Their faces remained vivid in Zareth's mind, clear, unforgettable. Yet what truly set them apart were the patterns etched across their skin, the glowing sigils that marked their faces and bodies.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked around the room, searching for something anything but everything seemed normal to him.
Rubbing his head, he questioned himself.
The system that used to appear before his eyes was gone.
Completely gone.
"No system… what happened back there?"
He frowned, unease creeping in.
"What did that demon Shinma do to me?"
The moment Zareth stood up, something shifted.
He didn't realize it at first yet a quiet certainty crept in nothing was normal anymore.
The katana lay on the floor.
Zareth's gaze fell upon it, unmoving.
At first glance, it was nothing special just a simple blade, plain and unremarkable. No glow. No presence.
Nothing that would set it apart from any ordinary weapon.
He couldn't look away.
A strange feeling settled in his chest, quiet but persistent.
To him, it should have been normal.
Just a katana.
But something about it felt wrong or perhaps Too right.
Zareth took a slow step forward, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Why does it feel like this."
The room fell into a deeper silence.
A faint distortion flickered across his vision.
Like something trying to surface.
[SYSTEM]
"Oh… you're returning."
Zareth murmured, surprised.
The same presence the same unsettling energy washed over him, making him feel stronger.
[SYSTEM ERROR]
Host Identity: Unrecognized
Bloodline: Outside Recorded Parameters
"What do you mean unrecognizable? I'm Zareth Ashveil. Answer me."
Silence.
The silence stretched longer than it should have.
Unnatural.
Heavy.
Zareth's jaw tightened as his gaze hardened.
"Answer me."
Nothing.
Not a flicker. Not a response.
The system didn't just ignore him it refused him.
A faint crack ran through the air in front of him then a violent glitch tore across his vision, Fragments of the interface shattered into broken lines.
Symbols overlapping and distorting as if something was forcing its way through.
[SYSTEM FAILURE]
Reinitializing…
The shattered fragments of the interface didn't disappear instead, they lingered, suspended in Zareth's vision like broken glass caught in time. Lines of unreadable symbols bled into one another, twisting, reforming, resisting.
Then everything went black, A space where even silence felt wrong.
Zareth's breath hitched as a pressure coiled around him, tightening not on his body, but on something deeper. Something internal.
A voice slipped into both ear familiar, unmistakable. The same voice that had once spoken to Zareth.
It knew exactly who it was.
It was Shinma Kurotsuki.
[SYSTEM]
A sharp, piercing static tore through the darkness, cutting the interface apart before it could fully form.
Zareth's eyes narrowed.
"What now?"
A low hum began to echo not around him, but within him. It vibrated through his bones, through his veins, as if something buried deep inside had begun to awaken.
[ACCESS DENIED]
The message flashed violently, jagged and distorted.
After the message faded from sight, the silence in the apartment deepened then, without warning, a presence emerged from the void, and one of the demons from that realm appeared within the room.
The first thing he noticed was the sigil etched around the entity's neck.
He remembered it.
The mark.
The pattern.
Zareth reacted instantly his hand darting across the space between them, reaching for the katana that lay on the floor as the air itself seemed to tighten around the demon's presence.
"You I know you. What are you doing here?"
The entity didn't answer immediately.
It only watched him.
A slow, deliberate tilt of its head like a predator studying something familiar yet changed.
Then it smiled.
"You remember."
*********************************
The Fifth Eclipsed Demon
Name:Tsukishiro Kageyuki
The Sixfold Vessel
Tsukishiro Kageyuki is the Fifth Eclipsed Demon an anomaly among demons, feared even within the Eclipsed Court. Unlike the others, his existence cannot be fully measured or understood.
*********************************
[Past Life]
Before he became what he is now Tsukishiro Kageyuki was human.
Rokumyaku Village lay far beyond the western fields, past the last farms where people still lived. There was no proper road leading to it only a narrow path that faded the deeper one went.
Most people avoided going that far.
Even then, something about the place already felt… off.
That was where he was born and raised.
Kageyuki came from a poor farming family, living on the far edge of the western fields where the soil was dry and harvests were never certain. His parents worked from dawn until night, struggling to hold on to what little they had.
He grew up the same way quiet, observant, and used to hardship.
But inside that home, life was far from peaceful.
His parents were harsh abusive, even. Small mistakes were met with anger, and anger often turned physical. It became something he learned to endure rather than question.
