In the outer settlement of Zanthera, inside a house that barely deserved the word, a sixteen-year-old boy lay awake.
He wasn’t sleeping.
He never truly slept.
Darian Noctis stared at the ceiling where half the roof had caved in. Moonlight filtered through broken beams, cutting pale lines across his face.
His body was thin.
Underfed.
Ordinary.
His eyes were not.
They were still.
Too still.
As if nothing in this world could truly surprise him anymore.
Outside, somewhere in the distance, metal clashed.
Probably soldiers.
Probably monsters.
It no longer mattered.
Darian closed his eyes briefly and listened.
Wind direction.
Footsteps outside.
Drunken shouting two houses away.
A patrol squad passing every twelve minutes.
He memorized everything.
He always did.
Because in Mythrion, ignorance killed faster than blades.
He rose quietly and stepped outside.
The outer settlement was already awake.
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Children ran barefoot across broken stone.
Men with hollow faces carried rusted weapons.
Women argued over monster core prices.
Hope was rare here.
Ambition even rarer.
Above them all, high walls separated the outer district from the middle settlement — and far beyond that, the inner district where nobility drank wine under lanterns powered by relic energy.
Three layers.
Three different worlds.
Darian smiled faintly.
A harmless smile.
A polite one.
He waved at an old vendor.
“Morning.”
His voice carried warmth.
The vendor grunted back.
If anyone looked at him, they would see a weak orphan trying to survive.
No threat.
No ambition.
That was intentional.
He walked toward the underground market.
The entrance was hidden beneath a collapsed chapel — ironic, considering what the gods had become.
Torches burned with greenish flames. Relic lamps hummed softly, mixing ancient magic with salvaged machinery.
Medieval swords beside pulse-charged gauntlets.
Cloth robes next to relic-powered communicators.
Mythrion did not evolve.
It scavenged.
“Late again, kid.”
Uncle John stood behind his stall, rotund and irritated, sorting monster cores.
Darian lowered his head slightly.
“Sorry. Overslept.”
A lie.
John snorted but said nothing more.
He threw Darian a cloth bag.
“Deliver this to the middle district broker. Don’t open it.”
Darian caught it easily.
Too easily for someone of his build.
John noticed.
He always noticed.
But he said nothing.
Because John knew something Darian didn’t.
And secrets were heavy things.
As Darian turned to leave, a sudden tremor shook the market ceiling.
Dust rained down.
The torches flickered.
Then silence.
Everyone froze.
In Mythrion, silence was never empty.
It was watching.
Far above the city walls, beyond human sight, something vast shifted in the clouds.
Something that wore divinity like a costume.
And deep beneath Zanthera, in a forgotten ruin older than the kingdom itself, a cracked black throne pulsed once.
As if it had felt something.
Or someone.
Darian stepped back into the street, calm as ever.
But for the first time in years—
He felt it.
A faint pull.
Like a whisper brushing against his mind.
Not loud.
Not clear.
Just…
Waiting.
He did not panic.
He did not react.
He simply adjusted the bag on his shoulder and continued walking.
Because whatever was calling—
It could wait.
Darian Noctis was patient.
And patience was the sharpest blade in Mythrion.