The night sky hung heavy with the promise of change. The moon, low in the heavens, cast an ethereal glow over the Forbidden Forest. The air pulsed with a strange, otherworldly energy. Tonight, something was different. Something ancient was stirring—and the world was about to feel its tremor.
A crack in reality split the heart of the forest, a jagged scar stretching across the sky. It was a tear in the fabric of existence—a rift, woven by forces no mortal could comprehend. Lightning arced through the rift, its crackle echoing like a deep roar from the heavens. The land trembled. The sky split open. And from the tear, a figure emerged.
Vesperian.
He formed from the chaos itself, shaped not by human hands, but by the swirling energy that birthed him. Snow-white hair framed a face that was both flawless and uncanny. His ruby eyes glowed faintly, shifting like molten lava. He looked human—but something was off. Something not meant to be.
Power radiated from his body, but an eerie calm surrounded him—an absence of emotion that made him seem more vessel than man.
He stood tall, his feet sinking silently into the grass, the world seeming to bend around him. The air hummed with unnatural energy, and the moonlit forest shimmered strangely as he stepped forward. His gaze swept across the darkened landscape, his expression empty, unreadable.
This world felt both familiar and foreign.
From the rift's remnants, he sensed it—a fragmented energy, his own. But it was incomplete. Something was missing. No—someone.
A piece of him, torn away long ago when he was first created. Separated, severed. Yet still... connected. He could feel it out there, calling to him like a distant echo. A presence both alien and intimate.
He didn't need it. That much he knew. But with it—he would be stronger. More complete.
Still, that wasn't his concern. Not yet.
He had arrived with a purpose. One he couldn't fully grasp—but one that burned inside him like a whisper too faint to hear.
The air crackled with latent power, but it was the academy in the distance that drew his attention. Its silhouette rose like a shadow on the horizon, ancient and waiting. The very gates of the place seemed to acknowledge him, humming softly, almost reverently.
Astralis Arcanum. The name whispered in the back of his mind, though he had never heard it before. A place of power, a sanctuary for those attuned to magic, martial arts, and the ancient arts of breathing styles. A place where his path might begin—or where it might end.
His feet carried him forward. Each step was guided not by thought, but by instinct—as if something inside the academy called to him, resonated with the energy that pulsed within his core.
As he approached, the iron gates creaked open on their own, the sound echoing through the forest. No one greeted him, but the gesture was clear. Welcome. Or warning.
The academy was unlike any other. The magical flora whispered of long-forgotten secrets, of ancient power still alive. Within those walls, answers waited. The energy inside him—shifting, unstable—needed a place to grow. To be understood.
Here, he might finally learn the truth: Why he had been created. Why he had been torn apart. Why he had been cast into this world, unfeeling and alone.
A shadow passed through his thoughts—something familiar, elusive. His other half was out there. Watching. Waiting. The energy that had been torn from him, scattered through the dimensions, was out there. And it called to him.
But first, he had to navigate this strange new world. A world shaped by magic, breathing styles, and the ancient forces that tore his soul in two.
There was power here, ancient and raw. The rift had not just brought him into this world—it had tied him to it in ways he could not yet understand.
Far away, in a place untouched by moonlight and cloaked in silence, another pair of eyes opened.
He gasped—not from pain, but from absence. Something had shifted. A pulse he had never known he was missing now beat faintly in his chest.
He sat up slowly, his body submerged in obsidian mist, surrounded by crystalline structures that whispered forgotten names. A glimmer of recognition flickered across his face—not of a person, but of a presence.
"You've awakened," a voice murmured from the dark.
He didn't answer. He was listening—to something far away. A tear in reality. A name carried through the echo of a soul.
Vesperian.
And though he didn't know why, he whispered back:
"…Brother."