CHAPTER 1 — The Night the Light Trembled
Behold the dead girl.
Her adversary's sword is lodged in her face.
In front of the lifeless body,
with a calm that chills, stands a girl with an easy smile
and blood-stained hands.
The stage was a disk of white stone, polished by generations of duels and stained by layers of old and fresh blood. There were cracks in the ground, but also invisible marks of everything broken there—bones, pride, oaths.
It was a place built to tilt the spirit toward acute violence.
Above the Heroic Legacy continent, the sky descended in ash and snow. They fell together, sisters born of sin and glory, and neither knew which of the two had been summoned by the gods.
There, under that gray-and-white descent,
stood the girl with the easy smile.
The girl who did not hesitate.
The girl who did not cry.
She wore a ceremonial Luminar robe—simple and flexible, dyed in muted tones that seemed to drink the light from the gray sky. On her shoulders, metal armor—cold, light pieces—and on her chest, the Luminar symbol.
The wind lifted the edges of her robe, revealing boots stained with ash, snow, and blood, firm,
and a simple belt.
Beyond the same stage, thousands of disciples watched in silence. They wore long linen robes in muted tones, marked with symbols of rank and lineage. Their cloaks fluttered in the wind, and many wore light armor—leather pauldrons, bronze bracers, austere greaves—reminders that even the young must coexist with iron and discipline.
From the highest elevated dais,
the elders of the Luminar observed. Their seats were tall, made of sacred metals and beaten gold, supported by thick columns where blackened iron serpents coiled. Their robes were long coats of tanned hide and heavy cloth, embroidered with symbols of the Law Path—the tradition of the north and east of the continent, where winters forge leaders and executioners alike.
They wore cloaks lined with white bear fur, fastened with copper clasps shaped like teeth. Some had light armor beneath their robes, visible through metallic reliefs protruding from the shoulders. Beards were long and stiff from the cold, eyes sunken from decades of ritual violence.
Below them, on the lower tiers, families gathered in their finest garments: thick velvet coats, skirts embroidered with silver, and furs on their shoulders to withstand the day's cold.
One of the elders stood, red with rage.
—"What the hell have you done, Arhelia Ross Luminar!?" —his voice thundered, shattering the stillness like an axe through a trunk.
The girl lifted her gaze.
She said nothing.
She was twelve years old.
Her heterochromatic eyes seemed born of two opposite worlds: the left black as the void between worlds; the right white as a sun without warmth, with a black pupil. Long black hair fell in heavy strands over her shoulders. Skin so pale it seemed made of compacted snow. Beautiful, yes, but with the uneasy beauty of something not entirely of the human realm.
Short sleeves revealed slender, tense forearms, still stained with warm blood. Her hands trembled not from fear, but from the vibration of recent death.
Above, the counselors murmured among themselves:
—"May the gods have mercy…" —whispered one, without conviction.
—"Mercy?" —retorted another, striking the granite table—"This does not need mercy. It needs judgment."
A third voice, hoarse and sad:
—"Sometimes… things are born crooked."
An elderly woman began to pray, hands trembling. Other counselors hurled insults, vulgar words neither child nor adult should hear.
The ceremony had been corrupted.
—"You killed your companion!" —accused a middle-aged man, unable to process what had happened.
—"This is how you repay kindness, huh?" —said an old woman, as if expecting this outcome.
—"This was civilized training, not a slave coliseum!" —shouted another.
—"Such cruelty… such brutality… girl haha… magnificent" —smiled one, with a twisted face as if violence illuminated him.
—"That girl is a perfect sword," —said another, nodding—"she knows it."
—"Fabulous!"
—"Marvelous! I was getting bored!" —vociferated a fat counselor, with old scars on his face.
The disciples around the stage murmured among themselves.
Some trembled.
Others laughed like those who already knew the inevitable fate.
—"I told you there was something wrong with those eyes…"
—"She's always alone, there's something strange about her."
—"They say she killed a mortal servant just for having a deformed nose."
—"She almost killed a friend of mine, then lied saying it was self-defense."
—"I always knew it would happen."
Voices swarmed like flies over a corpse.
