The legends of them were told by the wind, by the words of wandering bards, whispered through the canopy of the ancient forest at the edge of Aethelburg. Stories of the light that chose to remain in the darkness, and the darkness that learned to become a cradle for the light.
And from that legend, a new dawn was born.
Cleisthenes von Dikaios.
He was not a shade of grey blended from white and black. He was a dawn woven from the threads of day and night, a living paradox bearing within him both the harmony of the stars and the silent roar of the abyss. Two lines of life that should have annihilated each other had, by some miracle, united to write a poem.
"...and from the final breath of Patheos, Elysium was woven from harmonic order and Primordial Light," Professor Falco's voice was a steady stream of sand, filling every crevice of silence in the vast lecture hall. "Meanwhile, the final drop of blood, carrying primal chaos and the instinct for destruction, gouged deep into reality, creating the abyss of Tartarus..."
Prince Cleisthenes von Dikaios, twelve years old, rested his chin on his hand, using every ounce of his will to suppress a long yawn that threatened to shatter the solemnity. The morning sunlight pierced through the stained-glass windows, turning the air into a lazy river of golden dust. Anyone else would have found it beautiful. But Cleisthenes only wanted to dive into it, to escape the lecture on Genesis that he could recite in his sleep.
He glanced down at his parchment. Instead of neat notes, a silver wolf of Elysium was curling around a formless shadow, drawn with scribbled but haunting strokes.
Elysium... He thought of his mother. Of the stories she told, of a world of static perfection, cold as a mathematical theorem. Of the warmth in her arms, a warmth she had chosen in exchange for eternity.
"...the instinct of the Tartarian race is to conquer, destroy, and consume. They are the embodiment of pure chaos, incapable of creation or nurturing..."
The quill in his hand bent under a force he hadn't intended. Tartarus... He thought of his father's back, broad and unyielding as a mountain upon the city walls. Of the ice-cold logic in every decision, a logic that had used that very "instinct for destruction" to build a prosperous kingdom from ashes.
Professor Falco was not wrong. He was merely reciting pages written by Elysians. But those books could not explain his father. Nor could they explain him.
Even now, he felt it. A stream of liquid light, tasting of stars and stillness, flowing in his veins—his mother's legacy. It was an underground river, always whispering of order and harmony. But deeper still, a Serpent of Void coiled in the abyss of his soul—his father's legacy. Its breath carried the scent of mana before a magical storm and the silence between worlds.
Most of the time, they did not conflict. They simply coexisted, like day and night in the same sky. But sometimes, like now, when droll words tried to nail him to clearly defined halves of good and evil, the serpent would stir. A chill ran down his spine, an urge to smash this stillness, to scream that it was all wrong. He had to use the river of light to soothe it, to wrap around it, just as his mother held his father when he worked without rest. It was a silent war, an exhausting balance he had to maintain every day, every hour.
The silver bell from the clock tower rang, a sweet release. Cleisthenes nearly bolted upright.
"Prince," Professor Falco's voice sharpened. "An essay on the differences in the creative principles of Elysium and Tartarus. I want to see it on my desk by tomorrow morning."
"Yes, Professor," Cleisthenes replied, his tone perfectly polite.
Write about Father and Mother as opposing laws. Write about myself as an error of creation.
He had to get out. Escape the walls built of prejudice, escape the reverent gazes, escape the suffocating perfection of the palace.
He closed his eyes, and a whisper of freedom called him back. The smell of damp earth after rain, carrying the memory of sprouting seeds. The rustle of leaves underfoot, a secret music meant only for him. Wild sunlight, not the light tamed by stained glass, but glittering golden spots dancing on velvet-soft moss, unbound by any law.
The forest at the edge of Aethelburg. Where definitions became meaningless.
There, he could let the serpent stretch out on a cool rock, and the river of light could flow freely, watering the ancient roots. There, his two halves no longer had to fight. They simply found their place in an ecosystem far greater than any prejudice.
