"Why did my parents abandon me when I was a child?"
A frail old man named Aldwyn Vexgrave lay against the stone wall of a quiet alley. His robe, torn and caked in dust, clung to his skeletal frame. White hair like spider silk flowed down to his shoulders, and a beard covered most of his sunken face. His pale blue eyes stared lifelessly at the stars, unblinking.
"What's the point of remembering a name no one speaks?"
"Why was I born to be forgotten?"
He said it aloud, voice hollow and broken. His chest barely rose and fell with each breath. His body had nothing left to offer the world, and the world offered nothing back. His hands trembled as he pulled his ragged robe closer. He closed his eyes.
"Wake up."
A deep, haunting voice slithered into his ear.
Aldwyn jolted awake. But the sky was no longer dark. It was morning. The city around him was no longer familiar.
Men walked past in white shirts, black coats, and old-style hats. Women strolled in elegant gowns adorned with colorful pearls. Horse-drawn carriages clicked down cobblestone streets. The architecture was grand, timeless. Everything felt old, beautiful, and wrong.
"What… is this?" Aldwyn muttered.
He rose slowly, but something felt different. His limbs were steady. His vision—clear. He looked down at his hands. Youthful. Smooth. Pale.
A man's voice shouted from across the street.
"Get off the sidewalk, old tramp!" barked Berrick Thorne, a shopkeeper wiping his display glass.
Aldwyn said nothing. He stood, calm. His movements graceful. Silent.
He reached for his face, tracing sharp features he hadn't felt in decades. Thin. Clean. Alive.
He needed a mirror.
As he walked, he passed a tall man with silver hair and narrow ears—an elf, something he had only read about in myths. Horse carriages clattered nearby. He was in a place long separated from his broken world.
Then came another voice.
"Excuse me, sir!" said a young man with flushed cheeks.
He was Callen Dorse, 1.7 meters tall, brown hair slicked back, black eyes, and slightly pudgy cheeks. He wore a neat white shirt and long brown coat, his tone overly polite.
"We offer free housing, food, and purpose to lost souls like yourself. Care to join?" he asked, handing Aldwyn a parchment. The words "Dark Order" were scrawled across the top.
Aldwyn's black-red eyes fixed on Callen's face.
"I don't have a name," he said in a cold, expressionless tone.
Callen blinked. "O-Oh... alright…"
But Aldwyn was caught off-guard too. His voice—it had changed. Deeper. Smoother. Controlled. He felt power coursing through him, carefully sealed under his skin.
Then, like a knife behind the eyes, a splitting pain slammed into his head. Blood dripped from his nose. His vision blurred.
And knowledge surged in.
Prizland, southern continent of the Gaia Kingdom. A land divided from the Northern Continent, where war had erupted three times and never truly ended.
There were ten holy churches and three heretical ones. Beneath them moved secret groups, cults, and empires unknown.
Here, people walked bloodpaths—paths given by gods, demons, or ancient beings. Each path gifted unique power.
But Aldwyn's path?
None.
He saw in black and white—threads, layers, life and death. A thin robe draped over him now, black stitched with white veins. To the untrained eye, it was elegant. To those with knowledge, it was a robe of judgment.
White threads—life.
Black threads—death.
He could cut them. Sever a person's fate with a glance.
And no one—not even the gods—could sense it.
He opened his eyes. The blood on his face vanished with one wipe.
Callen approached nervously. "Sir, are you alright?"
"Nothing happened," Aldwyn replied, voice cold.
"Ah… right. Would you like to sign your name?"
"Give me the pen."
Callen handed it to him, hesitantly.
Aldwyn took it, wrote with clean strokes, and handed the form back.
Callen read it aloud.
"Aldwyn Vexgrave…"
He looked up, surprised. "You said earlier you didn't have a name."
"I remembered," Aldwyn said simply.
"Right… Well, welcome to Dark Order. I'm Callen. Weekly salary is 4 gold and 6 pence, but it goes up if you do something special."
Aldwyn nodded once.
Callen scratched his head. "Do you want me to take you to headquarters, or should I give you the address?"
"Give me the address."
Callen handed him a parchment with scribbled directions. "You'll find us near the eastern tower, past the brass statue."
Aldwyn took the paper without another word and turned.
As he walked away, Callen muttered under his breath, "He's the strangest recruit I've ever met…"
Aldwyn continued through the crowded streets. His robe barely made a sound. People avoided his gaze, though none knew why.
He saw threads everywhere.
A young woman named Selene Marris was smiling at a child, her white thread vibrant.
A man named Jareth Vonn, hidden behind a fruit stall, had two black strands wrapped around his hands—murder in his future.
A nobleman walked by—Darius Veldar—and Aldwyn could see his thread tied to three political assassinations.
He didn't act. Not yet.
Not until it mattered.
He passed a small boy, barefoot and pale, begging near a lamppost.
"Please, sir…"
Aldwyn stopped. The boy's name was Finn. His thread was white—but thin, fading fast.
Aldwyn reached into his coat and handed him a single silver coin.
"Thank you, mister!" the boy smiled brightly.
Aldwyn watched him walk away. He hadn't smiled himself. Not once.
He kept walking.
