The scent of blood was faint—barely a whisper on the wind. But he could smell it.
Even in the dead of night, amidst the quiet hum of Tokyo's neon glow, he moved like a ghost.
A silent breath.
A flicker of steel.
A target's final gasp.
He was the best there was. Ninety years in the shadows. Names came and went, but only one title endured: The Ghost of a Thousand Deaths.
He had no name anymore. It had been erased by time, buried under missions, betrayals, and silence. He was a tool, a whisper, a shadow—used, discarded, and feared.
Tonight was supposed to be just another mission. Infiltrate. Eliminate. Vanish.
But as his blade plunged into his final mark, a surge of unnatural magic erupted from the man's chest.
"What…?"
For the first time in decades, he hesitated. A flash of light—no, a rupture—tore through reality. Pain lanced through his body, and the world twisted into nothingness.
Darkness devoured him.
---
When he awoke, he wasn't dead.
He was cold. Weak. Small.
His body screamed of hunger and bruises. A rattling breath escaped cracked lips. As he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a crumbling ceiling of rotten wood and moss. The scent of piss and rot filled his nostrils.
"What the hell…"
His voice was different. Younger. Softer.
Memories not his own came rushing in—a torrent of pain, training, death.
Myrelion Aethros.
A half-human, half-elf bastard born in the slums of Valewind, capital of the Elytharan Empire. Son of a whore and the elven noble, Lord Corwin Brackwood—who never claimed him. Trained in secret as an assassin from infancy, known in the underground as The Veilwalker.
A prodigy. A weapon.
He was eight years old.
A moment of silence stretched in the filth-soaked room.
He laughed.
The dry, bitter chuckle of someone who'd seen too much.
"Another body. Another life."
But this time, something stirred in his chest. Not vengeance. Not duty.
Freedom.
He had died a tool. But now… now he had the chance to be something else.
"I won't go back to killing for others. Not again."
But the world wasn't kind. This new life—this empire—reeked of rot hidden beneath silk robes. Nobles played games of blood and coin. Magic corrupted truth. The powerful crushed the weak.
Still, he smiled.
Because now, he wasn't just a ghost.
He was Myrelion Aethros—bastard of House Brackwood. A shadow reborn.
And this time, the world wouldn't see him coming.
---
Thus begins the tale of the forgotten son, the Veilwalker, the sovereign of blades and time.
A shadow reborn into the light—only to learn that the brightest thrones cast the darkest shadows.