Even so, he stayed.
Not out of hope but because he had nowhere else to go.
Until one night, everything changed.
The argument began like any other over something small, something meaningless. But this time, his father didn't stop.
The anger didn't fade.
It grew.
The wooden chair came down hard.
Once.
Then again.
The sound of splintering wood echoed through the house as each strike landed. Kageyuki tried to move, to defend himself but his body couldn't respond fast enough.
Another blow.
Then another.
By the time it ended, the chair had broken.
Kageyuki lay on the floor, barely conscious, his breathing shallow. The world around him blurred, sounds fading as if he were sinking into silence.
The violence only stopped when his brother, Tsukishiro Haruto, rushed in and pulled their father away, putting himself between Kageyuki and the next blow.
Haruto was the favored child in the family. Kind and dependable, he was known throughout Rokumyaku Village as one of the most helpful person, and easily the most charming among them.
It showed in everything about him.
While Kageyuki endured harsh treatment, Haruto was cared for gently his parents treating him like a delicate lotus, shielding him from the hardships that defined the rest of their home.
Until one day, he made the decision to abandon his family and leave.
No one saw it coming.
There was no argument.
No final words.
That night, Kageyuki lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
The pain in his body hadn't faded.
Every movement reminded him of it the bruises, the lingering ache beneath his ribs, the weight pressing against his chest.
But it wasn't the pain that kept him awake.
It was the realization.
Nothing would change.
His eyes shifted toward the corner of the room.
Haruto was asleep.
Kageyuki watched him for a long moment.
There was no anger in his gaze.
Slowly, he pushed himself up.
Pain shot through his body, sharp and immediate, but he didn't stop. He had endured worse. He always had.
This time, it didn't matter.
He moved carefully, making as little noise as possible.
This time, there was no regret.
No doubt.
Whatever lay ahead he would face it.
There was no turning back.
He stepped outside.
The night greeted him with a silence that felt deeper than before heavy, unmoving. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Kageyuki didn't stop.
He walked.
Past the fields.
Past the last traces of familiarity.
Toward the narrow path that led beyond Rokumyaku Village.
The farther he went, the less the world felt the same.
The ground grew uneven beneath his feet. The air thickened, pressing lightly against his skin.
Even the darkness felt different.
Time passed.
He realized it was already too late there was no turning back.
What frightened him most was the thought that demons were already lurking somewhere nearby.
After a while, he reached another village. As he approached, the air whispered past his ears, sending goosebumps down his body from his face to his legs.
Something was wrong.
The village felt completely lifeless as if it had already been claimed.
Continue walking inside the village, the place already crashed but seems fine for squatters like him now, describing himself now as squatter since he left home.
He continued walking into the village.
Each step echoed faintly against the broken ground, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the heavy silence. The place was in ruins collapsed roofs, cracked walls, doors hanging loosely from their hinges.
He stepped into one of the houses.
The door creaked as he pushed it open, the sound stretching unnaturally long before fading into silence.
Inside, the air felt stale.
Dust covered everything, untouched yet not abandoned long enough to decay completely.
It looked like a normal home, so he claimed it as his own.
After a couple of days of living there, Kageyuki began to settle into the silence.
He lived in silence, far from anyone who might find him.
With each passing day, the shadows began to feel alive.
They no longer stayed where they should.
At first, it was subtle.
A shift at the edge of his vision.
A shape that didn't match the light.
Kageyuki ignored it.
Until it stopped ignoring him.
One night.
The silence broke.
He was sitting in the dark, back against the wall, eyes half-open.
The air felt heavier than usual, pressing down on him like something unseen had entered the room.
Then the shadows moved.
Shinma appeared before him.
He stepped forward without a sound, then lowered himself until he was face to face with Kageyuki.
His gaze lingered on Kageyuki's tired eyes, then drifted over his frail, weakened body taking in every sign of exhaustion.
And then, for the first time, Shinma spoke to him.
"I've seen those beautiful eyes burdened with exhaustion. I know everything about you and I can help you."
"By my side, you will never feel weak or tired again."
Within a second, Shinma raised his index finger and drove it straight into Kageyuki's chest.
Flesh tore.
Bone cracked.
For the first time, Kageyuki felt true pain.
Not a simple stab but something deeper.
Something violent.
It wasn't just his flesh being pierced.
