He saw darkness. Endless, silent, and familiar.
Then came a blinding light.
His eyes opened slowly. He was disoriented, overwhelmed by sensations—blinding white lights above, muffled voices, sterile air, the sharp sting of life.
A woman lay on a lavish bed, sweat pouring down her face, her breathing labored. Around her, doctors and maids moved with rehearsed urgency, their attention fixed on the newborn they had just wrapped in silken cloth.
That newborn was him.
But something was wrong.
There was no celebration. No smiles. Only grim expressions and cautious glances.
"I feel no mana from him," one of the doctors whispered, inspecting the infant.
"None?" a maid asked, her voice low.
"Maybe… maybe it's dormant?" another offered, unsure.
But they all knew.
In this world, newborns naturally emit unstable pulses of mana. Even before they can speak, mana flickers through them—raw, uncontrolled, but present.
This child had none.
"Not even crying," another maid murmured. "It's like he's hollow."
The woman on the bed—his mother—reached out and placed her palm over his chest, trying to sense anything. Her expression quickly changed.
There was nothing.
No flow of mana. No pulse of energy.
Even insects carried traces of mana. But this child was devoid of it—completely.
An anomaly.
A failure.
A disgrace.
The woman's face turned cold, her gaze hardening. She said nothing more.
"He's a nullborn," a maid finally said.
There was no official name for such a condition. So the servants made one up—nullborn, a term for something unnatural, without magic.
The newborn didn't cry. Didn't squirm. His black eyes stared quietly around the room. He was far more aware than he should've been.
He remembered.
The rain.
The cold.
The hunger.
The storm.
His death.
He remembered it all.
Somehow, he had been reborn.
The days that followed confirmed everything. His new family was rich—unimaginably so. Magic crystals glowed in every corner of the estate, woven into the walls and fixtures.
Power saturated the air.
He soon learned that mana wasn't just useful in this world. It was everything.
His mother, a woman with stunning black hair and glowing blue eyes, checked him daily for signs of mana. A flicker. A spark. Anything.
But there was nothing.
Her disappointment turned to contempt. She no longer bothered to hold him.
His siblings ignored him entirely. Not even old enough to walk, and already treated like dead weight.
Eventually, he learned the name of the house: Vaelcrest, a noble family known throughout the empire. Their pride was their power. Their legacy, built on generations of strength and magical dominance.
And he had no place in it.
One day, maids whispered nearby.
"The patriarch is returning from the northern front," one said. "He's due any day."
"Does he know?" Said a maid.
"No. The lady hasn't told him. She was hoping… something would change." Another maid said.
But nothing did.
And soon, the front doors of the estate opened.
Power walked in.
A tall, broad man with dark red hair, wrapped in red silk embroidered with golden flame sigils. His eyes were sharp and cold, like tempered steel. Mana poured off him in waves, distorting the air as he passed.
The very walls seemed to acknowledge his presence.
He stepped into the room and looked down at the black-haired infant in the crib.
"What is this?" he asked, voice low and cutting. "Why can't I feel any mana?"
"Patriarch… the child is a nullborn," one of the maids said carefully.
"Since when?"
"Since birth."
The man stared in silence for a long moment. Then he turned his back.
"Then he's worthless," he said. "A manaless disgrace. He doesn't even deserve a name."
He began walking off, but then stopped just before exiting.
"Assign one of the maids to name it," he said without looking back. "It needs to be called something. Just keep it away from me."
"Yes, Patriarch," the head maid said.
The room remained quiet for a time. None of the maids moved until one finally stepped forward—expression blank, tone flat.
"Nyx," she said, without emotion. "We'll call it Nyx."
No ceremony. No warmth. No meaning.
Just a name. To make it easier to refer to him.
The name was given, not with kindness, but indifference.
And so began the life of Nyx—unwanted, unnamed by blood, and born without the one thing this world valued most.
He stared at the ceiling of the grand estate with empty eyes.
Another life of hardship…
And with that thought, he let sleep take him again.