Chapter 7: The Chosen Light... and the Unseen Shadow

[Scene - Gods of the Realm - The Sky Above Time]
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The Divine Assembly
High above the linear flow of mortal time, in a dimension where the concept of "seconds" held no weight, lay the Sky Above Time. It was a realm of blinding, absolute purity—a white sky that stretched into infinity, devoid of stars or a sun, yet illuminated by the sheer presence of the divine. 
Clear pillars of crystalline light, each thousands of miles high, acted as the structural anchors of this celestial theater.At the epicenter of this radiance stood the Throne of Aeons, a seat forged from solidified sky-fire and celestial gold. 
Upon it sat Elmyria, the World Goddess and supreme architect of the Velgrith.
 Her hair cascaded down her shoulders like the first light of a thousand dawns, and her eyes were not mere pupils, but swirling, endless galaxies that mirrored the birth and death of stars.
She sat in a silence that had lasted decades, her gaze fixed upon a scrying pool at her feet. Below the surface of the pool lay the continent of Velgrith—a massive island surrounded by a history-laden ocean, currently mired in what she called the False Peace.
"The humans have failed again..."Her voice was a haunting melody of sorrow and absolute authority. It resonated through the pillars, drawing the attention of the four entities standing in the shadows of the throne. 
These were the Elemental Gods—Ignir of Fire, Maris of Water, Terranis of Earth, and Sylphar of Wind—the primary deities born alongside the creation of the world.
"The fire flickers," Ignir roared, his voice like the crackle of a dying forest.
"The water still flows, but it carries the scent of rot," Maris added solemnly.
"The earth crumbles beneath the weight of lies," Terranis groaned.
"The wind weakens, choked by the gathering gloom," Sylphar whispered.
The four gods stepped forward in unison, bowing their heads before their creator. They felt the shift in the world's mana—the balance that had been maintained for a century since the disappearance of the First Hero was beginning to tilt toward an abyss they did not understand.
"We concur," the gods spoke as one. "A summoning is necessary."Elmyria nodded slowly. Her galaxy-eyes shimmered with a heavy light. 
"The Summoning of the Hero of Light. As we do every century to reset the clock of progress and purge the gathering entropy. This will be the second one."
But as she reached out to stir the scrying pool, her fingers stopped. Black motes of dust, looking like ink in clear water, drifted across the surface. They did not belong there. They were an infection in the web of fate.
"...However," her gaze narrowed until it was as sharp as a diamond. "There is another."
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[Scene - Viewing Kuro]
The Viewing of the AnomalyThe view in the scrying pool shifted, zooming past the clouds of Velgrith to the edge of a jagged cliff in the Eastern Ironwood Kingdom.
There stood a boy.
His hair was silver, catching the moonlight in a way that seemed to drain the color from the surrounding trees. He stood perfectly still, his hands in his pockets, his expression one of total emotional desensitization. To a mortal, he would look like an unremarkable boy, a child of retired adventurers.
But to the gods, his shadow was a terrifying sight. It stretched unnaturally far across the grass, reaching toward the forest like the fingers of a dead god.
The wind did not touch him. It swirled around his body as if afraid to make contact. Even time itself seemed to bend slightly in his presence—the falling leaves near him slowed to a crawl, caught in the invisible gravity of his aura.
Elmyria's eyes closed, a flicker of genuine fear crossing her divine features. 
"This boy... I did not choose him. His soul carries the stains of ancient chaos, a darkness that was never meant to take root in this cycle."
"He wields magic that transcends this world's laws!" the Fire God roared, his flames turning a nervous blue.
"He can even summon the Great Abyss," Sylphar added, her voice trembling. "It is a void of pure calculation... a heart that has been cracked into fragments and rebuilt with cold steel".
Elmyria gently clenched her hand, and the pool rippled violently. 
"He is a calamity. A corruption of the divine balance. He views our world as a chessboard and its people as mere pieces to be moved for his True Justice."
She looked deeper into the boy's past—not just his life as Kuro Velgrith, but his terrestrial genesis as Kiyoshi Ishida. She saw the Black Book of psychology, the cold project mentality of his parents, and the clinical efficiency with which he had mastered the dark side of human nature.
"Left unchecked," the Goddess warned, "he could become a second Dark Magic God... or something new, and far worse. He is a Miscreant of Darkness who refuses to play by the rules of our False Peace."
