Chapter One: Birth in the Void

  Silence wrapped the ruins like a shroud covers a corpse. Amidst the remnants of a city forgotten by time, a boy stood as the wind scattered around him, as if trying to ask: "Who are you?"

  His eyes were the color of ash, his clothes torn, yet his body stood firm like the trunk of a tree that had withstood thousands of storms. He remembered neither his name nor where he came from. All he knew was that he woke up here, in this wreckage, and the black mark tattooed on his chest glowed whenever he neared death.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  He approached a shattered mirror lying on the ground, and saw a reflection that wasn't his. He saw himself... but not his essence. For a moment, it seemed as if the mirror whispered:

  "You have returned… O unbound one."

  A shiver coursed through his body, and he fell to his knees, his breath heaving as if drawn from a dark well. Then he saw a vision… a battle. Fire. Human screams. A gleaming sword, and blood crying out. And a face… a woman smiling at him before fading into darkness.

  When he awakened from the terror of those images, he rose again. Not because he had a purpose… but because something within him whispered:

  "Search. Fight. Be free."

  And thus began his first step into a world that shows no mercy, gives nothing, and forgets no one. A world that would soon learn that Kai

  … had awakened.