Volume 1: Shadows in the Rift
Prologue
The sky cracked.
Not with thunder, but with light.
A violent rift split across the stars, swallowing galaxies and bleeding colors that didn't exist in any known spectrum. It was as if the cosmos had torn open a scar too deep to mend. Suns collapsed without warning. Planets blinked out of existence, replaced by fragments of ancient ruins and landscapes foreign to both man and machine. Time convulsed. Reality twisted. And from this rupture, a new nightmare was born.
This was the day the universe broke.
This was the Descent of the Unknown.
What began as tremors in the skies soon became global hysteria. People vanished mid-step, only to reappear weeks later in strange realms—deserts made of crystal, forests lit by floating embers, cities suspended upside-down. Others awoke in lands with no stars, surrounded by things that whispered their names without mouths. Entire civilizations from alternate worlds came crashing into Earth's timeline, blending together in chaos.
Borders were meaningless now. Timezones collapsed. Calendars could no longer be trusted. The sun might rise in one part of the world and never set in another.
The dead returned first.
They emerged not with rotting flesh or hollow eyes, but as clear and complete as the day they left the world. Their presence chilled the air. They didn't shamble or cry. They stood.
They spoke.
They remembered.
"I was drowned. Tied to a stone and left in the river," said the first.
"I was betrayed. Poisoned during the feast meant to honor me," said another.
Their words were undeniable. People collapsed to their knees at the revelations. Secrets buried generations ago spilled into the streets, shattering families, kingdoms, and alliances. Some sought revenge. Others begged for forgiveness. But none could ignore them—for these were not spirits. These were the Returned.
But not all that crossed over spoke.
Some simply watched.
They lingered in doorways. Stared from alleys. Their forms shimmered like heat waves, colorless and yet present. They were not aggressive, not malevolent—but there was something wrong about their silence.
They came to be called the Unseen Shades.
The scholars and mystics scrambled to understand what was happening. Ancient texts from merged realms were unearthed. Prophecies once thought metaphorical were now studied as literal blueprints. The consensus was grim: reality itself had become a puzzle with missing and mismatched pieces.
As the year of tremors unfolded, humanity adapted as best it could. Magic, once a fantasy, now bloomed within certain bloodlines. Those attuned to the new harmonics of the world could manipulate elements, summon weapons, or even pierce through rifts in space. Cities became hybrid zones—technology fused with enchantment. Hovercrafts powered by dragon cores. Weapons that responded to thought.
But with power came war.
New factions rose. Old governments fell. Kingdoms that once ruled other worlds began to stake their claim on this one. Some people called it the Age of Integration.
Others called it the Beginning of the End.
At the end of the year, the tremors ceased. The universes stabilized into a strange and twisted whole. A new world was born—a stitched-together corpse of multiverses, pulsing with unstable energy.
In this world, the dead still walk.
And truth is no longer hidden.
But somewhere within the chaos, beyond the borders of broken nations and endless war, a single man stood apart.
He was not a king. Not a sorcerer. Not a chosen hero of prophecy.
He was a killer.
His name was St4.
Or rather... that's what they used to call him.
And in this new world of fused realms and broken fate, he would be forced to confront the ghosts of both others and his own past.
Because some Shades do more than watch.
Some follow.
And they only ever follow him.
Chapter 1: Contract No More
His name was St4. Or rather, it used to be.
The assassin crouched atop a steel gargoyle overlooking what remained of Sector V, a once-flourishing megacity now buried under roots of a floating island from another world. The fusion of realities left shattered glass towers skewered by ancient stone spires, and neon signs flickered beneath moss-draped runes.
It was beautiful in a terrifying, broken way.
St4 adjusted the sheath of his dagger. A clean weapon, no engravings. Fast. Silent.
He had no target today. Not anymore.
"You ever think this world got too loud for us?" a voice crackled through his earpiece. It was Rey, his old contact.
St4 didn't answer. He never did.
Contracts ended when the economy died. When clients turned to gods or demons. When currency became mana stones, and assassinations were replaced with blood duels sanctioned by arcane tribunals.
He didn't belong here.
Not yet.
But he would.
A scream echoed from the alley below. Not of pain—of revelation. One of the Returned was speaking.
"He poisoned me. My brother. He fed me saltwine and watched me die. I told you all he was lying!"
The people surrounding the shade gasped. Truth had a voice now, and it was angry.
St4 stood, eyes glowing faintly in the twilight. Not from magic. Not yet. Just reflection.
He dropped into the alleyway, his coat catching the wind like a shadow unfurling.
No one noticed him land.
They never did.
Chapter 2: A Name Buried
The guilds knew nothing of him. The sorcerers marked him as an anomaly—untouched by the fusion, yet wholly shaped by it. He had no aura. No divine trace. Just skill. And silence.
But the world had changed.
And it was watching him.
In a derelict cathedral turned trade hall, KA—his real name, not yet revealed—met a woman named Valea. Her eyes were silver. Her sword was older than steel. She could hear the dead. All of them.
"You walk like a killer but smell like a ghost," she told him.
"I walk because I survived."
"Survival doesn't explain why the Unseen Shades follow you."
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
The Shades were different from the Returned. They did not speak. They did not beg.
They watched.
They waited.
And they only ever followed him.
End of Preview - Volume 1 continues with KA learning the truth behind the Shades, unlocking dormant potential within, and being forced into an alliance with the very forces he once hunted.