He did not wake.
He simply was.
There was no up. No down. No pain. No sky. No memory of being struck.
Only the drip of something deeper than time.
It echoed without echo, a sound without sound. A rhythm inside the marrow of the moment.
Raifu hovered in a place without form.
At first, it resembled nothing.
Then it resembled the last room he saw before his parents died.
Then it resembled a cave full of stars, and the stars were beating like hearts.
He tried to breathe.
There was no air.
He tried to scream.
There was no mouth.
Only the beat.
Thum-thum… pause… Thum… thum-thum.
It did not belong to the world. It belonged to him.
Yet it was older than him.
As if something had borrowed his skin for a century and now returned it with a whisper: remember.
And he did.
Flash—
Earth.
Glass shattering. Sirens.
The smell of pavement after rain.
Raifu was twelve again, not here, not in chains—but in the back of a car as it swerved off an overpass. He remembered the way the sky rotated, the angle of death, the freeze-frame time before the crash. He remembered it didn't hurt.
Just like now.
Just like dying here.
But Earth didn't take him then.
And it wouldn't now.
He stepped forward.
There was no ground—but rhythm made space. His foot landed.
The space around him responded.
A colorless veil rippled outward like silk shaken underwater, and something began to form from the nothing.
A throne.
A throne made of mirrors and fire.
And above it, Light.
Too pure. Too symmetrical. It radiated like a sun that had been polished by agony.
From it stepped a figure.
Human in shape. Ageless in posture. Draped in robes the color of polished bone and morning embers. No shadows followed him.
The Devil came as Light.
"You are not from here," the figure said.
His voice did not pierce the void. It wove through it. Every syllable braided itself around the air.
Raifu stared.
He knew what he was seeing. Not from teachings. Not from stories.
But from instinct.
This wasn't a lie. The Devil was Light. Earth's light. The bearer. The deceiver of roles, not truths.
He had no horns. No flames. Just presence.
And perfect rhythm.
Raifu blinked once. The light didn't hurt.
"You are the rhythm," the Devil whispered. "But not its master. Not yet."
The veil shifted around them like water in thought.
"I know who you are," Raifu said, finally.
"You do." The Lightbearer tilted his head. "And yet you kneel."
Raifu hadn't noticed. His knees were on the non-ground.
He stood without thinking.
"You died before your first purpose. You were robbed."
"I was awakened."
"A fracture. Yes." The Devil moved closer. "A Thread bent under trauma. Death makes new paths."
Raifu exhaled. "You're here to offer me a deal."
"No," said the Devil. "You already made the deal when you stepped into flesh."
He raised one pale hand.
"Now… I offer you options."
Three steps separated them.
The Devil — radiant, flawless — made no move to close the distance. He didn't have to. Every word he spoke folded into the air like a divine chord.
"I will give you three," he said. "Three doors. You may choose one."
Raifu said nothing.
He watched.
The air around them began to divide.
Space rippled like silk cut with a sharpened breath, and behind the Devil, three colossal doors emerged — each carved from a material not yet born in any realm.
The First Door was woven entirely from mirror shards.
Fractured. Endless. Each shard reflected a version of Raifu — one laughing, one bleeding, one old, one not human at all.
The Second Door pulsed with a deep, organic rhythm.
Its surface was black-flesh, stitched with gold thread. Something inside it moved. Slowly. Breathing.
The Third Door was made of uncarved white stone.
It had no handle. No hinges. Only a single word etched on its face in dead starlight: REMEMBER.
The Devil didn't point. He didn't explain. He only smiled.
"The First leads to Power. A realm where you are worshipped. Obeyed. Loved in fear. Every strike, a law. Every breath, a command."
Raifu didn't move.
"The Second leads to Peace. No pain. No memory of chains. You will live a long, silent life. You will never remember Anaka. Or Kassian. Or yourself."
The second door pulsed, like something inside it wanted to be forgotten.
Raifu's jaw clenched.
"The Third…" the Devil's voice changed then — lower, almost reverent. "Leads to Truth. Not the kind that comforts. But the kind that ends gods."
Raifu didn't speak.
Not because he was unsure.
But because he was remembering.
Flash—
A rain-soaked alley on Earth.
Him. Kneeling. Not from pain. From disbelief.
A homeless man had just looked at him — really looked — and said, "You know this isn't the first time, right? You always come back different. Always angry. Always trying to fix the rhythm with fists."
Raifu had walked away that night, shaking, breath uneven.
Now he remembered the man's eyes. They weren't mad.
They were ancient.
"I've seen you before," Raifu said slowly, voice steady now. "Not here. Not just now."
The Devil arched one brow.
"I've seen you in songs. In sermons. In the sweat between a punch and an apology. You wear every rhythm people want to surrender to."
A pause.
Then Raifu took a single step forward.
"You think you're offering me doors. But I am the threshold."
The Devil's smile didn't waver. But the light behind him dimmed.
