Komisun did not tolerate weakness.
It displayed it, punished it, and buried it before it could beg.
The execution square was quieter than usual. A breeze whispered over the stone walls, ruffling the banners that bore the insignias of the Six Silver Serpents—Komisun's ruling bloodlines. Beneath them, nobles sat in polished stands, sipping chilled fruitwine. Commoners crowded behind guards, eyes wide and mouths shut.
On the raised platform stood a child. Nine, maybe ten. Shackled. Terrified. His knees trembled beneath him. A single gem pulsed dimly around his neck—a fake, too dull to pass as a true power relic.
"The accused is powerless," the announcer declared, voice echoing unnaturally through the square. "Born of no clan. Holds no rank. Bears no Serpent's gift."
A hush followed.
Then, the sentence: "By decree of the Council of Six, the child is to be removed from the Line of Fate."
Drex stood in the crowd, hood up, breathing shallow.
That could've been me.
His fake jewel warmed against his chest. A reminder.
Enem's voice rang in his head: Never remove the relic, boy. Not even to bathe. If they see the truth, they'll end you before you speak.
He flinched as the executioner's blade came down. The crowd didn't cheer. They never did. Not for this.
The body was taken. The platform scrubbed. The noble banners flapped again as if nothing had happened.
Drex turned away and walked down an alleyway, his stomach cold.
That night, he returned to the underground quarters of Enem, his grandmother—the only one left who called him by his true name.
"You watched it again," she said, not even turning from her apothecary shelf.
"I had to."
She sighed. Her fingers, knotted with age, continued grinding dried starroot into powder. "Komisun will always eat its weak. But you, Drex Joku, are not weak."
"I don't feel strong."
Enem turned, her pale green eyes glowing faintly. A trace of her Vitalis power. "You're not strong yet. But you are... dangerous."
He looked up.
"Why do you think I gave you the relics? Hm? These stones don't just hide your powerlessness. They suppress something worse."
Drex froze.
"What do you mean... worse?"
She didn't answer.
Flashback: Winter's First Moon, 13 years ago!
Snow howled against the cliffs of Dorell's Cradle, the winds whipping faster than any horse could run. A woman lay beneath the frost-covered roots of a dying sequoia, clutching her belly. Her skin was bruised. Her robes were torn. Her hands, broken in three places.
Rena Joku was no noble, no warrior. Just a mere powerless mortal, once apprenticed to the Vitalis sanctum. But she had refused the Serpent's Silence. She had spoken out. And for that, they had come for her.
One. Then another. Then all six.
Six clans. Six monsters.
Assaulted
And now, one child.
The mage among them casted an speed-spell, it didn't waste time for the child to come forth!
Her fingers trembled as she pulled out a jagged knife. Not to harm the child—but to cut the cords binding her legs. She had to deliver him alone. No Vitalis would come. None dared oppose the Six.
She screamed into the storm as the baby came.
Blood. Snow. Silence.
And then, a cry. Faint. Furious.
Rena looked into her child's face. Grey eyes. Grey as smoke. No spark of power lit his skin, no clan mark flared on his chest.
"Good," she whispered. "Hide it. Let them think you're nothing."
She wrapped him in her torn shawl and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
"They called me the Whore of Six Bloodlines. But they'll learn. My son will be the serpent they never saw coming. The Strongest of them all. The Silent One. Born of no clan, and yet bound to all."
A Vitalis scout found her months later, under a tree, barely alive, hungry and deserted. The child was unharmed, blinking at the sun.
"Enem.....Enem Emerson"
Enem took them both in. Quietly. Secretly. Even among the Vitalis, the boy's aura was… wrong. Flickering. Like it belonged to every Serpent—and none.
Current Day: Somewhere, deep within the citadel of Komisun...
Six thrones sat in a cold, circular chamber. Figures cloaked in silk and venom stared at the crystal projection hovering above them—a flicker of a boy in combat. A boy using elements, speed, illusions, magic, summons, and even healing.
"Impossible," muttered one of the silver serpents. "The being used wind."
"And fire,". "Then magic. Then beastform. He shouldn't exist. Even Healing
"He doesn't exist," said one in silver. So the prophecy is true!"
"Yes....It is," rasped the eldest.
A pause.
Then the words that sealed it:
"We must find him. At any cost."
Back in the shadows of the city, Drex lay awake beneath Enem's roof, watching the stars flicker through the cracks in the ceiling. His fingers traced the jewel around his neck. It buzzed faintly—unstable, almost like it could sense the prophecy tightening around him.
He closed his eyes.
"Something worse, What did she mean?"
Only because of the jewel around his neck, he had some power, Enem had transferred some of her techniques in it for him"
He looked up to the sky!
"I.....I will become stronger"