Night settled over Valdris the way snow settles over a corpse—quietly, softly, hiding the violence beneath.
The city's lamps burned low. Moonlight barely grazed rooftops, slipping between leaning chimneys and crooked gutters like a guilty thing fleeing the scene of a crime.
Raygen sat on the mattress. Asa paced.
Neither spoke for a long time.
The day's events hadn't faded—they had followed them into the room like ghosts refusing to leave. Raygen's bruises burned. Asa's anger simmered like a pot left too long near fire. And somewhere beyond the cracked window, something else moved.
Someone else.
Some thing else.
Asa finally stopped pacing. "Okay, kid. Talk."
Raygen rubbed the bandage on his ribs. "About what?"
"Don't play smart."
She crossed her arms. "I've known you since you were eight. You don't fight like a lucky C-rank. You don't see like one. And you definitely don't survive things like today unless you're hiding something. So—explain."
Raygen looked down at his hands.
He could lie.
He could deflect.
He could dodge the truth the way he dodged blades.
But the truth had already followed him home. It stood in the corner of the room, unseen, silent, watching.
The nameless man.
He was always watching.
Raygen exhaled slowly.
"Asa… I—"
A ripple passed through the air.
Barely felt. Barely real. Like a breath held too long.
Asa blinked. "What was that?"
Raygen froze.
The ripple came again—this time brushing against his skin like cold lightning. Not painful. Not warm. Simply… present.
And then a voice spoke.
Not from the room.
Not from outside.
From behind reality itself.
"You may tell her what cannot be told. The world will hide it from her."
Raygen stiffened. Asa frowned. "You say something?"
He shook his head. "No."
Asa frowned harder. "Then who—"
Another ripple.
The candle flame bent sideways as if bowing.
Asa stopped speaking.
Her instincts screamed; her hand went to her dagger, shadows gathering around her fingers. "Okay, no. No. Something is in here." She scanned the empty corners, breath sharp. "Raygen, is it that thing? The one from the void? The one you didn't tell me about?"
Raygen's heart hammered.
"Asa," he whispered, "don't—"
"She cannot perceive Me yet."
The voice slid through Raygen's mind like a blade made of moonlight.
Asa flinched as if hit by a sudden headache. "Ugh—what the hell? My ears—what was—?"
Raygen stood. "It's him."
"Who is him?" Asa demanded, whipping around. "Where? I don't see—wait—don't tell me he's invisible. Don't tell me you've been followed by some invisible creep since last night—"
The air trembled.
Raygen whispered, "Please don't antagonize him."
"I will antagonize anyone who sneaks into our room—"
Before she could finish, the shadows in the room folded.
Not stretched. Not bent.
Folded.
As if some giant, careful hand rearranged the darkness.
Something stepped forward from the corner—a place no one had been looking at a moment before.
He did not appear.
He was simply there.
Asa stumbled back, hand tightening on her dagger. "Holy shit—!"
Raygen swallowed. His throat felt dry. "Asa… don't run."
"I'm not running," she said, voice shaking. "I'm just making sure I die in a dignified stance."
The figure stood still, tall enough that the cracked roof beams seemed to press down in discomfort. His skin was bronze metal turned warm by firelight, crisscrossed with faint, living lightning. His hair moved like a piece of the night had decided to pretend it was hair, drifting on an invisible current.
His eyes—
Asa froze when she saw them.
They were not white.
They were not blue.
They were the exact moment lightning is born.
And they looked at her not with hostility… but curiosity.
A deep, ancient curiosity.
Like a scholar finding a puzzle piece where no puzzle should exist.
The nameless man inclined his head slightly.
Asa hissed through her teeth. "Raygen… the hell is he?"
Raygen opened his mouth.
"Say nothing unnecessary."
That voice—quiet, smooth, an echo of a prophecy spoken under water—cut through the room.
Raygen shut his mouth instantly.
Asa's dagger hand trembled. "Okay. You two clearly know each other. Fantastic. Wonderful. I love being the only sane person here." She pointed her blade at him. "You. Tall lightning man. Say your name."
The man blinked once.
Slow, deliberate.
Like the concept of blinking had only recently been invented.
"I do not possess a name."
Asa stared.
Raygen stared.
Silence.
Then Asa muttered, "…of course you don't. Of course the six-foot-five thunder statue man doesn't have a normal name. Why would anything be normal today?"
Raygen coughed, "Asa—"
The nameless man walked forward.
Asa backed up until her shoulders hit the wall. "Stay! Stay right there! Boundaries!"
He stopped. His eyes softened.
"I mean you no harm."
The words flowed like smooth stone rolling down water.
And yet they carried a weight that bent shadows.
Raygen stepped beside Asa. "He's telling the truth."
Asa shot him a look. "You're trusting the cosmic storm man?"
Raygen didn't answer. He didn't have to.