There, he was no longer a paradox needing explanation.
He was an answer.
The lecture hall had barely emptied when Cleisthenes vanished like smoke.
He did not turn toward the marble halls leading to his quarters but slipped into a concealed servant's passage, where the air was thick with the smell of beeswax and old linen. Maids hurriedly bowed low, silent shadows gliding past. The gold-trimmed royal cloak, a prison of silk, was shed and cleverly hidden behind a tapestry depicting a stag hunt hanging by a window. Perhaps the servants would find it soon. But by then, he would have gained an entire afternoon.
In simple attire, he slipped through the bustling kitchens, a world of fire and steam where the sounds of chopping knives and gossip blended into a mundane hum. He snatched a crisp red apple from a wooden tray, responding to the head cook's conspiratorial wink with a wordless smile. Everyone knew of his little escapes. And they silently allowed it. A soul bearing the weight of two worlds needed its own sky to breathe.
Exiting the back gate, he merged into the flow of Aethelburg. This was his father's kingdom, a symphony of stone, metal, and reason. Magitech carriages glided silently on the streets, guided by inner-glowing crystals. Blacksmiths used hydraulic hammers while whispering enchanting incantations, making the steel they forged sing a clear song. Dikaios was not rich in gold and silver. It was rich in a perfectly operating machine, where every gear, regardless of race or class, meshed together.
Cleisthenes munched on the apple, chewing over the lecture, trying to arrange the fragments of the universe in his head.
"...The breath of Patheos wove Elysium, the drop of blood gouged a wound into reality, creating Tartarus... Simple enough," he muttered. "From Elysium came the Demiurge, then the Empyreans, Archons, Heralds... A pyramid of order."
He ducked into an alley to let a caravan carrying spices pass.
"From Tartarus came the Abyssords and Fiends. Twelve Monarch Abyssords at the peak. A pyramid of power. The strongest rules. That, too, is a kind of order, in the manner of a storm."
He paused, watching a flower seller use a bit of minor magic to keep the blooms as fresh as if they had just opened.
"Then from the ashes and flesh of Patheos, Anthromos was born. Quiet and neutral," he continued his train of thought, a silent dialogue with himself. "Mother is Elysian. Father is Tartarian... So what am I? A bridge? Or just a battlefield?"
The question was always there, a whisper beneath the shell of silence. He did not feel he belonged to the light, nor did he belong to the darkness. He was simply himself.
When the final city walls receded behind him, the old forest welcomed him. The air changed instantly. The smell of stone and metal yielded to the scent of damp earth, decaying leaves, and sap. The noise of the city dissolved, replaced by the wind singing through the canopy, birds flitting between branches, and the gurgle of an invisible stream somewhere very close.
This was home.
He walked on the carpet of dry leaves, every step a return. He felt the sap flowing silently within the tree trunks, felt the intricate network of roots communicating beneath the soil. That was his mother's legacy, an empathy with the pulse of all things.
At the same time, he smelled fresh blood drifting in the wind. A fox had just caught a rabbit. High above, a hawk was drawing patient circles. The struggle for survival was ceaseless, cruel, yet necessary. That was like his father's legacy, the harsh but fair law of nature.
Here, the two rivers within him no longer clashed. They merged into one, flowing into the great ocean of the forest.
He found a small grassy glade by the stream, his own private sanctuary. Sunlight pierced through the leaves, scattering glittering gold coins upon the clear water. He lay back on the grass, hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.
And listened.
The sound of his own heartbeat, syncing with the heartbeat of the forest.
Peace.
But peace is ever as fragile as a thin sheet of glass.
And it just shattered.
Not a sound heard by the ear. It was a frequency touching the skin, a wolf's howl woven of crystal, resonating in silence as if emitted from the core of a distant star. It did not echo into the mind. It invaded.
