"Look at that," Kael said softly to Tharion, who was already on his knees, unable to stand. "Your wife is dead."
Kael raised his spear high into the air. "Send my regards to those who have perished."
The spear thrust toward the back of the neck with blinding speed. The decapitating strike instantly severed Tharion's head.
Tharion's head suspended in mid-air for a few agonizing seconds before crashing to the ground.
"Every single clan member has been purged," a masked figure reported to Kael.
Suddenly, a man with bound eyes appeared, holding an ancient, orb-like artifact that emitted a faint blue glow. His sudden arrival caused a sharp gust of wind to howl for a moment, a testament to his sheer, terrifying speed.
"Let us go. Our objective is secured." The blindfolded man vanished from the Valerion clan estate.
In an instant, Kael and the entire army vanished into the darkness of the night.
And on that very night—the name Valerion shifted from a legend... into a bloody stain in history.
The news spread like wildfire cutting through a dry meadow in the dead of summer.
The entire continent of Humb was thrown into absolute turmoil. In this world, few could ever match the power of the Valerion clan, yet they had been obliterated in a single night. Now, the continent of Humb possessed only one Tharion, for the one from the Valerion clan was no more.
Whispers and rumors ran rampant regarding the culprit. Many suspected one of the nine great empires, but there was no concrete proof to back it up.
Time marched on. Days piled into weeks, then months, until five years had passed since the Valerion clan was wiped from the face of the earth.
Now, Zevaron was ten years old, Serina was eleven, and Lylia, the eldest among them, had reached thirteen.
That afternoon, a leaden, gray sky hung low over their silent estate. An old man stood with his back to the three children. His hair had turned entirely white; his shoulders were no longer as broad and upright as they once were. He took a long, heavy breath—as if the burden he had carried for five years had finally become too crushing to bear alone.
He was Zevaron's grandfather.
As Zevaron, Serina, and Lylia sat on wooden chairs immersed in their magic books, their grandfather approached them. "It is time you know the truth," he said softly, yet his voice carried a striking weight.
The three of them put down their books, sensing the gravity of the situation.
Zevaron's grandfather turned around, his right hand tucked behind his back. He exhaled a long sigh. "I ordered the three of you to use the surname Onyx in the outside world, and gave the explanation that the Valerion clan was traveling to their ancestral lands and would return in a few years..."
He paused for a moment, then turned and walked closer to where the three of them sat. "...And that your mother went along because she wanted to accompany your father..."
He stopped right in front of them. His gaze swept over the three children before dropping to the wooden floor. "...But in truth, all of it was a lie."
"What do you mean, Grandfather?" Zevaron cut in.
His grandfather looked up at them again, but this time, his eyes were brimming with tears. "...The entire Valerion Clan… was massacred. And the only survivors… are the three of you."
Silence fell. Not a single sound followed his words.
It was as if the world had stopped spinning and time itself had frozen.
Serina's eyes widened, her breath catching in her throat so sharply that the magic book slipped from her hands, clattering to the floor. "So… all this time… Mother was already..."
Her words shattered. Tears fell uncontrollably.
Lylia clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white. She forced herself to stand straight, trying to look strong for her younger siblings. But her lips trembled. Her heart felt as though it were being viciously wrenched. All this time, she had sensed that their grandfather was hiding something, and now that it was unveiled... there was only a profound, hollow grief, too deep for tears to fall.
Zevaron said nothing.
He only stared blankly at the floor… then stood up and abruptly bolted toward his room.
The door slammed shut.
That night, his crying did not stop.
One day.
Two days.
Three days.
Four days.
No one could persuade him to come out. His grandmother, sick with worry, kept placing food outside his door, and thankfully, Zevaron still ate what she left for him.
His voice grew hoarse, his eyes swollen, yet the tears kept coming—not just out of grief... but because he was too young to comprehend why the world could be so cruel.
On the fifth day, his bedroom door finally creaked open.
Zevaron stepped out with a calm face. Too calm for a boy his age. His tears had completely dried up.
Grief has a way of changing everything, and Zevaron was one of those reshaped by sorrow.
Deep within his chest… something had shifted. It was no longer sadness.
It was a small ember, burning in the silence.
Revenge.
He did not speak of it. He did not show it.
He simply buried that resolve deep inside his soul—and waited. Waited until he was strong enough to repay it all.
