The stars were falling again.
Across the black sky of Solvanyr, brilliant trails of light ripped through the heavens, as if the universe itself was breaking apart. To most, it looked like a rare celestial event. But in the city of Nexaris, where spires of obsidian scraped the clouds and fog whispered ancient fears, this was a bad omen.
The elders called it Astralfall — a cosmic warning that monsters would awaken and fates would shift.
That night, one of those falling stars did not burn out.
It crashed deep into the valley beyond the city, slamming into the ruins of the Hollow Cradle, a crypt abandoned for centuries. The impact sent tremors through the earth, cracking stone and stirring dust that hadn't moved in lifetimes. From the burning crater rose a man... or something that had once been a man.
He stepped out slowly, boots sinking into ash still warm from his arrival. The air tasted metallic, charged with energy that prickled against his skin. Dust and glowing fragments swirled around him like they recognized his presence. Shadows stretched toward him, drawn as if by gravity. His eyes — cold, sharp, black as obsidian — scanned the shattered ground with no fear, no surprise. Only calm.
The ruins loomed around him, their broken arches and tilted pillars casting jagged silhouettes against the star-streaked sky. Faint blue runes pulsed along the walls, their light flickering like dying embers. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped, the sound hollow and endless.
His clothes were strange: a suit of shifting black fabric that shimmered like liquid darkness. It wrapped around him like it was alive, moving with his breath. When he flexed his fingers, the material rippled, as if responding to a thought he hadn't spoken.
He wasn't from this world. But he walked like someone who had conquered many.
His name, in his past life, had been Rael Noctaris — a genius strategist, a mind feared in the world of power, politics, and betrayal. His enemies had killed him with a velddor mana building collapse, masking it as an accident.
But death didn't end him.
It transported him — not into darkness, but into this strange world where gods slept beneath eclipsed stars and power followed ancient rules.
Rael clenched his fists. There was something inside him now. A presence. A strange energy coiled within his chest, pulsing with whispers and visions. It wasn't just magic. It felt... forbidden.
"Where am I?" he muttered.
From the shadows, voices rose. A group of scavengers, drawn by the crash, arrived. Seven of them. Dirty, armed, desperate.
The leader — a scar-faced man holding a jagged sword — pointed toward Rael.
"That star's ours! Whatever came with it... kill it if it moves!"
Rael didn't speak. He watched them move. In seconds, he understood: poorly trained, uncoordinated, nervous. Easy targets.
In his old life, he had brought down corporations and mana ops teams with less.
And now, he had something more.
The scarred man rushed in first, blade raised.
Rael whispered a word — not in this world's language, but something deeper, darker.
eclipse
The shadows obeyed.
Black tendrils burst from the ground and wrapped around the attacker's limbs, crushing bone with a sound like breaking glass. The man screamed as the darkness dragged him down.
The others froze.
Rael stepped forward, eyes cold.
"A shadow passing through," he said. "Leave, and you might never see the sun again."
They didn't listen.
Fueled by fear, they charged.
Rael moved like a phantom — dodging blades with ease, striking pressure points, absorbing shadows into his fists. One collapsed from a silent hit to the neck. Another was drained of life as Rael touched his chest, leaving behind only a pale husk.
One attacker managed to graze Rael's cheek.
The cut healed instantly.
Rael grabbed his wrist, twisted, and slammed him into the stone with a deafening crack. A glyph flared on the ground where the man landed, sealing him unconscious.
The last two tried to run.
Rael snapped his fingers.
A ripple of black mist expanded from his body. When it touched them, they dropped mid-stride, screaming as their shadows consumed their strength.
The energy surged inside him. It wasn't just strength. It was memory — fragments of another life, of sleeping gods and ancient seals.
When it ended, all seven lay broken in the dust.
One of them, the leader, was still conscious — paralyzed. Every nerve locked in place. He could see, breathe, feel... but not move. Rael had struck him precisely, disabling every major energy point.
Rael stood over him. The man's eyes screamed, but his body betrayed nothing.
From Rael's chest, the black fabric rippled and shifted.
It slithered down his shoulder and coiled around his right arm like a liquid parasite.
It hardened.
Twin curved blades extended outward from his wrist like fangs — sleek, mirrored, and terrifying. Between them pulsed a dim crimson light, forming the jaws of a spectral dagger.
Rael stared at it, lips parting.
"Noctfang..."
He hadn't summoned this.
It had responded to him.
This was the weapon he forged in his previous world — part shadow, part living technology. It had died with him.
Yet now, it lived again.
The noctfang curled tighter, recognizing their master.
Noctfang vibrated with quiet hunger, resonating with the same forbidden essence pulsing through Rael's veins.
He didn't need to speak.
He turned and let the blade dissolve, dripping away into his suit like ink returning to a page.
The man beneath him remained frozen, forced to stare at the one thing he could not fight.
A whisper escaped his lips, barely audible:
"W-what are you..."
Rael met his gaze, silent.
He could already sense something awakening deeper within the Hollow Cradle. A pulse, like a heartbeat of stone. The shadows beneath his feet tensed.
There was more.
A guardian.
He turned toward the cracked altar behind the crater. Faint tremors rippled beneath it, and a low growl echoed — too deep, too ancient to be beast alone.
"Not random," he whispered. "This place was waiting."
The stars above dimmed as clouds gathered, blotting out the moonlight.
The ruins responded with a low hum.
The real battle hadn't even started.
Rael stepped forward, liquid parasite coiling around his chest and like faithful hounds.
"Let's see what this new body can really do."