The night was silent too silent.
The streets of Arclen City were bathed in the eerie crimson of the blood moon. Shadows moved like whispers, dancing across the fractured concrete. And there, standing in the middle of the broken road, was "Adrien Blackwood" his eyes half-hidden behind the strands of his disheveled black hair, his expression unreadable.
The cursed mark on his chest pulsed faintly beneath his torn shirt, glowing like a heartbeat that didn't belong to this world.
He had walked for hours without speaking a single word.
Every step echoed with memories he tried to bury the screams, the betrayal, the night his mother's hand slipped from his own.
Every sound of wind brushing through the shattered buildings felt like their voices chasing him.
"Adrien… don't forget who you are."
He stopped walking.
The voice wasn't real at least, that's what he kept telling himself. But lately, it had become harder to tell what was real anymore.
Behind him, the ground cracked.
A ripple of corrupted mana spread like spilled ink.
And from it rose… the fragments of what once were men.
Hollow bodies.
Souls stripped clean.
Eyes empty, faces twisted in agony.
The Wraithborn.
Adrien didn't flinch. He simply lifted his hand, and black smoke coiled around his palm like serpents responding to their master's call.
"Still hunting me," he muttered coldly. "Guess the curse doesn't let me rest."
The first wraith lunged forward with a scream that made the air tremble. Adrien sidestepped effortlessly, his coat swirling like a phantom's wing. With a flick of his wrist, tendrils of darkness shot out, piercing through the wraith's chest.
It disintegrated instantly.
The second followed a blur of claws and ash.
Adrien's expression didn't change as he caught its strike mid-air, his other hand glowing faintly with red energy.
He crushed it with a mere squeeze.
"Weak," he said quietly, his voice emotionless. "All of you."
But deep inside, he could feel it the curse feeding off him again. Every soul he erased only made the darkness inside him stronger. Hungrier.
And then… it spoke.
"Devour them."
That voice the same one from his dreams echoed in his skull, low and distorted. It was neither male nor female, neither kind nor cruel. It was something ancient. Something that had waited centuries to speak again.
Adrien gritted his teeth. "Shut up."
"You cannot silence what you've become, Adrien Blackwood."
"The eclipse chose you for a reason."
The ground split behind him as a larger, monstrous wraith crawled out this one wearing the remnants of a knight's armor. Its blade dripped with blackened essence, the smell of decay thick in the air.
Adrien glanced up, his pupils shifting half crimson, half gold.
"So… you're stronger. Finally."
The monster roared, charging with a swing that could have shattered stone. Adrien ducked under the strike, the wind slicing his hair. In one smooth motion, he drew the blade forged from his own cursed blood "Noctveil".
The crimson steel gleamed with ghostly light as he slashed upward, splitting the air with a sound like thunder.
The creature staggered.
Adrien stepped forward once.
Twice.
And plunged the blade straight through its chest.
Black ichor exploded across the ground as the creature's body convulsed, then faded into smoke.
When it was over, the moonlight caught Adrien's face cold, expressionless. His hand trembled, but not from fear.
From hunger.
He exhaled shakily, staring at the blade. The red glow along its edge flickered, fading slowly as if satisfied.
He fell to one knee.
"Damn it…" he muttered. "How long until I can't control it anymore?"
For the first time, there was silence again. No voices. No screams.
Only the faint hum of his heartbeat and the whisper of the wind through ruins.
THE WEIGHT OF A THOUSAND SHADOWS PART 2
The rain hadn't stopped since that night.
Each droplet felt like a whisper from the heavens accusing, mourning, remembering.
Adrien stood on the edge of the ruined city, his long black coat torn by battle, soaked through by blood and water. The crimson on his gloves had long dried, but it felt fresh every time he looked at his hands. His reflection on a puddle stared back cold, violet eyes and a faint glow of Lnx energy swirling beneath his skin like living shadows.
He had won.
But it didn't feel like victory.