In the center of the stage, Arhelia looked at her bloodied hands.
But not with guilt.
Nor with pride.
But with something colder, more dangerous: curiosity.
The hilt of the sword still vibrated inside the cracked skull of the other girl.
As if death itself were still seeking an exit.
Then a scream tore the air.
The dead girl's father burst through the crowd, pushing bodies aside.
He was a massive man, wearing hardened leather armor with metal plates on his shoulders. His broad chest was covered with old and new scars, and his wolf-skin cloak hung torn from haste. Medium-brown hair. His face—red, swollen from hours of anxiety—burned with brutal fire.
He leapt onto the stage, falling to his knees beside his daughter's corpse.
He looked at her.
And cried with a pain so fierce it nearly broke the world.
Then he turned his head.
His gaze found Arhelia.
And his thirst for blood erupted.
With a roar, he charged at her.
His shadow covered Arhelia like a storm.
He raised his hand, fingers tense to tear the girl's neck apart.
Arhelia barely had time to react.
She closed her eyes.
Clenched her teeth.
But.
At the last second…
The man's hand was stopped.
Another hand had caught it:
Arhelia's father's.
With a sharp movement, he cracked the attacker's bones.
The sound echoed like frozen branches breaking.
—"Leon, this is just a misunderstanding…" —said Arhelia's father, eyes icy—"But nothing can be done now. We already have a winner."
Arhelia's father, a giant in bear fur, with braided black beard and sunken, bottomless eyes, withdrew the injured hand.
Leon trembled with rage.
His skin was swollen, reddened, throbbing.
Arhelia fell to her knees, breathing hard.
A thread of blood ran down her neck.
Cold sweat soaked her nape.
She had been meters from death.
—"This is not a duel," —spat Leon, hitting the ground—"this is murder! Grissfor, control that killer you have for a daughter!"
The word "killer" fell like a stone in water.
Grissfor looked at him.
And his own thirst for blood answered.
Both men tensed, preparing for combat.
—"Stop, savages!" —roared the chief elder of the council—"This will be resolved with punishment! A punishment for what happened today!"
—"Not now!" —shouted one—"That monster in a girl's body feels no guilt. She is a savage."
—"Hey!" —protested Arhelia.
Leon turned toward her, pure rage.
Three elders surrounded him, restraining him.
—"Calm down, Leon. You will have justice."
—"Relax."
—"Don't make it worse."
Leon, foaming at the mouth, eyes red with anger, allowed himself to be dragged.
But he did not forget.
And he did not forgive.
———
The carriage moved along the frozen road with the weary creak of old axles and taut ropes. Snow fell silently, but the ash did not: it swirled down in a sickly gray, as if a god had been set ablaze in the sky and its remains now floated over the world.
Inside, Arhelia sat between her parents. The seat, made of hardened leather and rough wood, leaked cold through its joints like a patient thief. She wore a blue rubakha, too fine for the climate, too clean for someone who had just killed.
Her heterochromatic eyes—the left black, the right white—looked beyond the thick glass, toward a point no one should see. She did not blink. She pondered. And none of those thoughts were fit for a child.
Grissfor, her father, watched her. A tall man, shoulders like logs, beard braided into two tight cords, skin tanned by wars he no longer remembered. Suddenly he raised his hand.
The slap sounded like a dry branch snapping.
Arhelia fell to the cold wooden floor.
She tasted blood in her mouth.
She turned her head slowly, but did not cry. She only took a deep breath, as one accepts a minor inconvenience.
—"Damn girl," —her father growled, voice full of old iron—"Control yourself. Control your thirst for blood!"
Her mother, on the other side, looked at her with mortal fatigue. She wore a white hare-fur shawl and a heavy wool dress. Every gesture of Arhelia added a new wrinkle to her face.
—"My daughter…" —she said, shaking her head—"You cannot go around torturing and killing anyone. Not when everyone is watching. Not when they hear. When they remember."
—"Heh" —Arhelia exhaled, without taking her eyes off the window.
The ash fell solemnly. The snow, shy, seemed to want to hide her. Neither knew which of the two was the true judgment.
Grissfor struck her again, harder. The sound smashed against the carriage walls like an old gunshot.
