The sky wept ash.
Charred flakes drifted downward in slow, mournful spirals, cloaking the ruined streets of Neo-Valoria like snow from a dead god. Monolithic towers loomed in silence, their once-glimmering windows shattered into gaping wounds. Fires sputtered in distant alleys, casting pale orange light on bodies long since gone cold.
A crater lay at the center of it all—deep, perfect, unnatural.
And in the middle of that hollow wound in the earth, a boy opened his eyes.
His first breath was not air, but data—lines of code flashing through his vision, strange characters stitched into a whispering storm. They scrawled across the inside of his eyelids, humming with a strange, sentient rhythm.
> SYSTEM INITIALIZING... Codex of Kings: Alpha Protocol Engaged. Subject Identified: ZERO Status: Memory Wiped. Directive: Restore the True World.
The boy sat up slowly, limbs trembling. His skin was pale as porcelain, his black hair matted with soot. His golden eyes—eyes not of this world—glimmered with something neither human nor divine.
He did not know who he was. He did not remember where he came from. He only remembered the name whispered by the system.
Zero.
The world around him crackled with static, as if reality itself had grown unstable from his arrival. The edges of buildings twitched, shadows shifted against logic, and colors bled in the corners of his eyes.
Then, a voice—a real one, hoarse and trembling.
"H-hey! Over here! There's someone alive!"
Boots crunched against the broken street as a squad of scavengers—cloaked in scrap armor and dust masks—approached the crater with wary steps. Their leader, a wiry girl with a bolt rifle slung over her back, crouched beside him.
"You're... alive," she muttered, as if disbelieving her own eyes. "And you don't have a single burn. What the hell are you?"
Zero blinked slowly. He opened his mouth, but no words came.
Only silence.
The girl exchanged glances with her squad. "He's probably trauma-shocked. Or drugged. Hell, maybe he's one of the test subjects that escaped during the Crash."
Another scavenger, a broad-shouldered man with cybernetic implants, grunted. "Looks like a noble brat to me. Look at those eyes."
"Keep your voice down," she snapped. "If he's from the towers, he might have access codes."
They lifted Zero to his feet.
As they did, the world shimmered. The girl's face glitched for half a second—just enough to reveal something underneath: a flash of a memory not his own. Blood. Fire. A throne carved from bones. Screams.
> MEMORY FRAGMENT DETECTED. Downloading... ACCESS DENIED. Locking Fragment.
Zero flinched.
He didn't understand why. But he was afraid.
They brought him back to their camp in the undercity—a sprawl of scaffolding, broken neon, and makeshift tents built around the ruins of an old mag-train station. Rusted signs flickered with dying light: District-Null. Zone 13. Entry Restricted.
Here, the lowest dregs of the world scraped out their survival. No nobility. No divine system users. Only the forgotten, the disfigured, the criminal.
"We'll call you Ash," the girl said, handing him a dented ration can. "Until you remember who you are."
He shook his head. "Zero."
Her brow furrowed. "That your name?"
He nodded. "The only one I remember."
She snorted. "Fitting. That's what the rest of us are too."
Zero watched the others with a quiet, unnerving stillness. Children with mutated limbs. Men missing half their faces. Women with hollow eyes who stared too long at the cracks in the ceiling. None of them seemed afraid of him.
But they should have been.
Because even Zero didn't trust himself.
Every night, he dreamed of fire. Of a throne that bled. Of voices screaming his name in worship or in terror. And of hands—his hands—ripping through flesh and stone.
> SYSTEM UPDATE COMPLETE. New Function: Thread of Fate — Active.
He gasped awake one night, golden eyes glowing in the dark.
The system had begun to speak again. This time, it offered more than whispers.
> Fate Thread Detected. Target: Lysaria Vex — Location: Neo-Valoria High Sector Status: Active Threat Suggested Action: Infiltrate. Observe. Terminate if compromised.
Zero stared at the message, his expression unreadable.
Then he looked down at his hands—hands that trembled slightly.
What was he?
A survivor? A tool? A weapon?
Or something far worse?
He stood, moving to the edge of the camp. The city above loomed like a sleeping beast. Somewhere in that glittering hell, his purpose awaited. Answers. Enemies. Power.
And maybe, the truth.
He whispered the name once more. "Zero."
But it felt less like a name now—and more like a curse.