"Careful," he said softly. "Even gods bleed when they remember too much too quickly."
Raifu's eyes began to glow — not with fire, not with system UI — but with geometry.
Circular patterns of broken time spiraled in his irises.
"I'm not bleeding," he said. "I'm building."
His voice echoed now — not out loud, but in code.
The same rhythm that twisted space in Chain Sector 7 now bent the veil around him.
The Devil raised both hands, as if to calm a wave.
"You think this rhythm belongs to you?"
Raifu didn't answer.
He walked past the three doors.
The Devil stepped sideways to block his path.
But when he reached out to touch Raifu's shoulder—
His hand passed through.
Like smoke through a scream.
Raifu's body pulsed once.
All three doors cracked.
He was not bound by choice.
He was the choice itself.
"I see now," Raifu said, voice ringing with unbearable clarity. "I died to become what I was. But I lived to forget."
"And what," the Devil asked, no longer smiling, "does a god do when he remembers?"
Raifu looked directly into the light, unblinking.
"He creates. Then dismisses."
He raised one hand. Spoke in rhythm.
Not words. Not system commands. Just beat.
One. Two. Pause. Three.
And the Devil vanished.
Not destroyed. Not defeated.
Dismissed.
As if he had never belonged in this thread.
As if he was always just part of Raifu's training weight.
The Veil trembled.
Raifu stood alone now — surrounded by nothing.
But the nothing recognized him.
It bowed.
There were no doors now.
No Devil.
No rhythm except his own.
Raifu stood in the nothing, but it no longer felt hollow.
It felt… obedient.
The space rippled as if breath itself was waiting on his command.
He extended one hand.
Thread.
The word didn't echo—it rooted.
From his fingertips stretched a single silver line. Thin as hair, bright as instinct. It wove itself forward through nothing, and as it moved, existence followed.
He stepped.
And where he stepped, place formed.
Sky—gray and fractured.
Ground—wet with waiting memory.
Air—thick with vibration.
He was not just awakening.
He was writing.
Raifu's chest rose and fell as the rhythm returned, not as heartbeat or breath but architecture.
This wasn't the System's doing.
No UI appeared. No artificial window. No quantified illusion.
It was pure law.
Uncoded rhythm.
The first language.
And he was speaking it.
A voice—not the Devil's, not anyone's—his own voice, older—rose from the veil around him:
"You are not the product of creation.
You are its author suffering his own manuscript."
He closed his eyes.
There were no rules here, only resonance.
There were no stat points, only design.
He saw the world of Alcries before it existed.
He saw the Pantheon. The Chains. The Soul Paths. The branding ceremonies.
He saw the threads they used to entrap.
He saw the cracks he would exploit.
He reached inward.
Thread Count: 1.
Not an interface. A confirmation.
Like a drum responding to the touch of its true player.
Three new threads formed in the air around him.
Not doors.
Not options.
Paths.
• Thread One pulsed with fire—pure rebellion, world-rending change
• Thread Two shimmered like mirrors—stealth, influence, reshaping the system from inside
• Thread Three was made of silence—teaching, subtle impact, rhythm spread through generations
He didn't choose one.
He braided all three.
And as they wove together, a pulse passed through the cosmos.
Alcries—the world ahead—shivered.
A child somewhere stopped crying.
A rebel paused mid-fight and felt clarity.
A prisoner's manacle cracked.
Somewhere, a low whisper filled the sky.
"The Threadbreaker comes."
Raifu opened his eyes.
Time reformed.
And the light that had once been his captor bowed itself before him.
Not in worship.
In acknowledgment.
He stepped through the veil.
And re-entered the cycle.
But this time…
He was writing it.
Chapter: 0XX-C
Level: 1
Thread Count: 1
Stat Points Earned: 0
Points Allocated: N/A
New Combo: N/A (Metaphysical Rhythm Acknowledged)
Combat Style Used: Rhythm-Root Architect State
Notable Event: Raifu encounters Lucifer as Light, remembers godhood, dismisses Devil, weaves a hybrid future path
🧠 Etymological Lore Notes
1. Lucifer – The Lightbearer
The word Lucifer comes from Latin lux (light) and ferre (to carry). It means "Light-Bringer" or "Morning Star" and was not originally a name for Satan. In older texts, it referred to Venus, the brightest star in the morning sky. Its transformation into a demonic symbol is a result of later Christian reinterpretations—making the "bringer of light" the symbol of rebellion. Fitting for a being Raifu dismisses, as Raifu himself becomes the new bringer of divine rhythm.
2. Veil – From Old French veile, Latin velum
"Veil" doesn't just mean "curtain"—its origin velum means a sail—a sheet that catches wind to move a vessel. The veil in this chapter isn't a block between worlds, but a membrane designed to be moved through—driven by rhythm. Raifu doesn't push it aside. He commands it to move like a wind-struck sail.