It felt like his bones were breaking from the inside, like something was forcing its way through him.
His body trembled but no scream came out.
His body went limp, completely unresponsive.
Yet his mind remained awake.
His heart still beat.
His system still functioned.
It was like a temporary shutdown.
It hadn't stopped at a finger.
Shinma's entire hand had sunk into his chest.
And then his blood began to pass into him.
Not spilled.
Not forced.
It flowed.
A dark, foreign essence moved from Shinma into Kageyuki, slipping through his veins like something alive spreading, taking root, changing him from within.
His breathing slowed.
His vision dimmed.
The world faded into silence.
By the next morning.
Kageyuki opened his eyes.
For a moment, nothing felt different.
The ceiling was the same.
And everything shifted.
The air felt sharper.
Heavier.
Every sound reached him at once the faint creak of wood, the distant rustle beyond the village, something moving far outside what should have been his range.
The change in his behavior felt natural like it had always been part of his life.
Kageyuki had already changed.
From human to a pure demon.
He knew it.
The cold inside him never faded.
It settled deep within like death,
yet he was still alive.
He stood straight.
His feet hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Veins bulged along his arms, rising up his neck and trailing down toward his legs.
His body felt different.
Stronger.
Kageyuki looked at his hands.
There was no confusion in his eyes.
"I've changed."
From that day on, everything turned into slaughter.
A relentless hunger for humans consumed him.
At first, he tried to ignore it.
The hunger.
It wasn't like anything he had ever felt before. It didn't come gradually, nor did it fade with time. It appeared suddenly sharp, violent, and overwhelming, as if something deep within him had awakened and was now demanding to be fed.
Kageyuki pressed his hand tightly against his chest, his fingers digging into his skin as if he could suppress the sensation by force alone.
But it didn't work.
The feeling only grew stronger.
It spread through his body, crawling beneath his skin, coiling around his veins like something alive. Every breath he took felt heavier, uneven not from fear, but from something far more dangerous.
Need.
A craving that couldn't be ignored.
Then, he noticed something strange.
As the first light of morning crept into the ruined house, the hunger began to weaken. It didn't disappear completely, but it dulled like a beast retreating into the shadows, waiting.
But when night came.
It returned.
The darkness didn't just surround him it called to him.
Kageyuki slowly lifted his head, his eyes adjusting to the dim light as something cold settled behind them.
"So this is how it works," he murmured quietly.
"I only hunt… when the night falls."
As if responding to that realization, a scent drifted into the air.
Unmistakable.
Human.
His head snapped toward its direction instantly, his body reacting faster than his thoughts. The hesitation he once had as a human was gone replaced by something far more instinctive.
He moved.
Too fast for anything human.
His feet barely made a sound, yet the ground beneath him cracked faintly with each step. The shadows around him stretched unnaturally, clinging to his movement as if they belonged to him.
The scent grew stronger the closer he got.
A lone traveler walked through the edge of the ruined village, unaware of what lingered in the darkness.
Kageyuki stopped above him, standing silently on the rooftop of a broken house.
He watched.
His eyes locked onto the figure below, unblinking.
For a brief moment, something flickered within him.
A memory.
A fragment of what he used to be.
Warmth.
It lingered for only a second.
Then it vanished.
Swallowed completely by the hunger.
Kageyuki moved.
In an instant, he disappeared from the rooftop, his body becoming nothing more than a blur descending from the darkness.
The man below didn't even have time to react.
There was no warning.
No struggle.
Just a single, precise motion.
Clean.
Then silence.
Kageyuki stood there afterward, unmoving, as the night reclaimed its stillness.
The hunger faded again.
Not gone.
But satisfied.
For the first time since his transformation, his breathing steadied. His body relaxed—not out of relief, but out of completion.
This was what he was now.
He lowered his gaze to his hands.
They were steady.
"So this is what I've become."
There was no guilt in his voice.
No regret.
From that moment on, Kageyuki no longer resisted the hunger.
He understood it.
The village had already been abandoned long before he arrived.
And this is where he belongs.
The old Tsukishiro Kageyuki the one who was beaten by his own parents is now nothing more than dust.
He believes only in himself, and in no one else only in hatred.
[Present]
The room fell silent again.
Zareth's grip on the katana tightened, his eyes locked onto the figure before him.
"Why are you here? Who are you?"
