Silence.That was the first thing he heard.
Not the whisper of wind, nor the hum of insects, nor the rustle of trees—just silence, stretched so thin it hurt.
A pale boy lay in the middle of a shallow crater, skin caked in dust and dried blood. His chest rose faintly, his lips cracked like parched earth. The sky above was gray, neither day nor night, and the air was thick with a faint pressure—as if the world had forgotten how to breathe.
He opened his eyes. Or perhaps… his eyes opened on their own.No memories greeted him. No name. No pain. Just a blank hollowness, like he had awoken not from sleep but from erasure.
He sat up slowly.
His body was unfamiliar. Scars that didn't belong to him. Fingers that trembled from use he couldn't recall. Something had been taken from him—ripped out like pages from a book—and all that remained was this shell.
"Who… am I?"
The words fell into the silence like stones into a bottomless well. No echo. No answer.
He stumbled to his feet. The ground beneath him was cracked and burnt, as if a great battle had scorched the land. Blackened weapons lay half-buried in ash. Swords melted. Spears twisted. Armor pieces rusted into bone.
And amidst the wreckage, at the center of the crater, stood a single monolith.It was only a few feet tall, jagged and rough. On its surface were etched strange, writhing symbols that shimmered faintly in blue—alive, somehow, pulsing in time with his breath.
"What is this place…?"
He stepped toward it. The moment his fingers brushed its surface—
"You… who have been forgotten. You, who hold no root, no soul, no memory.You may yet take the first step."
A voice—ancient, male and female, one and many—thundered through his bones.
Then came the pain.
His head exploded in agony as images flooded his mind.
A woman crying over a child's grave.
A warrior slicing through a thousand enemies alone, eyes empty.
A scholar burning his scrolls to protect a single name.
A beast, dying in a cave, clawing a message onto stone: "Remember me."
"Stop… stop it…"
He collapsed, screaming. But no sound came out. The memories weren't his—but they burned as if they were.
And when it ended, he lay gasping, chest heaving. The stone pulsed once more, then dulled.
On his arm, a faint mark appeared: a twisting root, etched in black.
A voice whispered in his mind.
Origin Root Initiated.First Memory Absorbed: The Spear of the Scorched Hero.Technique Unlocked: Phantom Thrust (Lv. 1)
He stared at the mark in disbelief.
"Memory… as power?"
A wind stirred. The gray sky rippled, as if something had taken notice.
For the first time, he felt the weight of this world. It wasn't kind. It wasn't forgiving.But he had been given something. A second chance? A curse? He didn't know.
He looked up at the monolith.The symbols had faded.
"If this world wants me forgotten… then I'll carve my name into its bones."
Even if he had no name… yet.