In the dead of night, the Silver Pines district of Ashen City lay silent under a cold drizzle.
Damien Cross sat slumped on a cracked leather chair, an old dossier in his hands. Through the rain-streaked window, he gazed at the reflection of himself against the empty streetlamps. His eyes were hollow, filled with bitterness and resentment.
Once, Damien had been the revered leader of the Eclipse Order, a clandestine group that hunted spirits, demons, and creatures that preyed on mankind. For a decade, he fought endless battles in the shadows — exorcising, binding, killing. His name was whispered with awe and fear: the Hexblade.
And yet, a single decision had cost him everything.
He had refused to swear allegiance to the secretive council known as the Dominion, a coalition that demanded total obedience in exchange for power. For that refusal, the Order cast him out. They seized his relics, burned his records, and left him with nothing but a severance envelope and this decaying safehouse.
Ten years of blood, scars, and victories — erased like chalk in the rain.
Damien clenched the papers, his jaw tight. He had built the Order's strength. He had bled for them. He had given them his youth, his life. And they discarded him like refuse.
"I won't let it end this way," he whispered to himself, his voice trembling with fury. "If I must start again from the ashes… so be it."
He tore the parchment into shreds. Grabbing a half-empty bottle of bourbon from the table, he drowned his bitterness in fire until sleep dragged him into oblivion.
---
Morning.
Damien's eyes opened to a blaring alarm. Groggy, his hand fumbled across the nightstand — but instead of his cracked communicator, he found an ancient flip phone.
He froze. The wallpaper was different. The room around him was different.
Gone were the peeling walls of the safehouse. Instead, he was in a cramped boarding room, cluttered with occult manuals, charms, and notebooks filled with sigils. On a nearby desk sat an outdated laptop and a dusty mirror.
Damien stumbled to it.
What stared back at him was not the weathered, scarred veteran he had been the night before.
It was his younger self. His face, unlined. His hair, dark and ungrayed. His body, untouched by a decade of wounds.
His breath quickened. "This… this can't be real."
His phone buzzed again.
"Damien! It's me, Noah. Don't tell me you overslept again. The Vigilant Circle is holding their recruit trials at the academy today. This is your chance, man. Don't screw it up."
Noah's eager voice rattled through the receiver before the call ended abruptly.
Damien's hands trembled. The Circle… recruit trials? That was ten years ago. The very day he first joined the Eclipse Order.
He turned to the mirror again, his heart pounding. The calendar on the desk confirmed it. April 19th, 2019.
A decade earlier.
He pressed his palm to the mirror. His reflection stared back — younger, stronger, alive.
"Did I… come back?"
Memories of the future rushed through him. His parents, worn down by debts and illness, gone before he could save them. His betrayal at the hands of the Order. His wasted sacrifices.
Damien's eyes burned with a fire he had not felt in years. This was no dream. This was fate giving him another chance.
"This time," he whispered, "I'll change everything. I'll protect my family. I'll carve my own path. And I'll make the Order pay for what they did to me."
---
At the academy gates, Noah was pacing, looking around anxiously until he spotted Damien.
"Finally! You almost missed it." He grabbed Damien's arm, tugging him toward the registration hall.
But Damien pulled free, his gaze sharp and unwavering.
"Noah, I'm not joining the Circle. Not this time. I'll form something of my own. Will you stand with me?"
Noah blinked in confusion, stunned by Damien's unshakable tone. The Damien he knew had always been reckless, impatient. But now… his presence was heavy, commanding, as if he already carried years of scars and victories.
"You're serious?" Noah finally asked. "You don't even have relics, or a sanctum, or… anything. How do you expect to fight alone?"
Damien's lips curled into a faint, dangerous smile.
"Relics? Sanctums? I have something far greater. I have foresight. And I know every horror that's about to wake in this world."
Noah shivered at the intensity in Damien's eyes.
For a long moment, silence lingered. Then Noah gave a resigned laugh.
"Fine. If you're going to drag me into madness, I'll follow you. But you'd better have a plan, or we're dead men."
Damien clapped his shoulder firmly.
"Good. Because ten days from now, when the veil thins and the first gates open, we'll be ready. And we won't serve anyone's leash but our own."
He looked skyward, as if daring fate itself.
"This time, I won't just survive the darkness… I'll master it."