The robe shifted slightly in the breeze—silent, soft, lethal.
He had no bloodpath.
No divine oath.
No allegiance.
But he had clarity.
And power no one could see.
Life or death, he chose what to cut.
And this world, this kingdom, this foolish place of gods and monsters?
It would kneel to him. In time.
He didn't come back to be saved.
He came back to rule.
***
The headquarters of Dark Order wasn't grand.
At least not on the surface.
Aldwyn followed the parchment instructions past crooked alleyways and a statue of a cloaked woman holding two broken chains. The building before him appeared as an old warehouse, its brick exterior worn and cracked. Two guards flanked the iron doors—men who stood stiffly in black coats and gloves, their eyes alert but dull, unaware of what kind of man now approached them.
Aldwyn stepped through the threshold. He felt nothing.
No presence wards. No divine sigils. No probing energy scans.
They weren't prepared for someone like him.
Inside, the hallway was lit by old oil sconces, their flames dancing in silence. Recruits sat along the walls, filling out forms or polishing weapons. Aldwyn walked past them without a glance. His aura was empty—purposefully so. Even among so-called mystics and knights, he appeared as nothing.
A desk clerk—a freckled woman in her early thirties with tied-back chestnut hair—lifted her gaze. Her name tag read: Marla Trein.
"You're… new?" she asked, trying not to sound bored.
Aldwyn offered the parchment Callen had given him.
She took it and checked the name. Her eyes paused.
"Aldwyn Vexgrave… huh. That name sounds… old."
"It is."
She frowned slightly at his tone but didn't comment.
"Alright. You'll be placed in Cell 3, second floor barracks. I'll assign you to Squad Indigo. Their leader is Captain Rhys Elden—you'll meet him during evening drills."
Aldwyn nodded once. "Understood."
She handed him a black badge, shaped like a serpent curled into a circle.
"Pin that on your chest when attending any official functions. And Aldwyn…" she said, her voice suddenly lowering. "Dark Order isn't kind to those who try to climb too quickly. Keep your head down."
His black-red eyes met hers for just a moment.
She couldn't look away.
Her heart skipped once. Her breath caught in her chest.
But when she blinked… it was gone. The pressure, the weight of his gaze.
Had it been real?
"D-Don't be late for drills."
Aldwyn left without a word.
---
Barracks — Cell 3
The room was plain. A single bed, a small desk, a wash basin. No mirrors, which he found mildly annoying.
He removed the robe only long enough to wash his face.
Then he stood before the wall and studied his reflection in the polished surface of his basin.
Pale skin. Black hair. Thin face. Sharp jaw. Crimson-black eyes like burning coals sunk deep into shadows.
The robe he wore was thinner than silk but heavier than grief. Its threads—white and black—fluttered invisibly, moving only when he wished them to.
He raised a hand and whispered.
"Observe."
The room shifted into grayscale. Threads of white hung from the walls, the floor, the air itself. Lives. Deaths. Echoes. History.
He could cut anything tied to fate. But only when the moment was right.
His power was not to destroy, but to choose what lives and what ends.
---
Evening Drills
The training yard was a stone courtyard behind the headquarters. About twenty recruits stood in a line, some chatting, others nervously clutching staves or swords. Aldwyn stood at the far end, silent, arms crossed.
A man with short gray hair and a scar down his right cheek strode forward.
"Silence!" he barked.
This was Captain Rhys Elden, a battle-hardened officer with no patience for weakness.
"You're in Squad Indigo now. I don't care what street you came from. If you can't follow orders, you're dead. If you can't fight, you're dead. If you speak while I'm talking—"
One recruit, a young hothead named Torren Vale, snorted and whispered something to the recruit beside him.
Captain Elden threw a dagger.
It missed Torren's ear by half an inch and embedded in the wooden post behind him.
"I was saying…" the Captain continued, not even looking at the knife. "If you speak while I'm talking, you're dead."
The line fell into absolute silence.
Except for Aldwyn. He hadn't reacted at all.
Captain Elden's eyes briefly met his. A flicker of annoyance passed through them, like a hound sniffing something it couldn't track.
---
Nightfall
Back in his room, Aldwyn sat on the edge of his bed, hands clasped together. He wasn't here for training. He wasn't here to obey.
He was here for access.
Dark Order was a façade. Beneath it, there were layers—experiments, forbidden knowledge, death pacts. He could sense it in the air. In the threads.
And above all, he needed knowledge of the Three Forbidden Churches—what they knew of souls, resurrection, and binding fate.
Because Aldwyn Vexgrave had no desire to simply rule.
He wanted to rewrite the end of death itself.
Not to save the world.
But to punish it.
The gods had given him nothing. The demons had ignored him. His parents had discarded him.
Now, he would become the silence between breath, the pause between light and dark.
A quiet knock tapped against his door.
He opened it.
Callen stood there, holding a candle.
"S-Sorry to bother you," he said, nervously. "But Captain Elden wants to speak with you… privately."
Aldwyn tilted his head. "Now?"
Callen nodded. "He said... something about your eyes."
Aldwyn took the candle and stepped into the hallway, his robe trailing soundlessly behind him.
"Lead the way."