Chapter 1 of manga series —
"Stratafall"
Chapter 1 – "The Shattered Depths"
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☁️ Opening Scene: Dreamscape – The Abyssal Rift
A young boy, no older than 7, floats suspended in a glowing void. Blue flames ripple around him. Voices echo.
Mother's Voice (off-screen):
> "You were never supposed to exist… Not with his blood… and mine."
Father's Voice (off-screen, gruff):
> "He's not a child. He's a breach. A split in the cycle."
Suddenly, a massive monolithic eye opens in the darkness above, lined with fractal sigils. A beast made of shattered stars snarls within the void.
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🔥 Cut to: Real World – Ruins of Kaen's Rift, 8 Years Ago
Raiven stumbles barefoot through a frozen wasteland. Snow and obsidian glass scatter across jagged terrain. He's bloody, trembling, and chained at the wrists.
Behind him: the burning remains of a hybrid clan sanctuary. Shattered statues of two forgotten races — the Solari (Lightborn) and the Nocturne (Voidkind) — lie crushed in the snow.
Raiven's mother, Syr'Kael, once the last Solari priestess, lies beneath the wreckage. Her sigils are fading from her eyes. Her last words:
> "Run. The world will hunt you. So... let it fear you first."
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🌌 Scene: Raiven Collapses at the Abyss Faultline
Near death, Raiven crawls to the Strata Pit, a forbidden zone where collapsed realms bleed energy from broken dimensions. The wind howls with ancient languages. Floating runes swirl across the air.
In the center, embedded in crystallized ore, lies a black-and-violet fruit, pulsing with dimensional tension — the Stratum Fruit.
Its surface splits and reforms constantly. It doesn't have a stem — it has a gravitational tether that reaches into the ground.
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🧬 Flashback Glimpses Strike Raiven
Visions of battles not yet fought.
Images of people who don't yet know him — Valek. Seryn. Jeremiah.
A whisper:
> "He who eats of the breach... becomes its axis."
Bleeding and desperate, Raiven consumes the Stratum Fruit.
His body erupts in pain. Bones fracture, shadows ripple from his spine, and his left eye turns entirely black while the right glows crimson red.
A rift spiral opens behind him, sucking in snow, rock, and time itself.
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⚡ Awakening of the Rift Core
Raiven screams as the Void Beast within him claws out — a massive skeletal dragon made of riftstone and red lightning — only to be pulled back inside by the fruit's seal.
From this day on, Raiven becomes the "Axis Aberrant", a walking fracture in the laws of this world.
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📜 Cut to: Present Day – Academy Registration
Raiven, now older and cloaked, stands before the massive monolith of the Ravenguard Arcane Academy, a training ground for all sigil-bearers, fruit wielders, and clanborn heirs.
His forged name on the registry:
> "Raiven Stratus. No Origin. No Clan."
Watching from above, Valek narrows his eyes.
From the frostbound hills, Jeremiah smirks coldly.
And from the highest tower… Seryn watches with interest.
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☠️ FINAL PANEL:
> Narration:
"The world thought the worst war ended a century ago. But what if the final weapon… was just a scared, broken boy… with a Rift at his heart?"