Cleisthenes bolted up, the jerky movement of prey hearing a sound that did not belong to its world. He looked up.
The sky was no longer a flat blue dome. It rippled, as if reality were a liquid surface, and a pebble from an invisible world had just fallen into it. From the center of those ripples, a halo of silver spread out—not light, but the absence of all color, a pure hole in the fabric of reality.
From that hole, something poured down. It did not fall. It was a thought materialized, hurtling faster than a blink.
A sword.
It landed right in the center of the glade, a few steps from Cleisthenes. There was no sound of impact. Only a silent note rang out as the tip kissed the ground, sinking deep into the damp earth as gently as if it had always been part of this place. But from that point of contact, a ripple of energy spread, not through the air, but through his very soul.
The Elysian river in his veins, always a quiet undercurrent, now roared—not with sound, but with a desperate longing to flow toward that sword, resonating with it like two strings woven from the same beam of light. This was not a stranger. This was the memory of a lost limb just reconnected, a sensation so familiar it stung. It was the call of a proud lineage.
The peace of the forest was dead. In its place was a sacred stillness. The silence of a cathedral just completed. Pure light radiating from the sword turned the dewdrops on the grass into the tears of stars.
As the halo faded, its form was revealed. A silver hilt, carved like wings spreading in a silent vow. A thin, straight blade radiating a hazy glow, like the breath of a condensed soul.
Cleisthenes froze, breath trapped in his chest. He knew it. From the time-dusted pages of his mother's books. From ancient drawings of a clan woven from starlight.
Lupusnia. The sacred sword of the Empyrean Danesti clan. The blade of Destiny, which his mother had renounced in exchange for a love.
It could not be here. It was not allowed to be here.
His hand, as if possessing a will of its own, slowly reached out. His fingers trembled, pulled by the gravity of his origin. Just as they were about to touch the sacred cold of the hilt, another sound rang out.
A growl. Low, thick, and full of malice.
It came from the brush. If the light of Lupusnia was a prayer, this sound was a curse. It was a wrong note in the symphony of perfection, a stain of ink on a white page. A cold aura carrying the smell of decay and primal hatred radiated out, causing the nearby grass to recoil and wither.
And the gyroscope of balance within Cleisthenes stopped spinning.
The river of light within him roared, wanting to rush toward Lupusnia to grasp it, to merge with it. But at the same time, the serpent of void in the abyss of his soul thrashed, rearing its head, hissing a silent warning at the enemy that had just appeared. His two halves, which had learned to coexist in the peace of the forest, were now trying to tear each other apart.
Cleisthenes spun around, the pain of internal division making him dizzy.
From the darkness of the bushes, two burning red coals stared at him.
The shadows in the brush thickened, then vomited out an entity.
It was a blasphemy to the form of a wolf. Massive as a brown bear, its pitch-black fur was not fur, but a patch of solidified night, matted with mud and the memory of dried blood. From its jagged jaws, a stream of saliva the color of sickly poison dripped onto the grass, causing the blades to shrivel and die. Its glowing red eyes were two gates opening straight into an abyss with only one law: hunger. A Barghest, a low-level Fiend wandering into Anthromos.
Skoeidos's presence was an invisible wall of fire around Aethelburg, but the pure light of Lupusnia was a song that even the deaf must hear, an invitation impossible to refuse.
The Barghest roared, a sound belonging to no larynx, a tearing screech, and then it lunged.
Fear could not take root. Instead, the world broke in two.
One half, the world contracted into an equation. The Elysian river within him turned cold as ice. Time dilated into a thin sheet of silk, and on that silk, he saw every thread: the contraction of every muscle fiber, the perfect trajectory of the pounce, and a fatal weak point in the chest—a skipped stitch in the fabric of reality.
The other half, the abyss roared. A whisper not from the ears, but crawling up the spine, like rusted metal scratching against crystal. Tear it. A hunger not of the stomach, but of the source in the blood. Hear its bones break. Taste its despair as the light fades.
