NOVEL WEB Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter 1: Prologue – Ashes of Will
I'm going to die.
The cold night breeze brushed past me.The half-moon hung silently in the sky, its dim light painting the garden in shades of blue and black.
Everything the air, the silence, my instincts honed over a lifetime of killing whispered the same truth.
I'm not making it out alive.
I stood at the center of a vast garden.
The pathways between the neatly trimmed hedges looked soft and serene, like wool under moonlight.
But there was no path leading to salvation.
Only one steeped in blood and lined with death.
"Leon."
A voice like a frozen blade cut through the silence. I turned my head slowly.
A tall man with silver hair, sharp as ice, stepped forward. His presence warped the air itself.
Even a single breath from him seemed to choke the stars.
Gareth Vernhild.
The current patriarch of House Vernhild.
My guardian.
My owner.
My executioner.
"You've exceeded expectations," Gareth said.
His voice was calm, but it always carried weight, like stones pressing on the chest.
"The family's enemies fall before we even name them. All thanks to your efforts behind the curtain."
"I simply followed orders."
My response came cold, mechanical. Just like he trained me.
"No pride?" Gareth tilted his head. "No fear either. Of course. That's how I raised you."
He took another step forward.
His shadow stretched unnaturally long, like it had a will of its own.
"But tell me something, Leon. Do you think someone like you deserves choice?"
He raised his hand slowly.
His fingers, pale and unassuming, held more weight than chains.
"You were born from ash and ruin. Taken from a slum where even rats didn't bother scavenging. I gave you purpose."
"Yes," I said, not denying it.
"Then why did you hesitate?"
His voice, which had always been frigid, turned sharp. More cutting than any blade.
"I don't understand what you mean."
"Don't play dumb. You thought of running away."
My heart thudded.
That wasn't a guess.
He knew.
"And you disobeyed me last winter. Remember the mission in Varun Port?"
I grit my teeth silently.
I hadn't made a mistake.
I had just… chosen differently.
I saved a child instead of killing the target.
Just once.
"I broke no oath," I said. A flicker of defiance slipped through.
"But you broke something far more important," Gareth whispered. "Your will. The leash. You loosened it."
He raised his hand.
And that's when the pain started.
"Argh—!"
It wasn't just pain. It was as if my ribs were being twisted, my lungs torn from the inside.
I fell to one knee, coughing violently.
"Do you know what lives inside you?" Gareth crouched, now eye-level. "A Remnant Seed."
"W-what…?"
"A curse from the old era. Tied to your soul. The more you resist me, the more it eats away at your essence."
I gasped. This… this wasn't magic.
This was darker. Ancient. Forbidden.
"I fed it into you years ago. Slowly. Silently. You never even noticed."
"You bastard…"
"I prefer the term 'visionary.'"
Gareth smiled.
The same fake smile he showed nobles at parties.
The one that made them believe he was a benevolent statesman.
"There is no such thing as free will for someone like you. You are a weapon. A tool forged by my hand."
The pain intensified.
But I refused to collapse.
I had lived like a ghost.
No childhood.
No warmth.
Trained in silence. Raised in fear.
And just when I dared to dream of a world beyond these invisible chains, just one moment of hope, it was all dragged back into darkness.
Why was I even born?
I clenched my fists.
If I must die, then I won't die empty-handed.
I grabbed the blade at my hip. It trembled with the remnants of my will.
Even if I couldn't kill him, I'd hurt him.
Just once.
"AAAAHHH!"
I roared and struck.
A burst of aura, faint, red, desperate, flared from the edge of my sword.
Clang!
But it shattered on impact.
My blade, my hope, my final strike… broke like glass.
And then
Slice.
The world spun. I heard the dull clang of metal and the soft thud of something hitting the grass.
I couldn't feel my body anymore.
Ah… my head.
It had been cut off.
Even so
A hidden blade inside the shattered sword whirled forward.
One final, desperate attack.
It grazed Gareth's hand.
"Tch."
He flicked his wrist.
My last strike vanished like dust.
But he frowned.
Blood trickled from the back of his hand.
"…Interesting."
He wiped it calmly, but I saw it.
His pride was wounded.
It wasn't much.
But to me, it was everything.
You're not invincible.
My thoughts faded.
The pain was gone.
My mind drifted away, crimson and bitter.
I'm sorry… I couldn't finish the Ignition Path.
I couldn't escape. I couldn't live.
But if there's anything beyond this…
If I had another chance…
If I had talent...
I would have burned down that mask.
***
Gareth stood in silence.
He looked down at his wounded hand, then at my fallen body.
