The rain didn't fall.It hovered—like time itself feared to move in this place.
Crumbling buildings loomed like gravestones over the city's forgotten sector. Smoke curled out of cracked concrete. Blood soaked the streets in ink-black streams. And in the center of it all stood a boy, motionless, his feet bare and cold on the asphalt.
Nozai.
He didn't blink. Didn't breathe hard. Didn't speak.
Around him lay the bodies of nine exorcists from the Veilguard Order—eyes frozen in terror, their blessed blades shattered. Whatever they tried, it wasn't enough.
He was still alive.
They were not.
A voice slithered from the shadows behind him—deep, low, and ancient.
|"You warned them, didn't you, Nozai?"|"Told them not to open that gate…"
Nozai tilted his head slightly, black hair sticking to his face from the mist. His silver eyes glowed faintly—dim halos of cursed light.
"|They didn't listen," he muttered. "Just like the ones before them."
The voice chuckled. His shadow stretched, growing taller than it should. Twisting.
Kurozan.The Wraith inside him.
From the pool of darkness behind Nozai, a clawed hand emerged—dripping in cursed energy, twitching with hunger.
|"I'm growing impatient. Let me out. Just a little. They'll send more…"
Nozai's body tensed.
He closed his eyes. Then, calmly, he lifted one finger and whispered:
"Abyss Grasp."
The shadow lunged forward like a living beast. The nearest corpse twitched—and then was gone, pulled beneath the street like it never existed.
Nozai exhaled.
|"They'll keep coming… until I find the one who started this."
His gaze turned upward—toward the distant tower of the Veilguard Citadel, glowing faintly in the clouds like a lighthouse over a cursed sea.
And just like that, he was gone—vanishing into his own shadow.
End of Chapter One.