Cleisthenes grit his teeth, the internal tearing a physical pain. "Shut up!" he hissed, a whisper to the abyss within himself.
Instinct, not reason, made the choice. His right hand reached out, seeking the light.
The moment his fingers touched the hilt, a pure winter washed into his soul, cleansing the bloodlust that had just risen. The sound of rusted metal fell silent, drowned out by the resonance of a clear choir. Lupusnia had no weight; it had rightness. The memory of a proud lineage woven of starlight flowed into every joint, every fiber of muscle.
The Barghest was there, a nightmare with jaws wide open.
Cleisthenes did not retreat. He pivoted, a movement incredibly minimalist. The blade of Lupusnia drew an arc of light, perfect and unavoidable.
SHLICK!
There was no sound of impact. Only the whisper of a truth just revealed. The blade glided through the Barghest's foreleg, severing the right limb. The monster howled, a sound torn apart by shock and pure pain, and collapsed, its massive body convulsing in the betrayal of its own form.
It struggled madly to rise on its remaining three legs, the hunger in its eyes now condensed into pitch-black fury. It roared, and a sphere of dark energy, thick as a malignant tumor, began to form before its muzzle.
He gave it no time to weave a new curse.
This time, Cleisthenes's other hand awoke.
His left hand, the hand usually used to write letters and draw formless ghosts, tensed. He did not issue a command. He simply wanted the monster bound, and the shadow beneath his feet, the shadow that had followed him his entire life, obeyed. Not the obedience of a servant, but the resonance of a law just enacted. A cold, familiar power, carrying the breath of his father.
Four whips of solid night, formless yet heavy, shot up from the ground. They did not lash; they sprouted, wrapping around the remaining three legs and the jaws holding the curse, pinning the Barghest to the earth like the roots of a carnivorous plant from another universe.
The Barghest thrashed, a seizure of despair, but the shadow whips only tightened. The sphere of energy dissipated with a choked hiss.
Cleisthenes stood before the monster crucified to reality by his own darkness. One stab. Simple. Clean.
But that voice returned, no longer a whisper. It was a seductive song, rising from the abyss. Look at it, it sang. The helplessness. The terror in its eyes. It is a piece of music composed just for you.
A cold smile, one that did not belong to him, flickered on his lips. He could almost hear the sound its bones would make snapping as the shadows tightened, hear the satisfaction of life being slowly strangled out. The alluring whisper of his own voice rang in his head, not the voice of the Prince of Dikaios, but the voice of something bloodthirsty, cold, and powerful: "Fear is a spice. Taste it."
The hand holding the sword trembled slightly. Not fear. Craving. He raised the sword, intending to use the hilt to smash its bones one by one...
"No..." he mumbled, an effort to extinguish the brutal symphony, looking into the glowing red eyes. In them, he saw not just ferocity. He saw ultimate fear. A dark creature obeying instinct. Drawn to the light, like a moth.
"I am not a Tartarian," Cleisthenes said louder, an oath to the forest, to himself. He screamed, using his own sound to tear that song apart. "I AM NOT A TARTARIAN!"
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of the scent of earth and leaves. When he opened them, the smile was gone. Only ice-cold focus remained.
He swung the sword.
A single slash. Fast as a thought.
The blade of light passed through the neck. No blood. The cut glowed with a white, purifying light. The Barghest convulsed one last time, then slumped completely, returning to the wind what it had borrowed. The shadow whips dissolved as well.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Cleisthenes stood panting, hand still gripping Lupusnia tightly. He looked at the blade. Still clean. Light. Darkness. Both were parts of him. Both weapon and enemy.
He raised his head, looking toward the majestic palace in the distance.
Neither his father nor his mother had spoken of it, but he knew, from deep within the two rivers flowing inside him. This return was not a gift.
Destiny, which his mother had renounced, seemed not to have forgotten her child.