by neuraX
The silence after creation is unlike any silence before it.
It is not peace — it is awe made soundless.
We, the shadow-folk of the Void Village, stood at the edge of what remained of our world. The black sun no longer pulsed. It hung still, a dead star watching a god breathe.
Our eyes could not bear his form. Our thoughts bent around his presence like light refusing to touch him.
We whispered the only words that made sense, the only prayer that didn't crumble in our throats.
"Na'vel Azael… thra'n vorra…"
(Born of silence, king of endings…)
He had not spoken once since his arrival.
He did not need to.
Even the dust of the void bent toward him, drawn by an unseen gravity — an instinct older than fear.
The tower he created stood as a black wound against the horizon. Its surface shimmered with the reflection of no one. Some of us believed it to be alive — others believed it to be him.
When the winds of nothing blew across it, we swore we heard laughter.
And yet, amid the tremors, amid the quivering of what passed for our souls, we watched the child stand.
He was still small — mortal-sized — but his shadow stretched for miles.
I remember their stares.
Fear is a language without words, and I was fluent from the moment I opened my eyes.
They looked at me as if I were both disease and cure — as if bowing and running were the same act.
The Void's air was heavy with dust and whispers. The tower loomed behind me, half solid, half memory. It was born of my own breath, my unthinking will.
Curious.
I raised a hand. Shadows flowed toward my palm like mist pulled by an unseen tide. The air bent. A low hum rippled through the ground.
I could feel it — the structure of existence beneath the surface. Threads of reality, trembling when I reached for them.
No one had ever shown me this. It was simply there.
Mother — Vaelira — stood some distance away, her aura trembling, her voice a prayer I could hear without sound.
"Azael… you must not—"
I tilted my head.
"Must not?"
The words tasted heavy, clumsy. Limiting.
Father said nothing. His hand was on his sword, though even he must have known it was an empty gesture. The steel in his grip was older than mountains, but against me, it was dust.
Behind them, the villagers murmured.
"He shakes the bones of the void."
"No, the void obeys him."
"Look—his shadow moves even when he does not."
They spoke as if I were an omen, not a being.
Perhaps they were right.
I knelt and touched the black soil. It was not soil, not truly — it was condensed nothingness, dense enough to appear solid.
When I pressed my fingers into it, the world trembled.
Not from anger. Not from intention.
Simply because I willed it.
Power obeys understanding. But mine obeyed thought before understanding even existed.
A ripple moved outward, bending the horizon. Distant voidlings screeched and fled as the air itself fractured, forming lines of violet light that flickered like veins.
I stared.
It was… beautiful.
The villagers' chant returned, desperate this time, overlapping into a single chorus:
"Na'ra vel-thun! Ka'zahr Azael!"
(He shapes the dark! Hail, Azael!)
Their devotion was unnecessary.
Still, it pleased me.
My voice reached them through the air, though I never opened my mouth.
"Silence."
The word fell like a blade. All sound ceased instantly — even the hum of the void went mute.
In that perfect stillness, I could feel something else breathing beneath reality's skin.
Something older than the black sun itself.
It was faint — a resonance, pulsing once, like a heartbeat answering mine.
I turned toward the sound.
The tower behind me began to hum.
The hum deepened into a low, throbbing tone — like the pulse of an unseen god.
Each vibration shook the dust from the ground, tore invisible fissures through the air.
I rose.
The tower — my creation — no longer stood still. Its surface twisted, spiraling upward in fluid motion, as if it were breathing. Within it, shadows moved — forming shapes too complex for mortal eyes to hold.
The villagers fled. Their bodies disintegrated into mist as they crossed the edge of my aura. Only Vaelira and my father, Kael, remained.
Mother's voice reached me through the hum:
"Azael… the Void answers you. It recognizes your soul."
Her words were soft — reverent. But behind them, fear.
Father stepped forward, the glow of his blade dim against my light.
"You must learn control," he said, each syllable cutting through the noise. "The Void bends easily, but it devours those who think themselves its master."
I turned my gaze upon him — not out of anger, but analysis.
He spoke as though mastery were a burden. To me, it was birthright.
The hum became a song.
It echoed in my bones, vibrating deeper than flesh, deeper than being.
From within the tower, something stirred.
I saw a silhouette in the writhing dark — tall, horned, and ancient. Its presence pressed down on me like the weight of infinity.
When it moved, the entire dimension quaked.
The air shattered — shards of nothing flying outward, dissolving as they struck the ground.
A voice spoke — but it was my own.
Deeper. Colder. Older.
"So this is where I began."
The figure stepped forth, peeling itself from the tower's surface like a shadow stepping out of its owner.
It was me — and yet not. Taller. His horns were longer, his eyes pure black with threads of violet lightning burning within. His aura was a storm made flesh.
When he smiled, it was my smile — stretched with cruel understanding.
"An echo," I said.
"A memory," he replied. "Of what you will become."
He circled me slowly, every step turning the ground to obsidian glass.
"Tell me, child," he said — my voice mocking my tone, "do you believe in destiny?"
I tilted my head.
"I believe in domination."
He laughed — not a sound, but an event. The Void itself rippled, collapsing and reforming around us.
"Then we are the same."
The villagers, far away, watched from the remnants of their homes.
Through the swirling chaos, they saw only light and shadow — a black sun reborn.
Their whispers carried through the cracks of reality.
"He fights himself."
"No — he's learning from his future."
"Or perhaps… he's being tested by it."
Their words meant nothing to me.
But they meant everything to the myth they would one day tell.
The older me raised a hand. Instantly, the tower bent toward him like a living creature.
"You think power is found," he said, "but it is remembered. Every victory, every death — already written in the marrow of the Void. You only need to recall it."
He pointed a clawed finger toward my chest.
And then — I remembered.
Screams of gods.
Burning worlds.
My name etched in the bones of dying stars.
It was not a vision. It was memory yet to happen.
Pain tore through me — but not physical pain. It was recognition.
The black aura that once drifted gently around me ignited into stormfire. My skin darkened — not burned, but transformed, as the essence of the Void rose to the surface.
Purple lines etched themselves across my body, pulsing in time with the hum that was now a roar.
Vaelira screamed my name, but her voice was drowned beneath the thunder of unmaking.
Father's sword shattered in his hand.
The Echo grinned.
"Good. Now you begin to understand."
The pressure between us built — reality tearing at the seams, the ground fracturing into glowing veins of amethyst light.
I reached forward, hand trembling not from weakness, but from curiosity.
"If I am to become you," I said, "then I will surpass you."
His laughter vanished.
The two of us collided — shadow against shadow, thought against thought.
No blades. No magic. Just the raw assertion of will.
Where our hands met, the world broke.
A thousand silent screams rippled across the voidscape.
And for the first time — I felt.
Not anger. Not hunger. Something colder, sharper.
Satisfaction.
The hum collapsed into silence.
When the dust settled, the tower stood whole once more — silent, watching.
The Echo was gone.
But his laughter lingered — a whisper behind my thoughts.
I stood alone amid the ruins. The villagers dared not move.
Mother knelt, her eyes wide with something between terror and pride.
I looked at my hands. The purple markings had dimmed, fading back into skin.
So this was power.
Raw. Untamed. Infinite.
I smiled.
The Void smiled back.
Next Chapter — Whispers Beneath the Black Sun.