The Second Chosen now just a lifeless body in the rubble had once been someone like him. Someone chosen, gifted, manipulated. Someone who could've been saved. Adrien's blade still hummed faintly with residual mana, reacting to his unstable aura.
"If I had arrived sooner... would this have changed?"
He clenched his fists. The memory of that mother shielding her children from falling debris burned in his mind. That image that pure, selfless act was what had snapped him back to himself during the fight.
He could've destroyed everything.
He could've joined the chaos.
But something within him refused.
As thunder cracked across the sky, Adrien walked deeper into the wreckage. His boots crushed shards of glass, broken steel, and ash. The scent of smoke and rain mingled with something more haunting guilt.
"Is this what it means to be chosen?" he murmured. "To kill… the only ones who can understand you?"
A faint voice answered from within his head the same voice that had spoken to him when he'd first awakened.
"Power demands balance, Adrien Blackwood. Shadows cannot exist without light."
He froze.
That voice… it wasn't just speaking. It was resonating.
"Who are you?" he growled, scanning the empty street.
"I am what remains of the Law you now command the essence of Lnx. You killed the Second Chosen, and with his fall, the chain has begun."
"The chain?"
"The others will awaken. And when they do, they'll come for you."
Adrien's violet aura flickered. The shadows beneath his feet expanded, spreading like dark ink through the cracks in the street.
"Let them come," he whispered coldly. "I'll walk this path alone if I must."
But deep down, that voice echoed again not the Lnx, not the gods, but his mother's.
"Promise me, Adrien… you'll never lose the part of you that feels."
He closed his eyes, letting the rain wash over his face.
"I won't," he said softly. "Not yet."
Two weeks later.
The city of Lunareth had begun to rebuild, but the scars were deep. News reports called the battle a "terrorist act," blaming it on an unknown group. Nobody spoke the truth. Nobody could.
Adrien now lived in the outskirts, away from the noise. The abandoned church had become his new home its cracked stained glass casting pale beams of light across the floor. He had sealed himself away from the world, training, studying, controlling the volatile storm inside him.
He sat cross-legged beneath the flickering light of a candle, eyes closed. The Lnx energy coursed through his veins, unstable yet alive. It whispered in cryptic patterns like a language only the cursed could hear.
Every time he meditated, he could see fragments glimpses of other Chosen ones awakening around the world. Some in pain, some in rage, others corrupted by the same voice that had once tempted him.
The balance was breaking.
"The Law of Shadow isn't just yours to wield," the inner voice warned.
"It is the oldest truth. The beginning of the end."
Adrien exhaled slowly. "Then I'll rewrite the end."
A knock echoed on the church door.
No one should've known this place existed.
He rose to his feet, hand resting on the hilt of his blade the Umbracore, a weapon born from his Lnx energy. The door creaked open, and a familiar face stood in the doorway.
A girl her clothes drenched from the rain, her expression a mix of fear and awe.
"You're… you're him, aren't you?" she stammered. "The one who stopped the destruction."
Adrien's gaze hardened. "You shouldn't be here."
"I've been looking for you. They said you vanished after that night."
Her voice cracked. "But I saw you save that family. You could've run, but you didn't."
Adrien looked away. "You don't know what I've done."
"I don't care," she said. "Someone has to."
The silence between them stretched heavy, uncertain.
Then, from the horizon, a faint tremor shook the ground. The candlelight flickered violently. Adrien turned toward the window his instincts screaming.
From beyond the city walls, an unnatural light erupted into the sky golden, blinding, divine.
"Another one has awakened," the voice of Lnx whispered.
"The Third Chosen."
Adrien's violet aura flared, merging with streaks of shadow. He sheathed his blade and stepped past the girl.
"Stay here," he ordered.
"Wait where are you going?"
He paused at the doorway, the rain soaking through his hair.
"Where the light burns too bright… the shadow must follow."
And with that, Adrien vanished into the storm leaving only the faint glow of violet energy where he once stood.