Morning.
Gloomy. Dark.
The sky was tearing apart with thunderous fury, as if the gods themselves had clashed in a bloody battle beyond mortal sight. Lightning slashed through the clouds like golden wounds on a canvas of grey, briefly illuminating jagged stone spires and dead tree silhouettes, twisted like fingers reaching toward the heavens. The wind howled like a beast with a torn throat, tearing apart anything held together by a fragile will for peace.
Amid this chaos rose a manor — more a castle born from the worst of nightmares — dark, carved from black stone, with towers lost in clouds and windows like eyeless sockets. Inside, silence slept — not peaceful, but muffled, as if something waited.
In a room hidden deep within this mass of stone and shadow, on a simple yet tidy bed, a boy lay asleep. His body was tightly wrapped in a warm blanket, like a cocoon, and his face wore an expression of utter calm — not the kind born of carefree peace, but one forged on the edge of pain. The boy had no intention of waking, but the storm had other plans.
The window burst open with a crash, as though thunder's echo had shattered its locks. A furious wind rushed into the room, grasping at the curtains, scattering papers, stripping the night air from the walls. The boy flinched and awoke, his eyes opening — deep, violet, nearly inhuman. He tried to rise, but something — an invisible needle — pierced his chest. He clutched at his heart and grimaced. No sound of pain came, but it screamed from every line on his still-childlike face.
With a trembling hand, he reached for the nightstand. On it stood a dark vial, as if forged from night itself. He grabbed it, shook out a capsule — black like its contents — and swallowed it. Relief came almost instantly. The pain faded, his shoulders dropped, and a dull breath escaped his lips, as if he had regained the right to breathe.
Slowly, he rose and approached the window — the one that had torn him from sleep. The wind resisted like a living creature, but he finally closed the frames with a crash, like jaws snapping shut. Then, with the same deliberate resolve, he moved to the opposite wall where a switch awaited him. His fingers touched the cold metal, and the room filled with light — bright, merciless, revealing even what should remain in shadow.
His gaze fell upon his room — familiar to the last detail, known, but not comforting. He had lived here for as long as he could remember.
He was nine — perhaps ten — years old. But his appearance was unsettling. His short, snow-white hair looked unnatural under the chandelier's light. His eyes — deep as two wells — glowed with violet light. But the most disturbing part was his body — thin, bony, far too small for his age. His pajamas barely concealed his ribs, and his skin, white as snow, seemed stretched over a skeleton. Under his eyes — dark circles, evidence of a constant battle with his own nature.
The room — his fortress — was strange. It mixed styles and eras that by essence should not coexist. Ancient tapestries hung beside holographic projectors, and instead of a chandelier, a crystal of light glowed inside a metal cage. By the window stood a black wooden desk — its surface polished to a mirror shine, with a soft blue crystal glowing at its center. Papers lay scattered across it, marked with strange inscriptions in an unknown language.
A computer chair, though it looked comfortable, contrasted with bookshelves that reached the ceiling. The books were varied — new, old, torn, and rebound. Their spines bore symbols unknown to any existing alphabet. Some volumes breathed ancient wisdom; others — a savage knowledge best left forgotten.
Cain — that was his name — ran his fingers across the shelves. His movements were slow, like memories. His gaze — heavy, weary, as if his soul sighed with every touch of the past. He reached the desk, sat down, placed his hand on the crystal, and holograms appeared in the air. Not ordinary ones — they trembled, almost alive, responding to his touch. Diagrams, body schematics, photographs of ancient texts, lists, names — all passed before his eyes, and in each line he saw more than any grown scholar ever had.
Papers returned to his hands. The pen followed his thoughts. He wrote, sketched, and drew with stunning precision — not like a child, but like a seeker of truth.
A soft knock came at the door. Alongside it, a woman's voice slipped in like a shadow on water — gentle, careful:— Young Master Cain, are you awake?
His name broke the silence like a spell.
Cain.
Cain Ravenshade.
The House of Ravenshade was ancient and dark, one that could silence even the boldest. The Ravenshade family didn't just rule — they embodied the very idea of power. Their ancestors were revered swordmasters and mages — and creators of fear. Their creed was simple: only the strong survive. The weak have no right to breathe near true heirs of power.
The Ravenshades were a House of shadow. Mages of death, lords of curses and darkness. Their magic gave no light — it consumed it, nurturing darkness into a new form of life.
The House of Ravenshade — one of the Seven Great Houses of mankind — didn't merely rule. It held the heart of Nocthollow — a sector lost in the clouds of eternal night, where dawn was a myth and stars were scars upon the sky. Their homeworld, Naala, was hidden among eerie mists, wrapped around ruins, forests, and icy valleys where shadows seemed alive. It was a land of whispers, blood, and power — a place where even light felt like an intruder.
