458 AD Long before I came into existence, the Heavenly Realm was no longer the peaceful paradise people spoke of.
The Great Holy War between the Demon Realm and the Heavenly Realm had shattered golden barriers, torched sacred temples, and spilled rotting dark energy across the celestial plazas.
The war finally ended with a reluctant treaty only because both sides were too exhausted to continue slaughtering each other.
I was born into the heavy, suffocating lull that followed.
My father was a high-ranking battle general of the Demon Realm; my mother was an Archangel of the Inner Court.
Carrying the blood of both sides, I was the living proof of her shame.
During my first four years, my mother tried to strangle, abandon, and poison me.
Yet every time, she stopped at the very last moment.
She kept me alive not out of mercy, but out of a desperate desire to tame a half-breed child and use it to bargain for her lost status before the High Council.
Living and being loved, however, were two entirely different things.
Words like useless, abomination, and stain echoed through the vast, freezing house.
I was banished to a small storage room at the end of the corridor, shivering alone through cold nights.
When I turned seven, the outside world proved no kinder.
Every time I walked into the city, angelic children threw stones at me, shouting: “Look, it’s the half-breed!
Don’t go near him, he’ll taint the light.” I never cried, only staring down at my red blood pooling on the white stone paths.
I truly began to believe my existence was a mistake.
Yet, a deep yearning to be accepted drove me forward.
Realizing angels valued knowledge and magic, I believed becoming smarter might earn my mother’s approval.
She reluctantly allowed me into the family archives.
In that quiet space smelling of dust and ancient ink, I buried myself in texts on history, souls, and magical theory.
According to ancient records, Mana was the standard energy used by ordinary mages.
Above Mana lay two sources of absolute power: Holy Power—the divine force of healing and purification; and Demonic Power—the wild, destructive force of the Demon Realm.
Scholars insisted they were absolute opposites that could never coexist without destroying the caster’s soul.
Yet inside my body, Holy Power felt warm like morning sunlight, while Demonic Power ran heavy and hot beneath it.
In my left palm rested a soft golden light; in my right, a blood-red flame.
They did not clash; they blended naturally.
To manifest magic, a caster had to construct a Magic Circle in their mind using an Internal Spoken Tongue—an internal linguistic framework that shaped intent and gave structure to the spell.
I learned to carve these glyphs into my mind as a scaffolding for magic circles.
Though I fell and bruised myself constantly, I learned to soothe my pain with Holy Power and burn away obstacles with Demonic Power.
After months of practice, I combined both energies: Holy Power bent the light around my body, while Demonic Power dampened sound and erased footprint vibrations.
I called this original spell “The Veil of the Vanished.” The first time my hands dissolved into the air, I let out my very first laugh of genuine joy.
Yet talent brought no love.
When my mother fell gravely ill from a lingering war curse, I brought a silver cup of cold water to her room.
But as I reached out to check her fever, she opened her eyes with pure disgust, shouting, “Don’t touch me!
Get out!
You ruined my life!” She struck my arm, shattering the silver cup on the floor.
The broken metal sliced my knee, but I simply cleaned up the shards and withdrew.
After that day, she stopped treating me like a tool and treated me as if I didn’t exist at all.
Then came the day two heavily armored angels smashed open our front door.
“Where is the brat?” one sneered.
I fled into the back garden.
Cornered against the high stone wall at the edge of the estate, I closed my eyes and summoned both forces.
A golden Holy magic circle appeared at my feet, while an inner blood-red Demonic circle spun inside it.
Using the Internal Spoken Tongue of the gods, I carved an outer containment frame to lock both counter-rotating energies together safely.
“Veil of the Vanished.” My body turned completely invisible.
The two assassins ran right past me.
But just as I thought I had escaped, the taller angel stopped.
His eyes flared with a bright blue light—The Celestial Eye, a spell capable of piercing light distortion.
“Childish trick,” he sneered, releasing a violent blast of wind that slammed me hard into the stone wall.
My ribs cracked, and blood welled in my throat.
I desperately tried leaping away, setting the grass ablaze with Demonic Power and casting illusionary shadows with Holy Power.
But every spell a seven-year-old could cast was effortlessly shattered by raw, overwhelming strength.
The angel grabbed my collar, hauling me off the ground.
Whispering into my ear with wine-stained breath, he said: “The Lady paid us a handsome sum to clean up this stain once and for all.” My mother.
An icy chill ran down my spine.
Every excuse I had made for her over seven years shattered into dust.
“Don’t kill me…” I begged in a whisper, but he only tightened his grip.
I looked behind them.
Right where the edge of the Heavenly Realm ended lay the Void Rift—a chaotic expanse of space separating the divine and mortal realms.
Falling into that abyss meant certain death.
But dying there was far better than being slaughtered like an unwanted object.
I looked at the two angels and let out a tired, quiet smile.
I took a step backward.
My heels slipped off the stone ledge.
The angel lunged, but it was already too late.
I leaned back into the air.
In the moment my body lost its footing, I heard the wind rushing past my ears.
An empty sensation opened up in my gut.
My arms flailed out by reflex, trying to find something to hold onto, but touched only the cold air.
I was falling.
The golden sky above quickly receded into the distance.
The two angels stood at the edge of the cliff, their faces distorted in shock.
One of them shouted something, but his voice was instantly torn apart by the wind.
I plummeted past floating shards of stone.
A sharp fragment scraped against my shoulder, tearing my shirt and leaving a burning streak of pain.
I spun from the momentum, completely unable to control my body.
My stomach twisted in knots.
My lungs spasmed from the lack of air.
Every time I tried to inhale, I only swallowed a rush of freezing air that burned my throat.
Above me, the light of the Heavenly Realm grew smaller and smaller.
I thought I would miss it.
But as I watched the golden spires gradually vanish into the distance, I felt only emptiness.
No one called my name.
No one gave chase.
No one wanted me back.
That thought hurt far worse than any of the physical wounds on my body.
I closed my eyes.
The wind continued to howl in my ears, yet inside me, it was strangely quiet.
No more of my mother’s scolding.
No more of the children’s laughter.
No more voices calling me a monster.
There was only the expanding darkness below, and my small body continuing to fall.
I did not know where I would die.
Nor did I know if something was waiting for me down there.
But for the first time in my life, I wasn’t trying to please anyone.
I wasn’t trying to become smarter.
Not trying to be stronger.
Not trying to prove that I was worthy of living.
I was simply falling.
And if fate truly wanted me to disappear, then at least this time, that decision did not belong to my mother.
It belonged to me.