The palace shook like thunder had crawled into its bones. Guards outside the throne wing pressed their backs against the doors, listening to the cracks of stone, the screams, the silence that came after.
None dared to enter. Not even the captains.
Whispers were already running through the city like wildfire:
"A monster's in the palace."
"No, it's a boy. I saw him once. Dark hair, hollow eyes."
"You don't understand. That wasn't a boy—that was a Forsaken."
The slums spoke his name with awe and fear. The nobles spat it like a curse. The underground syndicates were already measuring what it meant for them.
Rayon Veynar.
Back Inside
Dust hung in the air like smoke. Broken pillars leaned like corpses. Alrik's blade sang through the silence, controlled by the faceless Construct that pulled him like a puppet.
Rayon stood in the wreckage, chest rising and falling, strings snapping around him like veins of light and shadow. His eyes were cold, but sharp—focused in a way they had never been before.
For the first time since unlocking his power, Rayon pushed past the shallow tricks, past illusions and half-control.
He didn't just tug strings. He owned them.
The Construct tugged at his heart again, trying to force his knees to buckle.
Rayon's threads lashed inward, wrapping his chest, his limbs, his breath itself. He locked his body down like a fortress.
And then—he turned outward.
At first it was crude—making a thug misstep, confusing an enemy's aim. But now his Hollow Strings slipped into the senses of others like knives into cloth.
Sight. Hearing. Smell. Taste. Touch.
All five bent under his will. And with his growing awareness of himself—of that sixth sense, the thread of thought itself—he realized he could wrap a person's mind in his strings just as easily as their body.
Not illusion. Not trickery. He didn't make them see something.
He made them believe it was real.
Alrik's puppet body faltered for a moment, the Construct losing grip as Rayon's hypnosis cut across its commands. The clash wasn't just physical anymore—it was two webs of control colliding, snapping, snarling through one another.
In that moment of struggle, the truth bled through Rayon's head like a whisper carried on static.
Every string-user lived by Ranks:
Initiate – those who first awakened, crude and unstable. Threadbearer – learning to weave, to extend, to control beyond themselves. Stringmaster – bending not only body but matter, pulling reality's edges. Forsaken – the rare few tied to fragments of the original Web, their powers spiraling beyond human design.
Strength wasn't just given. It was earned. Through strain. Through blood. Through evolution under pressure.
And Rayon, gutter-born, self-taught, unshaped by masters—was climbing that ladder by breaking every rung in front of him.
Rayon's strings spread wide, cutting through stone, bending Alrik's stolen body backward. The Construct screeched without a mouth, light splintering from its faceless head.
But as Rayon pulled tighter, veins bulging, the palace floor began to crack under the pressure of two forces grinding against each other.
Outside, the city held its breath.
Inside, Rayon's eyes burned black, hollow yet alive.
"You wanted control?" his voice dropped low, each word shaking with fury.
"Then choke on mine."