His voice hardened.
"Answer me."
Tsukishiro Kageyuki only stood there, his gaze fixed on Zareth calm, unreadable, as if the question itself held no weight.
The silence stretched.
A faint smile curved along his lips.
"You already know the answer."
His voice was quiet, almost gentle
yet something beneath it felt wrong. Hollow. Ancient.
Zareth's grip tightened around the katana.
"I don't," he snapped. "So say it."
Kageyuki tilted his head slightly, studying him more closely now not as a threat, but as something unfamiliar.
"Strange," he murmured. "You can see me. feel me. and yet you still ask who I am."
A step forward.
The air shifted instantly heavy, suffocating, as if the space itself rejected his presence.
"I am what remains," Kageyuki continued. "Of something that no longer exists."
Zareth's eyes narrowed.
"That's not an answer."
Kageyuki's gaze flickered just slightly.
"For you, it won't be."
Another step.
"You called me a demon," he said.
"That's not wrong."
A pause.
"But it's not complete either."
The shadows around him stirred, stretching unnaturally along the walls, as if responding to his presence.
"I was human once."
Zareth's expression didn't change but something in his stance did. A subtle shift. More alert.
"And now?" he asked.
Kageyuki's smile faded.
"Yeah I know you're a demon. I saw you back there in my dream Wait was that real?" Zareth asked, his voice tightening as realization began to sink in.
Silence.
Then Kageyuki spoke.
"I am Tsukishiro Kageyuki."
The name settled heavily in the air.
"The Fifth Eclipsed Demon."
Zareth didn't move, but his grip on the katana tightened even more.
"So it wasn't a dream," he muttered.
Kageyuki watched him closely.
"No," he said calmly. "What you saw was real."
Zareth's grip tightened further, the faint sound of the katana's handle creaking under pressure breaking the silence.
"Then explain it," he said, voice low.
"Why was I there?"
Kageyuki didn't answer immediately.
Instead, his gaze drifted not to Zareth but to the katana.
For the first time, his expression shifted.
Recognition.
"So it chose you," Kageyuki murmured.
Zareth's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
Kageyuki took another step forward.
A sudden pressure crashed over him, invisible but suffocating, forcing the air out of his lungs for a split second.
Instinctively, he raised the katana.
"I know that blade. It has existed far longer than you understand."
The words settled into the room like a weight.
Zareth's grip tightened, his eyes flicking down to the katana for the briefest second before returning to Kageyuki.
"That blade… once belonged to the greatest swordsman of Kagemori."
Kageyuki spoke further, his words leaving Zareth in awe before he invited him to join.
"Kurogami Akihito. Arashi Genshiro. Kuronuma Rei. The Eclipsed and the Ruptures once the greatest swordsmen to ever live."
"Now they are no longer human. They are one of us."
"Us?"
Zareth's grip tightened.
"Wait."
His voice dropped.
"Are you saying I'm a demon?"
Kageyuki didn't answer right away.
A long, suffocating silence filled the room, pressing against Zareth's chest.
"No."
The word fell quietly.
Zareth's breath caught for a second.
"Then what am I?" he demanded.
Kageyuki's gaze shifted once again to the katana.
"You don't need to understand everything not right now," he added.
"You will once you reach that place."
Zareth lowered the blade slightly, but his guard remained up.
Kageyuki turned toward him and took a step forward.
"We'll meet again."
Then, without a sound, he vanished into thin air leaving Zareth alone in the suffocating silence.
The katana eased in Zareth's hand, its presence changing responding to something he couldn't see… or understand.
"Eclipsed… Ruptures… what does that even mean…?"
he muttered, his grip tightening around the blade.
His mind refused to grasp it demons, Eclipsed, Ruptures.
To him, they were nothing more than meaningless words.
In the blink of an eye, something flashed across Zareth's vision too fast to fully grasp.
Flickered.
Twice.
Then it settled.
[SYSTEM]
*********************************
Host Status
Name: Zareth Ashveil
Age: 23
Level: 6
Class: Unassigned
Experience: 33 / 100
Bloodline: Shinma's Vessel
Strength: 22
Perception: 16
Agility: 17
Speed: 16
Bravery: 12
Intelligence: 11
Charm: 10
Credits: 65
*********************************
The air grew heavier.
A slow, steady pulse echoed from deep within his chest each beat heavier than the last.