(Arc 1: The Heaven's Cry)
— The Serpent's Dream
The storm had died.
But silence did not return.
Instead, the world whispered.
Every blade of grass bent toward the boy standing at the edge of the ruined valley, as though the very soil feared to breathe without his permission.
Vaen stood still — motionless as stone, calm as death.
His eyes reflected neither wonder nor wrath; only the stillness of someone who had already seen what awaited beyond life.
The valley that once bore the name of the Kairo Clan was now a hollow scar of molten glass.
No voices.
No ashes.
Only memory… drifting like smoke that refused to fade.
> "It was supposed to be hidden," he murmured.
"But even silence cannot bury blood."
A low vibration spread beneath his feet — the pulse of something ancient, something that had not moved since before the gods were born.
It was faint, like a heartbeat buried under mountains. Yet it called to him, rhythmic and endless.
He closed his eyes.
And then… he heard it.
A voice that wasn't a voice.
A whisper, threading through his mind like smoke through water.
> "You... have returned…"
The sound carried weight — not warmth, not anger, but recognition.
As if the very world had exhaled his name.
Vaen's gaze lifted to the sky — now calm, clear, almost deceitful.
But he wasn't looking at the sky.
He was looking beyond it.
"Who are you?" he asked softly.
The whisper answered — faint, distorted, and ancient.
> "You are the question… not the answer."
For a brief moment, the ground flickered with lines of light — massive, circular sigils buried deep beneath the valley floor.
Each rune pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, alive and remembering.
Then came the vision.
Not his.
Not the world's.
But something sleeping within him.
He saw an ocean of stars collapsing into a single point.
He saw serpents of light encircling a throne made of nothingness.
He saw gods kneeling — not in worship, but in terror.
And at the center of it all, a figure stood barefoot upon creation, holding in his hand a blade made of his own shadow.
> "Who…"
"...am I remembering?"
The vision shattered.
Vaen opened his eyes to find himself alone once more.
Only his reflection in the glassed earth remained — distorted, rippling with faint black fire that faded as quickly as it appeared.
He stared at his own image and spoke without emotion.
> "The world keeps remembering what I've forgotten."
A sudden gust of wind swept past him — cold, unnatural.
Above, in the divine realms, alarms began to sound.
The gods who watched through the Eye of Heaven recoiled as their sight trembled.
> "The Forbidden Resonance has awakened."
"He's found it."
Yet they were wrong.
Vaen had found nothing.
It was something within him that had found him.
The faint voice whispered one last time before fading into silence:
> "Sleep until the storm of gods awakens you... child of the unmade."
The air went still again.
Vaen turned, his expression unchanging.
The valley behind him shimmered faintly — and then folded into itself, disappearing from existence as though erased by unseen hands.
He began walking, barefoot, toward the distant mountains.
Each step left no trace.
And as the first drops of rain fell from a cloudless sky, the world trembled —
not because of what he had done,
but because of what he was about to remember.
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