The world was silent.
A cold wind whispered through the ruins of an ancient city, carrying the scent of dust and decay. The towering stone structures, once proud monuments to a lost civilization, now stood as shattered relics of the past. Faded symbols lined the cracked walls, their meanings long forgotten, their purpose lost to time.
Above, the sky stretched endlessly, locked in eternal twilight. It was neither day nor night, but something in between—a realm where the sun had long since died, and the stars refused to shine. A suffocating emptiness hung in the air, thick and heavy, as if the land itself was holding its breath.
Amidst the ruins, a lone figure stood still.
Vaelion.
Seventeen years old. Once just a boy, now something more—something unrecognizable. His dark hair swayed in the cold wind, yet he did not shiver. His expression was unreadable, his gaze distant. He did not belong here. And yet, fate had brought him to this place, this forgotten graveyard of the past.
Something was waiting. Watching.
The ruins held an unnatural stillness, as if the world had frozen in anticipation. The very air felt thick with an unspoken presence, pressing against his skin like invisible hands. Shadows stretched unnaturally, shifting without a source, moving without sound.
And then, the voice came.
"Embrace the Veil."
The words did not belong to the wind. They were not spoken aloud, yet they rang in his mind like an echo from another world. Ancient. Ageless. It was neither a command nor a plea. It was a truth.
Something inside him stirred.
A deep tremor ran through the ground, the cracked stone beneath his feet pulsing as if alive. The ruins responded. The walls groaned, the faded symbols flickering with a faint glow before vanishing into the darkness. A low hum filled the air, a resonance that vibrated through his very bones.
Then, the ground split open.
A jagged wound tore across the earth, stretching into an abyss of pure darkness. It was not an ordinary void—it pulsed, alive with something unseen. A slow, thick mist slithered out, curling through the air like a living thing. It was not smoke, nor was it fog. It had a presence. A will.
It reached for him.
Vaelion did not move. He did not resist. He had already accepted that this was inevitable.
The mist touched his skin, and the world collapsed into pain.
It did not creep upon him like a slow sickness. It struck like a blade plunged straight into his core. A searing agony tore through his veins, burning, twisting, breaking him apart. His breath hitched, his body locked in place, but he did not scream.
The pain was not ordinary. It was not flesh and bone breaking—it was something deeper.
His very existence was being torn apart.
His soul was unraveling, thread by thread, as if something was peeling him open from the inside. His heartbeat pounded like a war drum, his vision blurred, yet his mind remained clear.
The transformation had begun.
His bones twisted, his muscles stretched beyond their limits, his skin cracked as if something unseen was carving into him. The agony was relentless—every nerve, every fiber of his being burned with an intensity beyond human endurance.
But he endured.
Through the torment, through the chaos, he remained standing.
The mist climbed higher, consuming him entirely. His body was breaking, yet something was being forged in its place. His reflection, barely visible in the shattered stone beneath him, no longer showed the boy he once was.
His hair, once dark, had turned white as snow.
His eyes, once dull, now glowed with an eerie green light.
His skin bore intricate black markings, shifting, pulsing as if alive. The patterns burned themselves into his flesh, symbols of something ancient, something not of this world.
A presence lingered in his veins, whispering knowledge into his mind. Words in a language he had never heard before, yet understood instinctively. They were not his memories, yet they belonged to him.
They were not a gift.
They were power.
A power that demanded something in return.
The ruins shuddered, reacting to the change. The dead symbols across the broken walls flickered once more, resonating with the energy flowing through him. The mist that had consumed him now coiled at his feet, waiting.
For his command.
Vaelion exhaled. The pain was gone. The weight of mortality had been stripped away. His body no longer ached, no longer felt bound by human limitations. He lifted a hand, watching as the shadows curled around his fingers, bending to his will.
A shiver ran through the air, a silent acknowledgment of his transformation. The mist that had once been his tormentor now bowed to him. The darkness no longer consumed him.
He had become part of it.
But it was not absolute.
This power, as vast as it felt, was not infinite. He was stronger—far beyond what he once was—but not untouchable. Not invincible. The Shadow Veil had reshaped him, but it had not freed him.
It had claimed him.
The ruins had witnessed his suffering. The world had abandoned him. The past had left nothing but broken memories.
Then so be it.
If fate had cast him into the darkness, he would walk the path of shadows.
Unbound. Unforgiving. Unstoppable.
And so, Vaelion Shadowborne was born.
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