Rain woke with his chest heaving in jagged gasps, as if his lungs were trying to expel the remnants of a viscous fluid. There was no pain—only a strange sense of weightlessness, as though the suffocating gravity of Cephalos had finally been lifted from his shoulders. He opened his eyes slowly, but what he saw was not the death he had expected.
He was lying on a mound of fine ash atop the ruins of an ancient building whose peak had fallen eons ago. Above, there was no metallic ceiling or plasma lights; instead, a thick cloud of gray fog moved sluggishly, like a living entity watching the world. Here, the fog did not kill; it "whispered"—a constant hum in his ears that resonated with the pulse of the tattoo on his arm.
"You survived... but not because you are lucky," a voice came—calm, solemn, and as cold as a blade striking marble.
Rain scrambled to his feet, reflexively reaching for his old screwdriver at his waist, only to remember he was no longer a maintenance technician. Before him, amidst the wreckage of a courtyard that had once pulsed with life, a specter of a woman materialized. She wasn't entirely human; her form was composed of silver light-strands interwoven to form ancient battle attire, her long hair flowing like a gray waterfall.
"Who are you? And where am I?" Rain asked, his voice echoing with an eerie resonance.
"I am Elina, the remaining memory of the Throne Blade that is currently tearing through your cells," she said, stepping toward him without her feet touching the ground. "As for where you are, you are in the Cradle of Ash—the forgotten floor beneath the feet of your masters in Cephalos. Here, truth begins and illusion ends."
Rain looked at his right hand. The tattoo was no longer dormant; it protruded beneath his skin like pulsing silver veins. "This thing... this sword... it's changing me. I feel like something is eating away at my humanity."
"That is the price," Elina replied, looking at the tattoo with expressionless eyes. "The blade you carry is not a weapon; it is a key to a dimension that ruled the world before it drowned in the fog. Your body is weak, tainted by engine oil and the air of false cities. To carry the Throne, you must first burn."
Suddenly, the ground shook beneath Rain's feet. A horrific cry, sounding like the screech of tearing metal, erupted from the nearby ruins. From behind a collapsed pillar emerged a creature unlike anything Rain had seen in biology books. It was a mass of viscous shadow, with sharp glass-like limbs and blue eyes that hinted at an eternal hunger.
[Alert: Rank (C) Predator Detected – Echo Devourer] [Physical Status: Critical] [Survival Option: Fight or Disintegrate]
"No time for questions!" Elina shouted, her spectral form glowing intensely. "If you do not summon it now, it will tear your soul before your body. Imagine the blade as your own heartbeat... do not just draw it, be it!"
The beast lunged at Rain with lightning speed. Survival instinct—that primal force forged by years of toil in the tunnels—exploded in his veins. Rain screamed as he thrust his right hand into the void.
This time, no small shard emerged. The very air around his hand tore open, and the broken blade surged forth with a silver radiance that bathed the entire courtyard. The blade vibrated in his grip, absorbing the surrounding fog and converting it into physical mass.
Rain swung wildly at the air, but the blade did something he hadn't expected. It didn't just cut the creature's physical form; it "absorbed" the shadow that composed it. The beast froze, its body cracking like glass exposed to extreme heat, before exploding into fine gray dust.
Rain collapsed to his knees. The blade vanished back into his skin, but the pain this time was unbearable. He felt as if the muscles in his arm had been shredded from the inside, his mind nearly buckling under the sheer volume of data and energy that had flooded him in a single second.
"Well done," Elina said, standing over him, her gaze shifting from coldness to something resembling a flicker of hope. "You have killed a servant, but you have awakened in a world inhabited by kings. The Silver Council above believes the fog is the enemy, but they do not know that they are the parasites, and you are now... the death they fear."
Rain looked at the ash falling on his hands. He was no longer as afraid as he had been in the ventilation shaft. There was something about this depth, this gray death, that made him feel more at home than his old life ever had.
"What now?" he asked, struggling to stand by leaning against a rock.
"Now, your journey to reclaim the lost fragments begins," Elina said, pointing toward the dark horizon where the ruins of an even greater city loomed. "There, in the heart of the Silent City, the second fragment awaits you... along with guardians who will show no mercy to your weakness."