely carried through the roar of magic.
He didn't even turn. His hands rose, and the air screamed. Mana flared outward, shredding the nearby market stalls, twisting iron, bending lampposts like toys.
Then I saw her.
A woman thin, trembling shielding two small children under a fallen awning. Their eyes were wide, faces pale with terror. The wind tugged at the mother's hair as she held them close, whispering something I couldn't hear.
A memory stabbed through my skull.
My mother's hand… pulling me behind her as the first eclipse light fell. Her back to me. Her voice calm but shaking telling me not to look.
The second chosen raised his hand again. Energy built unstable, jagged, ready to erase everything in front of him.
And in that moment, something in me moved.
The air grew cold. The shadows bent.
"Enough," I whispered.
The explosion never came.
A violet-black ripple burst outward from where I stood, swallowing the white-blue of his mana and crushing it into silence. When the dust settled, I was standing between him and the mother.
He finally looked at me.
"Who are you?" His voice cracked like thunder.
I didn't answer. I only looked into his eyes and saw myself reflected there: the same hatred, the same loneliness, the same wound that refused to close.
"You shouldn't have come," he hissed.
"I didn't," I said quietly. "The city brought me."
He laughed a sound like metal tearing apart. "Then die with it."
The ground shattered.
He lunged forward, leaving a crater where he'd stood. The first strike came faster than sound his fist cloaked in pure Lnx energy. I tilted aside, the shockwave blasting through the wall behind me.
The fight had begun.
We moved through the streets like storms. Every impact split stone and fire. I countered with my own energy, light swirling around me in shifting halos. My "Lnx energy", the law of shadow itself, coiled from beneath my skin streams of violet that danced like serpents.
He struck again, this time summoning aether spears from the ground. I leaped, twisting mid-air, shadow-steps blooming under my feet. The world slowed. I could see the pattern of his mana like threads and I pulled one.
The entire spell collapsed.
He screamed, frustrated. "You… you learned to control it!"
"No," I said, landing. "It's learning to control me."
Our energies collided light and shadow, aether and void. Every clash lit the night like lightning caught between mirrors. The clouds above twisted, forming a dark halo that resembled the eclipse itself.
Inside me, something whispered.
Let go, Adrien. Stop pretending you're human.
I froze mid-step, the voice wrapping around my spine like smoke. It was the same one that had haunted me the night I gained these powers.
*Do you remember her eyes? The way she looked at you before the light swallowed her?*
"Shut up."
Kill him. The world doesn't deserve another like you.
The second chosen rushed forward, catching me off-guard. His blade of pure energy sliced through my shoulder. Pain flared bright but behind it came clarity.
Blood ran down my arm, glowing faintly where it touched the shadow energy. I looked at him, and for a heartbeat, I saw the child he once was afraid, crying, lost beneath a burning sky.
"I know that pain," I said.
"Don't you dare pity me!"
He roared and struck again. I caught the blade with my bare hand; shadow energy surged, devouring the weapon itself.
"You're not my enemy," I whispered. "You're my reflection."
He trembled. The aether flames flickered, unstable. "Lies… lies! You abandoned everything! You could have joined me we could have erased them all!"
I thought of the mother behind me, her children crying quietly under the broken awning.
"Maybe I could have," I said. "But I saw something you didn't."
"What?"
"Hope."
He lunged again, and this time I didn't dodge. I stepped *through* his attack, my body turning into smoke, reforming behind him. My hand pressed against his chest, right over his heart.
Lnx energy pulsed once.
The light in his eyes flickered.
"Sleep," I said.
The energy erupted outward like a dying star, swallowing him in silence. When it faded, he was on his knees, staring at the ground alive, but broken.
He whispered, "Why didn't you kill me?"
I looked toward the rising smoke, the faint glow of the moon pushing through the clouds.
"Because if I kill you," I said, "then I kill the part of me that still wants to be saved."
He laughed weakly, a sound half-mad, half-human. "You think mercy will save you?"
"No," I said. "But it might save her memory."
He collapsed, the last of his energy fading into the cracks.
I turned away. The mother and her children were gone, vanished into the maze of alleys. Only the scent of bread lingered fresh, warm, like the one I had found months ago.
I took a deep breath.
Then the voice returned soft, almost kind.
You've taken a step closer, Adrien. The law of shadow isn't mercy… it's balance.
The ground beneath me rippled with faint light. My hands shook.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
You already know. You were never chosen… you were made.
The world tilted. For a moment, I saw the eclipse again, red light carving across the sky, and within it an eye. Ancient. Watching.
The voice faded into laughter as my vision blurred.
When I opened my eyes again, I was standing on the city's edge. The dawn was breaking ashen and pale, like the world itself was unsure whether to live or die.
I looked down at my hands. The scars glowed faintly violet.
"Is this what I've become?" I murmured.
The wind answered with silence.
I took one last look at Lunareth its ruins, its survivors, its ghosts and turned away.
From that moment on, the boy who once walked its streets ceased to exist.
Only the "Eclipseborn" remained.