The nameless man's presence was neither violent nor kind. It was… inevitable. Like change itself. Like a bridge collapsing after centuries. Like winter arriving even when the world begs for summer.
The man looked down at Raygen.
"You survived your first collision with fate today."
Raygen frowned. "Collision?"
"You crossed paths with one who seeks patterns in chaos. One who will cause you trouble. One who will also shape you."
Raygen stiffened.
"Lyle Raft."
Asa blinked. "The noble brat from today? He's not a threat. He's just a pain in the ass."
The man tilted his head. "The world has many pains. Some grow fangs."
Asa muttered, "Great. Cryptic prophecies. Love that for us."
Raygen asked, "What do you want from me?"
The room dimmed slightly.
Not darker—sharper.
Like the shadows had boundaries now.
The nameless man examined him with unnerving calm. "You hold something this world has no law for. The System that answers only to you."
Raygen felt Asa tense beside him—then release.
Because the moment she heard the word system, her mind softened.
Her eyes unfocused.
Her expression flickered with confusion.
Then she blinked as if nothing had been said.
Raygen swallowed.
The man continued.
"There are others who also possess systems. Their number is small. Scattered. Lawless. They are hunted. Watched. Feared. And they will hunt you the way wolves smell blood on snow."
Raygen's hands curled. "They'll come after me."
"Yes. Some out of curiosity. Some out of hunger. Some out of instinct." The man's lightning eyes narrowed. "You are the first anomaly they will sense in years."
Asa shivered, even though she'd understood none of it.
"What are you?" she whispered.
The man turned to her.
Something shifted.
A faint glow behind his head.
Seven symbols appeared—ancient cuneiform glyphs, rotating slowly like pieces of a broken halo.
Asa's jaw dropped. "Raygen… he's… he's—"
Her knees nearly buckled.
Not from fear.
From awe.
The kind of awe humans feel standing in front of stars they were never meant to touch.
Raygen moved closer to steady her. "Asa, breathe."
"I am breathing!" she hissed, though her voice cracked.
The man lowered his head slightly. "I apologize. My form is not gentle on mortal perception."
Asa exhaled a trembling laugh. "Yeah, no kidding."
He watched her quietly, studying every tremor of emotion on her face.
"Asa," he said, "you are unusual."
She blinked. "That a compliment?"
"It is an observation."
"Sounds like a compliment."
The faintest curve touched the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. More like the idea of one.
And then Asa—overstressed, overwhelmed, and constitutionally incapable of shutting up—muttered under her breath:
"Guy shows up looking like the final boss of a fantasy gacha… can't even give his name… ugh… fine. You need one. Something cool. Something fitting. Something that doesn't sound like 'ominous thunder-man.' Something like…"
She squinted.
Studied him.
His lightning.
His presence.
His impossible nature.
The way he seemed like a contradiction that learned how to stand upright.
"…Alac."
Raygen jerked his head toward her. "Asa—what—?"
She blinked. "What? It fits."
The room stopped.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The candle flame froze mid-flicker.
The drifting shadow-hair stilled.
Even the dust motes in the air hung motionless.
The man stared at Asa—
—stared as if someone had just handed him the first answer to a question older than language.
Slowly, like tectonic plates shifting, the symbols behind him brightened.
"Alac…" he repeated.
The name rolled through the room like thunder spoken quietly.
Raygen's breath caught.
Something changed in the air.
A seal.
A lock.
A shiver that wasn't fear but recognition.
The nameless man—now named—looked down at his hands.
"Asa," he said softly, "you have given me something I did not possess."
Asa frowned. "What, a name? You're welcome? I guess?"
He bowed his head to her.
Not deeply.
Not dramatically.
But with impossible sincerity.
"I accept it."
Asa blinked. "Uh… okay?"
Raygen stared at him. "What does a name mean for you?"
Alac lifted his gaze.
Lightning stirred beneath his skin.
"It means I am no longer merely observing."
His eyes narrowed, brightening.
"It means the world will feel me now."
Asa whispered, "Raygen… what did I just do?"
Raygen swallowed.
Alac stepped closer to him.
"You cannot walk this path alone," he said. "Not with what hunts you. Not with what watches. Not with what waits."
Raygen lifted his chin. "Then what now?"
Alac's answer carried weight that bent the shadows again.
"Now," he said, "your fate begins moving."
The candle flickered back to life.
Time resumed.
Asa leaned heavily against Raygen. "I hate this. I hate everything about this. I need a drink."
Raygen let out a breath he didn't know he'd held.
Alac stood before them—
Named.
Real.
Present.
No longer a distant watcher.
And outside their window, unseen by any of them, a figure in noble clothes stepped into the alley's shadows, watching Raygen's window with cold, calculating eyes.
The real Lyle Raft smiled thinly.
"Found you."
**