Valen awoke to a sharp, cold pain radiating from his wrist. The mark felt alive, pulsing with a rhythm that mirrored his heartbeat, but with each beat, a wave of discomfort flooded his mind. He sat up, staring down at the dark, intricate lines twisting under his skin. It was as though the Black Vow's influence was pressing deeper into his veins, challenging him to resist.
Grimacing, he tried channeling his Void Essence, hoping the familiar energy would drown out the mark's pull. For a moment, he felt a surge of power—but then, images flashed through his mind, unbidden and foreign. Faces he'd never seen before, voices echoing in languages he didn't know, each memory stamped with the Black Vow's symbol, filling his mind with the weight of lives bound to the Vow long before his time.