Six years passed, and Zevaron was now sixteen. His two older sisters owned a massive enterprise, and Zevaron's life could easily have been drowned in luxury. However, they chose to live simply, knowing that opulence could easily make a person lose their way.
On this particular afternoon, struck by boredom, Zevaron paced back and forth in their backyard with no clear purpose. After a while, a sudden thought crossed his mind—his sister's rare plant garden.
He hurried toward the garden. As he stood near the fire sunflowers, Zevaron felt a strange fluctuation of energy. The vibration was faint, but it was undeniably unusual. Curiosity pushed him closer. He knelt down and began digging into the dirt around the flower.
Before long, an ancient scroll emerged from the earth.
The moment the scroll unrolled, Zevaron's vision warped. His consciousness was dragged into a fragment of memory—the final moments of the scroll's creator.
Before him, a man hovered in the air, exuding a suffocating, oppressive aura.
"You are old; your strength has waned and is no longer what it used to be," the man said in a demeaning tone.
The old man standing below him offered a faint smile. "Old age is simply like this, all living things weaken. However, there is still one final thing I can do."
Suddenly, a golden flask materialized in the air. This was no ordinary flask. From within it, glowing chains shot out, swiftly binding the hovering man's body. The man attempted to fight back, but it was futile. The chains dragged him violently into the flask, sealing him completely inside.
With the last of his strength, the old man raised his hand, and a magic circle manifested. The circle began to coalesce into a scroll. A few seconds later, it was perfectly formed—the very scroll that now rested in Zevaron's hands.
"It seems my time is short. Nothing in this world is eternal, yet people constantly chase immortality just to rule the world forever." Shortly after, the light of life drained from his body, and he collapsed, lifeless.
Zevaron's consciousness snapped back to reality. Suddenly, a voice echoed inside his mind.
> "Whoever you are who finds this scroll, I bestow my legacy upon you. My inheritance is vast, so you may share it with a chosen few. Go to the place I have marked."
Zevaron fell silent for a moment, his mind still reeling from what he had just witnessed—a relic of the past.
*"What truly happened back then?"* Zevaron thought to himself.
*With this man's legacy… I might finally gain the strength to exact my revenge.*
Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet trembled.
Zevaron quickly stored the scroll inside his storage ring before leaving the garden.
At that exact moment, a black-haired girl with deep blue eyes, who had also felt the tremor, sat nonchalantly on a tree branch near the entrance of her underground garden. She was Lylia, Zevaron's eldest sister.
The moment Zevaron opened the door to the rare plant garden—which served as the bridge between the underground and the surface—he froze instantly under the heavy pressure radiating from Lylia.
"What are you doing in my rare plant garden?" Lylia asked, her voice completely calm.
Zevaron answered honestly without hesitation, "I only went there because I was bored, but..." Zevaron's gaze turned deadly serious. "...I found a scroll."
The storage ring on Zevaron's index finger vibrated, summoning the ancient scroll into his hand.
Lylia's demeanor instantly shifted into one of sharp alertness. "What kind of scroll is that?" she demanded, her tone laced with gravity.
"I don't know," Zevaron replied, shaking his head.
The ground, which had been trembling moments before, began to settle back into stillness.
Zevaron looked up, staring into the starlit sky. "But perhaps this scroll can help us get our revenge. It contains a legacy."
Those words slipped from Zevaron's lips with ease, but their impact detonated like an explosion inside Lylia's mind.
Her pupils constricted sharply. Every fragmented memory of the past flashed wildly through her mind—the day they were told the horrific truth about the Valerion clan.
A strange gleam flared in Lylia's eyes—not an explosive rage, but a sort of cold, calculated euphoria. "Tell me how you found it. Let us unearth the secrets of this scroll and claim its power."
A few minutes prior, far beyond the horizon, from the direction of an ocean that couldn't even be seen from where they stood, a low, heavy rumble echoed. The sound was deep and prolonged, like thunder rolling endlessly in the distance.
The earth beneath their feet vibrated subtly—so faint it was almost imperceptible, yet enough to make the dust on the surface dance gently. The wind blowing from the east carried an unusual, briny scent, as if the entire ocean was exhaling its breath onto the dry land.
Birds in the sky flew low and erratically, while beasts in the forest fled aimlessly. Something colossal was unfolding out at sea—something so massive that even from this immense distance, it was capable of shaking the foundations of the earth.
A monstrous wave was rising from the depths of the ocean, surging toward the shore.