Ravenshade magic came from the deepest layers of reality — death, shadow, void, and whisper. They did not seek glory. They took it from those too weak to keep it. In Nocthollow, there was only one law: weakness is a crime.
Other Great Houses matched their might, but each had its own essence, its own lands, and its own elemental nature.
Siallis — the realm of the Valestars, born of light and warrior honor. Their castles rose from crystal and gold like spears to the heavens, and their swords blazed in the hands of mages of the Luminous Creed. Their elements were fire, light, and solar energy — forces mastered by them alone. Valestars did not fear the dark — they fought it.
Aerelia — the dominion of the Aurellians, masters of wind and sky. Their fortresses floated between atmospheric rifts, and their ships tore through clouds. Their element was wind, lightning, and ether. The sky was their home, and thunder — their voice.
Illenmar — the domain of the Airvents, scholars and magitechnologists. In their realm, the world ran not on emotion, but on formulae. Their mega-complexes glowed with mana and the pulse of computation. Their elements were metal, mind, and soul.
Vardemor — the territory of the Tarvens, desert mages. Their magic flowed through flesh, blood, and fury. The sand was their temple, and the storm — their blessing. They lived among dunes where even death walked slowly, afraid of the hunters' gaze. Their elements were blood, sand, flesh, and instinct.
Aquenia — the underwater empire of the Meridals. Water was both their mother and their weapon. Their coral and whale-bone bastions lay hidden in the depths, where time flowed more slowly. Their elements were water, ice, and transformation.
Arteran — the fortress-realm of the Haldens, masters of strongholds and war. Their cities breathed steam and gleamed with steel, and armor was a second skin for each of them. Smiths who forged artifacts from living metal. Their elements were earth, magma, and gravity.
Above all stood Heartfort, the planetary core of Eliantus. A majestic throne enclosed in a starry sphere — the seat of the Royal House of Estaldion. They did not engage in quarrels — they balanced them. Their eyes saw the full arc of the game. Their element was order and balance. They also wielded a mysterious form of energy — starlight, as beautiful as it was devastating.
But Vailens was not limited to humankind. After the Great Awakening, when ten thousand years ago mana burst into the physical world, the galaxy was transformed. Dungeons emerged, the System arose, new possibilities opened — and new enemies followed.
Five centuries after the dungeons appeared, another cosmic event occurred: the Great Convergence — an event that reshaped the galaxy forever. Civilizations that had never met before were drawn into the same cosmic space: proud elves, ancient spirits, mountain dwarves, beastfolk with their primal strength, ancient and mighty dragons, ethereal angels, and infernal demons. From that moment on, the history of the galaxy was no longer written by one race — but by a symphony of many worlds.
Syr'Antar — the elven sector, forests that grew even in vacuum, branch-like worlds where arcana and song formed new realities. Their elements were crystal, nature, life, and harmony.
Grimdolm — the dwarven hold, built on dead stars and steel ramparts. They spoke with machines, drew heat from the depths, and mastered the magic of construction. Their elements were metal, heat, construct, and pressure.
Liadris — the realm of spirits. There was no matter — only energy, pure essences, and the whisper of the elements themselves. Their elements were ether, time, space, memory, illusion, and the unspoken.
Tar'Kala — the jungle world of the beastfolk, where the weak did not survive. It was a land of instinct and strength, of eternal struggle. Their elements were nature, beast, agony, frenzy, and primal force.
Elisar — the kingdom of angels, where swords were wings, and words were flame. Their temples of light and atonement rose in the skies where no shadow fell. Their power was light, blessing, and divine magic.
Zara'ghan — ruins and throne of the dragons. Flaming skeletons of stars, sky craters, scorched cities — all were part of their history. Their elements included the four basic ones — fire, water, wind, and earth — along with those unique to their race: legacy, ruin, eternity.
And finally — Var'grot.
The demonic sector — a place where Abyssal magic seethed: poisonous, all-consuming, corrupting. They did not create — they decomposed, infected, rewrote the very essence of being. Their domains were toxic worlds, fractures in the fabric of reality, kingdoms where even death feared to tread. Demons did not seek alliances, did not negotiate — their only goal was consumption, assimilation, eternal expansion. Archdemons — living cataclysms, embodiments of devastation, beings whose mere existence warped space and sanity.
For millennia they waged bloody wars with all major races of Vailens — from angels and elves to dwarves and spirits. But now, a tenuous, ominously fragile peace has taken hold — not out of reconciliation, but mutual exhaustion and a strange silence spreading from the depths of the Abyss. Yet all know: this is not the end, merely the pause before a new horror.
And at the heart of this galaxy, on the planet Naala — lives Cain Ravenshade.
He is one of the heirs of Nocthollow. He is the silence before the storm.
And when what sleeps within him awakens, the world will tremble.