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[Scene - The Decision]
The gods stood in a circle around the scrying pool. Each placed a hand toward the center, and threads of silver and gold light began to weave between them, connecting their essences like a tapestry of fate.
"We summon now," Elmyria declared, her voice rising in power. "Not just to save humanity from the demons, but to destroy the aberration that hides in the light of the Velgrith. To break a master of shadows, we cannot use a simple warrior."
"We must choose someone connected to him," Terranis suggested. "A bond that exists outside of this world's history."
Elmyria's eyes glowed with a blinding intensity. "Someone with a strong bond... a light that can penetrate his Soul Veil. Someone who knew the boy before his heart became a void."
She reached into the Web of Fate—a shimmering grid of silver threads that spanned across dimensions, connecting the World of Velgrith to the World of Presence. Thousands of souls flickered past, but her fingers sought a specific frequency, a resonance of friendship and shared memory.One thread, buried under the weight of grief and mundane life, suddenly shone with a brilliant, golden light.
"Found him."
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[Scene - World of Presence - Present Day Japan]
In a quiet apartment in modern-day Tokyo, the city smelled of rain and distant exhaust. A boy sat alone at a desk, the only light coming from a small lamp and the blue glow of his computer monitor.
His room was a study in ordinary adolescence. Textbooks were scattered across his bed, and a half-finished chessboard sat by the window—the pieces frozen in a mid-game stalemate. He wore large headphones, listening to low-fidelity music as a way to drown out the silence of the apartment.
The boy sighed, leaning back and staring out the window at the rain-slicked streets. His mind drifted back to a funeral he had attended months ago—the quiet, lonely memorial for Kiyoshi Ishida. No one had really known Kiyoshi; most saw him as a quiet tool or an unremarkable student. But this boy remembered the brief moments behind the mask.
"Kiyoshi... I wonder what really happened to you," he whispered. "Did you find the peace you were looking for?"
As he spoke the name, the air in the apartment began to hum. The dust motes in the lamplight stopped moving. The boy pulled off his headphones, his eyes widening as a soft, white glow began to emanate from the floor beneath him.
"Wha—?"
The glow intensified, turning into pillars of light that mirrored the celestial realm. The chessboard by the window rattled, the king piece falling over with a sharp clack. The room filled with a blinding, divine radiance that tasted of ozone and ancient power.
Before he could scream, before he could even stand up, the light consumed the apartment, the boy, and his memories of the world he knew.
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[Scene - The Realm Between Worlds]
The boy felt as if he were falling through a sea of blue stars. His consciousness flickered like a candle in a gale. When he finally opened his eyes, he was no longer in Tokyo. He floated in a space of infinite light, standing before a figure so magnificent it hurt to look at her.
Elmyria stepped forward, her wings folding behind her like sheets of silk. She looked down at him with a mixture of hope and divine desperation.
"You are the Hero of Light," she told him, her voice echoing in his very soul. 
"You have been chosen to bring peace to a broken world. To destroy the shadow that threatens the balance of Velgrith."
She raised her hand, and a mark appeared on the boy's chest—the Flame of Judgment, a divine weapon that would one day clash against the Abyss.
"His name is Shujin," the Goddess continued. "But you once knew him by another name. Save him... or end him. For the sake of the universe."
The boy tried to speak, but his voice was gone. The light claimed him again, pulling him down toward the mortal plane.
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The Mortal Ripple
Far below, on the cliff's edge in the Eastern Ironwood Kingdom, Kuro's eyes snapped open.
He didn't move. He didn't gasp. He simply stood there as the atmosphere shifted. The mana in the air, usually stagnant and predictable, was now rippling like the surface of a disturbed lake. 
He felt the tear in space-time, the signature of high-level teleportation magic used only by the divine.
"Just the gods interfering," he muttered. His voice was cold, measured, and entirely uninterested.
But deep inside his Shadow Core, something stirred. It was a faint vibration, a name from his forgotten past that he had buried under layers of Dark Psychology and tactical masks. It was a connection to the only person who had ever seen him as more than a "project".
Kuro turned his face toward the sky, his purple eyes glowing with a predatory intelligence.
"If they can summon a hero to maintain their False Peace... then I wonder," a thin, sharp smile touched his lips—a smile that held no warmth. 
"Will they be surprised when their savior doubts them? Or will they be the ones to regret bringing a piece of my past into my new kingdom?"
He turned and walked into the shadows of the forest, his cloak drifting like smoke. The second act of the cosmic game had begun.
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✦ To be continued...