The streets of the capital overflowed with life—merchants shouting prices, the scent of roasted meat drifting from stalls, children running with sticky sweets in hand. It was a festival of noise and color.
But none of it reached Laine.
His steps staggered. His ribs pressed against the torn fabric of his shirt, skin stretched tight over bone. Every breath scraped his chest like sandpaper. Hunger gnawed at him until even his thoughts grew weak.
Children pointed at him, laughter spilling from their lips.
"Look at him… nothing but a gutter rat."
"Worse than beggars."
"Disgusting. He should just die in the sewers."
Vendors pulled their carts away, faces twisted in disgust as though even his shadow carried plague. Every word was a blade. Every glance a wound.
Laine's legs buckled. He collapsed onto the filthy stones, face pressed into dirt and rainwater. His stomach cramped, hollow and merciless. The crowd flowed around him, careful not to touch him, as if he were nothing more than garbage left on the street.
For a moment, Laine thought: Maybe this is it. Maybe I was born only to rot here.
His vision blurred. The sounds of the market dimmed. Darkness swallowed the bustling city.
And within that darkness… a flame flickered to life.
"Pathetic."
The word was sharp, cutting through his fading mind. The ground cracked beneath him in that dreamlike abyss, and from the fissure rose a figure—an old warrior draped in tattered, regal robes. His presence weighed heavier than the city itself. His eyes burned like twin suns, searing into Laine's soul.
The laughter of the street was gone. The noise of life was gone. For Laine, there was only that presence.
"My descendant," the voice thundered. "Is this what has become of my bloodline? A starving mutt crawling in dirt, mocked by insects?"
Laine's lips trembled, but no sound came out. His throat was too dry, too frail.
The phantom extended a hand. Resting upon it was a mask—black steel, shaped with cruel elegance, its single crimson eye glowing like a heart of fire.
"You are dying," the Ancestor's voice rumbled. "If you wish to remain a worm, then let death claim you here, in this gutter."
The mask floated closer, hovering before Laine's face.
"But if you wish to live… if you wish to rise, to be feared, remembered, and never again spat upon…" the voice shook like thunder, "…then wear this mask. Stand, and make the world bleed until it knows your name."
Laine's vision flickered—between death and destiny. The hunger in his body shifted, twisting, no longer just for food, but for something deeper. Something darker.
With trembling fingers, he reached forward.
The mask was cold, biting into his skin as it pressed against him. The crimson eye snapped open.
And in that instant, the world was drowned in red light.