Prologue – The Cursed Child

The night Adrian Lucian Damaris was born, the sky over the Damaris Clan’s ancestral city split with lightning. Midwives whispered that the heavens themselves were trembling — yet when they laid eyes on the child, no power stirred in him.

A child of the Damaris bloodline was supposed to manifest the Clan’s mark: flames that could bend reality, shadows that could bend fear, or stormcallers who could rip apart the skies. But Adrian was… empty.

“Nothing,” one elder spat, as the infant wailed in his swaddling cloth. “No aura, no resonance. A hollow vessel.”

Some whispered it was mercy. Others called it doom. The clan branded him a curse — not because of what he was, but because of what he was not.

Children mocked him as he grew. Adults turned their eyes away as if he carried a disease. At five years old, he was smaller than the others, quieter, always sitting apart. He had learned early: silence was safer than speaking.

But the curse did not stay silent.

---

Adrian had been cornered in the training grounds by three of the clan’s brightest heirs.

“You shame our bloodline,” the eldest sneered, flames flickering around his fists. “You don’t deserve the Damaris name.”

Adrian kept his head bowed. He had grown used to such words. But then the boy struck him — once, twice. Blood trickled down Adrian’s lip. Something inside him cracked.

“Fight back!” the second heir jeered, lightning sparking around his arm. “Or crawl back into the dirt where you belong.”

Adrian’s small fists clenched. For the first time, he looked up — and his eyes were different.

A voice, cold and hungry, whispered in his head.

“Devour.”

The world stilled. Adrian felt heat surge through his veins, not fire like the clan’s gifted, but an abyss. His small hand reached out — and in a breath, the eldest heir’s flames were extinguished.

The boy screamed. His aura — his power — dissolved, threads of fire torn from his soul and swallowed into Adrian’s body. The prodigy collapsed, empty, like a lamp with its flame snuffed out.

The courtyard echoed with silence. The other heirs stumbled back, horror etched on their faces.

“You… you erased him!”

The boy who had once been a genius now lay trembling, powerless. And Adrian — cursed Adrian — stood over him with eyes black as midnight, shadows curling around his tiny frame.

The news spread like wildfire. Elders gathered in the great hall, fury blazing.

“The boy is an abomination,” one thundered. “The Devourer system is a myth we sealed away. It should not exist!”

“He has broken balance,” another hissed. “A child who can consume gifts — he threatens every bloodline.”

Adrian stood in the center of the chamber, chains clamped around his wrists. He was five years old, trembling, but the whispers in his skull would not stop.

> “Devour. Grow. Survive.”

The Clan Lord raised his hand. “Adrian Lucian Damaris is hereby condemned. For the safety of our people, he must be erased before the curse spreads.”

The words hit like thunder. Guards stepped forward with drawn blades. Adrian’s heart pounded. He could barely breathe. Was this it? His end, before life even began?

Then a voice cut through the chamber.

“Stop.”

An old woman stepped forward, her cane striking against the marble. Her hair was silver, her eyes like molten steel. Evelyn Damaris — the clan matriarch, Adrian’s grandmother.

“You fools would kill a child?” she spat, her voice carrying authority that even the Clan Lord could not dismiss. “Because you fear what you cannot control?”

“He is cursed,” an elder protested.

“He is mine,” Evelyn snapped. “And as long as I breathe, none of you will lay a hand on him.”

The hall fell into uneasy silence. No one dared challenge her.

Evelyn turned to Adrian. Her stern expression softened, just barely. “You will not die here. But you cannot stay.”

Adrian’s small body shook. He didn’t fully understand — only that he was unwanted, again.

“Go,” Evelyn whispered, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Survive. Carry your curse if you must. One day, the world will learn that monsters are not born — they are made.”

---

Exile

That night, under cloak of darkness, Evelyn led him beyond the city walls. She pressed a dagger into his hands — far too large for a child, yet the only gift she could give.

“You are my blood,” she said. “Do not forget that. And do not let them chain you again.”

Adrian wanted to cry, but no tears came. Only the voice of the system, echoing in his mind, patient and eternal.

> “Devour. Grow. Survive.”

He stepped into the wilderness, his small frame swallowed by shadows. The world was vast, cruel, and waiting.

From that night forward, the name Adrian Lucian Damaris was spoken in hushed tones — the cursed child who carried the forbidden system.

But the boy who walked into exile would not remain forgotten.

One day, he would return. Not as a hollow child. Not as a clan’s disgrace.

But as Death — the man who devoured all who stood in his path.