The eclipse began without ceremony.
No thunder.
No divine decree echoing from the heavens.
Just a gradual, almost courteous fading of light—like a sun that had grown tired of watching the world and quietly closed its eyes.
Luan Yue noticed first.
From the observatory tower of House Yue—an exile's privilege, permitted only because the servants feared him more than they respected the family's decree. The highest spire was forbidden to most. Yet when Luan climbed its winding stairs at dawn, no one barred his path. They lowered their gazes, whispering as he passed of the *Pale Seer*—the cursed heir who stared too long at truths best left untouched.
He stood at the balcony's edge, silver hair stirring in the cooling wind. Incense drifted up from the temples below, faint and bitter. His robes—once lunar silks reserved for favored heirs—hung loose upon his frame, their embroidery faded by years of neglect. Pale eyes, frost-bright beneath the waning sky, remained fixed on the horizon where the sun's edge softened, sagging like wax beneath an unseen flame.
"Beautiful," he murmured.
No one heard him. That was how he preferred it.
Below, the city of **Aetheris** unraveled into orderly panic.
Cathedral bells thundered across tiled rooftops, their tolls rolling like funeral waves. Priests in white crowded the streets, chanting ward-rites older than the city itself. Nobles sealed iron gates and summoned mercenary guards, while the poor flooded markets and alleys, clutching bone charms and silver tokens that had failed their ancestors for generations.
Luan did not move.
He had seen this coming—not through prophecy, nor divine favor, but through observation. Years of exile had sharpened his patience. In a hidden journal, he recorded what others dismissed: eclipses that lingered longer with each passing cycle, illusions that grew bolder, more *persistent*.
Last month, a merchant claimed his reflection spoke back to him—mocking his greed until he shattered every mirror in his home. The month before, an entire residential block vanished overnight, leaving behind a crater brimming with impossible starlight that shimmered even at noon.
Omens, the city whispered.
Patterns, Luan corrected.
He was not afraid of the dark.
He feared what the dark revealed—truths light had concealed for far too long.
The sun vanished.
For one suspended heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Wind stilled.
Bells faltered mid-toll.
Even the priests' chants died in their throats.
Then reality sighed—
—and tore.
The sky split like silk beneath a careless blade. No roar followed. Only the exhalation of something ancient and immense. From the fracture poured not darkness, but depth—layer upon layer of night, spiraling with distant nebulae and forgotten stars.
Aetheris shuddered.
Cobblestones cracked as though recoiling. Buildings groaned, foundations protesting the sudden weight of unreality pressing upon them.
From the rifts descended the **Veiled Domain**—a cascade of half-formed shapes and whispering shadows that draped the city like a burial shroud.
Luan felt it before he fully saw it.
A pressure bloomed behind his eyes, intimate and invasive, as though something vast peered back at him through his own pupils. Fingers rifled through the pages of his soul.
Words etched themselves directly into his mind.
Cold.
Unavoidable.
**[Awakening Detected]**
**[True Name: Luan Yue]**
**[Core Truth: You see what others refuse]**
**[Aspect Awakening: Lunar Eclipse]**
Power surged.
Not fire.
Not lightning.
Cold—profound and aching. The kind that numbed before it killed. Memory crystallized into frost, buried truths surfacing along his nerves. His blood slowed, thoughts sharpening into perfect, merciless clarity.
He raised a hand.
Moonlight—impossible beneath a total eclipse—answered.
It gathered around his fingers, drawn from the fractured heavens, condensing into a perfect crescent blade of silver radiance. Its edge hummed, sharp enough to sever not merely flesh, but **possibility**.
A scream rose from the city.
Collective.
Raw.
The first **Illusion Beast** had manifested.
It towered over the central square—a colossal mass of shifting shadow and mirrored flesh. Its surface reflected not reality, but terror. To a mother, it wore the face of her drowning child. To a soldier, a comrade burning alive. To a thief, an endless fall into nothingness.
It fed on denial.
With every horrified gaze, it grew more solid.
People died in moments. Some froze, impaled by tendrils of shadow. Others fled blindly, trampling one another as blood slicked the cobblestones, mingling with starlight that pooled unnaturally in every corner.
Luan watched from above.
His expression did not change.
Then he stepped forward—off the balcony.
He did not fall.
Space beneath his feet *eclipsed*. Gravity—once absolute—simply failed to apply. He descended in slow, silent grace, robes billowing like wings of night. Moonlight trailed behind him.
Some below knelt, mistaking him for a divine herald.
Others screamed, seeing only another monster.
He landed amid carnage—light as a falling petal. Like a fallen star returning home.
The Illusion Beast turned.
In its mirrored hide, Luan saw not the fears of others—
—but his own.
A boy of ten, hands trembling around a bloodied knife.
A woman collapsing, crimson blooming across her chest.
Eyes pale as his own, wide with betrayal.
*Why, Luan?*
Mother.
The memory struck like a blade.
His face remained serene.
The beast lunged, reshaping itself into that scene magnified—her dying form reaching for him with colossal, accusing hands.
Luan lifted his crescent blade.
"**Eclipse.**"
Reality rippled.
The attack never happened.
One moment the beast surged forward. The next, it stood yards away—confused, diminished—as though intent itself had been erased from the world's memory. Cracks raced across its mirrored hide. Terror unraveled into smoke.
A thin line of blood slipped from Luan's left eye.
Warm.
Something faded within him—a fragment of warmth, perhaps a memory of laughter—leaving a hollow echo.
*Worth it.*
Silence fell.
Bodies littered the square. The beast frayed at the edges as reality reluctantly reasserted itself.
A woman stepped forward, lowering a flame-wreathed sword.
Her armor was scarred. One cheek twisted by an old burn. Eyes sharp with survival.
"What are you?" she demanded.
Luan turned, wiping the blood away delicately.
"Someone who sees clearly."
"Sera Voss."
"That thing would've wiped us out," she said. "You just… unmade it?"
"Not unmade," Luan replied softly. "Eclipsed. Erasure denies existence. Eclipsing acknowledges it was never absolute."
Her gaze hardened. "You're noble-born. Exiled."
"Perceptive."
"What did you do?"
His smile faded.
"I saw a lie."
More rifts tore open above.
"This is only the beginning," Luan said quietly. "In the Veiled Domain, perception is power. Truth is negotiable."
The eclipse deepened.
Something ancient stirred.
Luan closed his eyes—and welcomed the trial to come.
For the first time in years…
He felt alive.