"You scratched me," he murmured. "How unfortunate."
He turned away.
"Clean this up."
Shadows moved through the garden, collecting the corpse that once was Leon.
None noticed the faint light glowing from the shattered necklace drenched in blood.
***
Darkness.
A complete, suffocating void. Cold and endless. No sensation. No breath. No pain. No warmth.
Leon floated in it or maybe he wasn't floating. Maybe he was just... there. Unmoving. Forgotten.
His mind felt frayed. His thoughts came in pieces, tattered like burnt paper drifting in the wind.
Where was he?
"...Where am I...?"
He couldn't hear his own voice. He couldn't even feel his throat. It was as though he had been reduced to just thoughts—just awareness.
"What is this place...?"
The last thing he remembered was blood. Pain. The night wind whispering through the garden. Gareth's eyes. The sting of betrayal. The sound of his own blade shattering like glass.
His own head falling.
He should be dead. That much was clear.
Then why did he still exist?
He tried to move, but there was no body to move. No arms. No legs. Only the sensation of being.
He felt naked. Not physically, but spiritually.
Bare. Exposed.
Alone.
"...Is this death?"
His thoughts drifted in circles.
Was that it? Was his whole life—the pain, the years of training, the missions, the kills, the secrets, the silence—was all of it just to end like this?
"Did I... really die as nothing more than a tool...?"
That word. Tool. It echoed in his mind.
Not a person.
Not a hero.
Not even a villain.
Just a blade someone else used.
Was that all his life had been?
No matter how many times he tried to reason, the thought kept crawling back.
Like insects in the cracks of a crumbling wall.
"Why...? Why me...?"
He thought of the child he saved.
That one moment where he acted on his own will.
That one time he chose something different.
And that was what cost him everything.
Was this his punishment?
Trapped in an empty void for daring to defy his master?
How cruel.
Was there no god? No justice? No consequence for the monster who killed him?
"...No.
There is no god."
And then
A chill.
As if the void itself held its breath.
He felt it before he saw it.
A presence. Vast. Suffocating.
Older than time. Deeper than space.
Something that should not be.
Then, eyes.
Two.
Gigantic.
Glowing in the pitch-black like twin stars made of judgment.
They didn't glow with light.
They glowed with weight.
And they were looking at him.
The moment Leon became aware of that gaze, something inside him cracked.
His breath—nonexistent until now—hitched.
His soul kneeled.
He tried to lift his gaze, but he couldn't. The pressure was absolute. He wasn't ordered to kneel. He was forced to by something deeper than fear.
That presence reached into the core of what he was and crushed it.
"...Pathetic."
The voice echoed like a storm in the ocean.
It wasn't loud.
It was final.
Like a verdict handed down by the universe itself.
Leon didn't understand.
"Who are you...?"
"Truly pathetic," the voice continued, full of cold, ancient disgust. "To die like this.
Whimpering.
Useless.
Forgotten."
Leon flinched. He didn't even realize a soul could flinch.
"Your life meant nothing. No name. No legacy. No mark. You existed as a tool. You died as one."
And yet, somehow—
That very insult... hurt more than Gareth's betrayal.
It clawed at something he didn't know was still there.
A tiny ember.
A sliver of defiance.
Of will.
"...No."
His voice cracked through the void, weak and thin, like a candle in a blizzard.
But it was there.
The eyes narrowed.
"You disagree?"
"I didn't die a tool. I... I survived."
"Survived?"
Leon's mind burned.
He remembered the alley where he first held a blade. The missions where he bled until he couldn't see. The hunger. The fear. The nights with no sleep, only trembling. The weight of orders he couldn't understand.
All of it came flooding back.
"I didn't have talent. I didn't have power. I didn't even have a name until he gave me one."
"But I endured."
"I survived everything they threw at me. Every time I was supposed to die, I didn't."
His voice rose, fury trembling with sorrow.
"No support. No gods. Nothing. Just me."
The void cracked slightly.
The being paused.
Leon forced himself to stand, though he had no legs.
He stood in spirit.
He looked into those eyes.
Not with power.
But with rage.
And pain.
And defiance.
"I may have died a tool... but I survived. That's more than most."
Silence.
Then the being laughed.
Cold.
Sharp.
Proud.
"Good."
A ripple passed through the void.
The eyes began to close.
"You are more interesting than I thought."
"Who... are you?" Leon asked.
"I am the end of will, and the beginning of flame."
And then
Leon's consciousness began to fall.
But now, the fall felt different.
Not into nothing.
But into something.
And this time...
He wasn't alone..