There was nothing.

No light, no sound, no existence — only endless emptiness.

Then, a crack tore through the void. From it, a single golden droplet emerged. The moment it appeared, a vast explosion shook the nothingness… and from that chaos, existence was born.

Billions of years passed. On a planet named Elix, life began to flourish. Yet the crack had not vanished. One day, something slipped through again — not golden, but a darkness deeper than the void itself, and yet brighter than the stars. It drifted silently through the cosmos. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the crack sealed, leaving no trace. None would ever know what had passed through.

Time moved forward. Humanity evolved, building kingdoms and forging civilizations.

During the Crimson Era, Era, the Kingdom of Fhiola rose as a jewel of mankind’s ambition. Its marble fortresses gleamed beneath the sun, rune-lit towers reached toward the heavens, and its capital pulsed with life—markets by day, lantern-lit streets by night. Yet beneath the splendor, whispers of ancient omens lingered, ignored by those too proud to heed them. 

In the mighty kingdom of Fhiola, a woman named Krim Windlock carried a child in her womb. Three months before her expected delivery, the mysterious entity reached Elix. Guided by some unseen force, it entered Fhiola… and then her very home. Without warning, it slipped into Krim’s body, fusing with the unborn child.

It was an ordinary day in Fhiola. The sun climbed steadily above marble towers, and the streets buzzed with merchants shouting prices, children chasing each other through narrow alleys, and guards making their rounds. To the people, nothing seemed amiss. Yet above the city, the sky carried a strange stillness—too bright, too cloudless, as if holding its breath. None noticed it, nor did they see how, for the briefest moment, a faint shimmer rippled across the heavens before vanishing into the blue.

Inside the Windlock home, a sudden stabbing pain tore through Krim’s stomach. She screamed, clutching her belly.

“Bert! I—I felt something… sharp. What if something’s wrong with the baby? Should we go to the healer?”

Bert froze for a heartbeat, panic flickering in his eyes.

“Y-Yes! Right now—we’re leaving this instant!”

They hurried into their carriage and raced to the Chamber of First Light, where healers and white mages attended childbirth.

The Chamber of First Light stood as the heart of birth and healing in Fhiola. Its domed ceilings shimmered with murals of dawn, painted to inspire mothers with hope. Incense of dawnblossom flowers floated through its halls, sweet yet strangely heavy, as if masking something unspoken. It was said no infant left the chamber untouched by fate.

After Krim was admitted, a white-robed mage reassured Bert.

“There is no need to worry…”

But before he could finish, an attendant rushed in.

“Mage, the woman has delivered! A boy — born just now!”

The mage hurried to Krim’s chamber while Bert waited outside, trembling with anxiety. Minutes later, he returned.

“Both mother and child are safe,” he said, “though the child is weak. He was born three months early, after all. Still, there is nothing to fear. We will observe him for a week or two. As for Krim, she may be discharged tomorrow.”

Relief washed over Bert’s face. He bowed deeply, thanking the mage.

When Veol was born, he was smaller than most, fragile and pale. His hair, faint silver at the tips, caught the light strangely—as if woven with threads not of this world. His eyes, though closed, twitched as if chasing dreams too vast for a newborn. To the midwives, he seemed ordinary. But to Krim and Bert, there was something… unsettling, as though the boy carried a silence heavier than his own cries.

Yet the mage did not reveal everything.

He had sensed something strange — something he dared not put into words.

And so, the child was born — fragile, innocent… yet carrying within him a darkness that would one day shake the world.

Outside the chamber, Bert clenched his fists, whispering to himself with trembling resolve:

“I don’t care how weak he is. He is our son — and I’ll protect him, no matter what.”