—"And for what you did, moreover," —he roared—"what the hell did you do, Arhelia?"
She closed her eyes for a moment. Then spoke with fractured calm:
—"She… disrespected us," —she said, offended, as if she were the victim.
—"And how did she disrespect us?" —both parents asked simultaneously.
Arhelia sat up. She looked at them with that expression that seemed to know a forbidden mathematics of the universe, one they were too mediocre to understand.
—"It's not my fault Eina's father didn't know how to train her," —she said.
She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of blood.
—"Her technique was horrible. It was a disrespect to everyone," —she added, savoring each word.
Grissfor responded with a sharp punch to the ribs.
Arhelia groaned.
Her breath broke.
She collapsed on the seat. Her head bounced on the wood. Darkness wrapped around her like a hungry wolf.
—"This girl…" —her father spat, breathing hard—"One day someone is going to kill her. It's written. Because of the way she is."
Her mother pressed her lips, trembling.
—"No. This is your father's legacy's fault," —she whispered—"He had the blood of a demonic cultivator. You didn't inherit that… Our daughter did."
Grissfor embraced her.
A clumsy, rough hug, full of fear.
—"I don't know, dear… satire," —he murmured—"I don't know."
The carriage continued. Cold seeped through every joint. Silence stretched like a dying animal.
Arhelia woke in her room in the Stygian Fortress, ancestral residence of the Luminar.
A castle of black stone torn from the depths of an abyss. Thick, damp walls, narrow windows like distrustful eyes, a roof held by beams smelling of old storms.
She knew she was punished.
Of course she knew.
And she didn't care.
She sat on the cold iron bed, wrapped in heavy blankets like slabs. She called her mortal servant: a skinny, bony young man, with the eyes of a dog that has already accepted its fate.
As soon as he entered, Arhelia struck him.
A clean punch to the jaw.
A knee to the stomach.
The boy fell to his knees without complaint. No one complained before her. Not if they wished to stay alive.
—"Why was I punished?" —Arhelia growled.
She kicked him in the face.
—"I was right!" —she shouted, echo bouncing off the stones.
Another kick.
The servant groaned.
She mounted him and unleashed a storm of punches.
The air smelled of blood.
The sound of bones breaking filled the room.
The floor was stained red.
—"I trained until my hands bled…" —she said between blows, voice breaking into something that almost resembled sadness—"Until my hands cracked…"
A cold tear ran down her cheek. It was not pain. Not guilt. It was something else, more broken, more dangerous.
The servant bled from his nose, but said nothing.
He could not.
She insulted him with the indifference of one commenting on the weather. She pushed him toward the door. He escaped crawling, like a nameless, ownerless animal.
Then Arhelia felt it.
A tug.
A dark, silent call, like the tremor of a dream no one wants to remember.
It came from the depths of the fortress.
From the forbidden belly.
The girl left her room.
She descended the stone corridors.
Torches crackled with blue fire, fueled by spiritual oils. Ancient portraits adorned the walls, all with severe eyes. Faceless statues. Stairs that seemed built for bodies larger than humans.
In a corridor, she saw her father bidding farewell to friends: war captains, blood drinkers, men smelling of iron infused in skin. Among them was a young man, rigid posture, worried red eyes.
Arhelia looked at him.
Looked long.
As if measuring him for something he did not yet know.
The call traveled down her spine again.
She descended.
Alone.
Down the forbidden stairs leading to the tunnels. Where no child, not even a Luminar, had the right to walk. Where the air smelled of ancient salt and burnt metal. The walls were covered in runes carved by hands that no longer existed, each symbol seeming to watch her as she passed.
She reached the lowest chamber.
It was a circular room, sealed by a stone door that breathed as if alive.
Inside, on a black marble pedestal, floated the Law Object.
All or Nothing.
A sphere, half light, half shadow.
It pulsed like a heart that had chosen not to be born.
When Arhelia entered, the sphere vibrated.
A deep, invisible note pierced the room.
Light and shadow stirred like warring beasts.
It recognized her.
It called her.
It engulfed her.
The world went dark as the spiritual trial seized her.