The wind lashed against the mountains of Vladore, carrying with it the salty scent of distant seas and the chill of land scorched by frost. The valleys were filled with an eerie silence, a silence that spoke of ancient legends never told, and the mist that lingered among the dense forests seemed like a blanket trying to conceal the face of a kingdom cursed by time.

  The kingdom of the Middle Lands was a harsh, wild place, yet incredibly captivating. The people here lived with little, but what they had was all they knew. Stone, rock, iron—hard materials that reflected the hardness of its people's character. In Val Varde, the village at the foot of the mountains, the day seemed like all the others... until that moment.

  The dust kicked up by the crowd rose into the air like an ancient spell, blending with the scent of the earth and the excitement of a ceremony that was repeated every year. It was the day of the Blessing Ceremony: a tradition that had deep roots in the kingdom's history for centuries. Every young person who turned sixteen stood before the Sacred Mountain to receive the gift of the Gods, a power that would determine their fate.

  Eryon Valestra stood among the other boys, his heart pounding harder than he would have liked to admit. He looked at the faces of the others, some filled with hope, others with quiet resignation, but he couldn’t feel anything. His life seemed already written, but in a language he couldn’t decipher.

  "Don't worry, Eryon, it’ll be just another year. Nothing different from the others," a voice said behind him.

  It was Kyra, a girl he'd known all his life. Her words were kind, but they couldn't hide the truth that hung in the air. The Ceremony wasn't just a rite of passage. It was the moment when every young person had to prove their worth, their purpose, their place in the world.

  "And what if... I don’t receive anything?" Eryon asked, staring at the horizon where the grey sky blended with the earth.

  "Don’t receive anything? You can’t say something like that!" Kyra responded, laughing half-seriously, half-worried. "You should be happy. Think of the blessing you’ll receive. You’ll finally..."

  But Eryon wasn’t listening. His eyes wandered into the mist rising from the mountains. As far back as he could remember, his family had never received great blessings. They were farmers, people who lived in the shadows of Vladore’s lands. His only "blessing," perhaps, would be hard labor in the fields, a fate that seemed already sealed.

  The priest was now calling the young ones forward, one by one. His deep voice echoed in the air, a sound that seemed to come from the other side of the earth.

  "Rachelle of Farlen, Blessing of Strength!" announced the priest, and the crowd erupted in applause as the girl approached the altar. Her slender figure stood out against the grandeur of the mountain, but her body radiated a warm light, an energy that seemed to emanate from a hidden fire within her.

  "Blessing of Strength!" The priest’s voice was an echo of hope for Rachelle, and for all those awaiting their turn. It was the power that would allow her to face the harsh life of the kingdom, protect her loved ones, and earn the respect of others.

  Eryon felt small amidst the scene. The voices of the other youths, the smiles of those who already knew what would happen, made him feel even more distant. He had spent his entire life searching for a sign, something that would tell him there was a reason for his existence. But that day felt no different from any other.

  The priest continued to call the names, and each blessing seemed brighter than the last.

  "Eryon Valestra," the priest said, his voice slicing through the air. "Eryon Valestra, Silent Archive."

  An instant chill enveloped the village. The air seemed to pull back, as if the whole world was holding its breath. Eryon looked at the priest, then at the other youths, but their gazes were not filled with hope. They were full of disdain. Silent Archive? He had never heard of such a blessing.

  "What does 'Silent Archive' mean?" Eryon murmured, but no one answered. The people around him turned, exchanging looks of disapproval.

  The priest, with a sad smile, said, "Not all gods bless with visible powers, boy. Sometimes, true power lies in the invisible. Do not fear, your blessing will be your path."

  But the words did not comfort him. Eryon’s face turned pale, and he walked toward the altar with steps that felt as heavy as stones. No power. Only a label, an invisible mark that separated him from the rest of the world.

  The crowd slowly dispersed, but the weight of the Ceremony hung in the air. The priest’s words echoed in Eryon’s mind, like an echo that refused to fade: "Silent Archive." A name without meaning, a power unseen, a fate that no one could ever understand. And for him, that day marked failure.

  The boy found himself at the edge of the square, away from the satisfied smiles of the other youths who had received extraordinary powers. Kyra approached, her smile unable to conceal her concern.

  "Eryon, it’s not the end of the world," she said, trying to place a hand on his shoulder.

  "No, it’s not... but it feels like it is," Eryon replied, his tone bitter and tired. "They gave me a meaningless name. I received nothing."

  Kyra paused, looking at him with eyes full of pity. "Don’t say that. You have a power, even if you can’t see it. The others don’t understand, but... you have to believe in who you are."

  But Kyra’s words only added to the weight inside him. The truth was that there was nothing in him that had value, nothing that could justify his existence in a world that measured everything by power, strength, and skill. How could he hope to find a place in the world when his very fate was tied to something invisible?

  As he walked away from Kyra, his gaze was caught by a group of young people speaking off to the side. He recognized them immediately: Lirael, the girl with the bow, and Rake, one of the most promising warriors of Vladore. Their gazes turned to Eryon, and the look of disdain in their eyes was so obvious that it didn’t even take a gesture for him to feel like an outsider.

  "Look who it is..." Lirael whispered to Rake, with a laugh that seemed to cover her contempt.

  "Eryon Valestra, the Silent Archive," Rake repeated the name mockingly. "I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. He doesn’t even need a sword or magic; just stand in a corner and stay invisible."

  Rake’s words hit Eryon like a punch in the stomach. He couldn’t breathe. The humiliation was fiercer than any physical wound. But he didn’t respond. He turned and quickly walked away, before his dignity could be further shattered.

  The wind, which had seemed calm and silent moments before, turned into a cold force that whipped his face. It was as if the whole world was pushing him away, as if his very path was no longer wanted in the kingdom of Vladore.

  "Eryon!" called a familiar voice behind him. It was Kyra, catching up to him with quick steps. "Eryon, you can’t let them win. Not them, not these people."

  "I can’t fight against what I am," Eryon replied, with a calmness that hid the anger rising within him. "I have no power. I have nothing. And even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything."

  Kyra stopped, her face tense with strong concern. "Eryon, you can’t think like that. If you truly think your life is useless, you’ll never know what your destiny can really be. But I believe there’s still something great in you, and don’t let the others tell you who you should be."

  "Who are they to decide who I am?" Eryon burst out, his voice trembling but unwavering.

  "They are nobody... but neither are you, Eryon," Kyra responded seriously, as if it were a truth that needed to be said. "You are not their judgment. You are not the power they gave you. You are not what they think. You are who you choose to be, not who they label you as."

  Eryon looked into Kyra’s eyes, but couldn’t respond. That hope she was trying to pass on to him didn’t seem to make sense in that moment. The girl’s words echoed in his head, but they were a melody too far away. He didn’t believe in that hope.

  His heart burned with frustration, and a thought began to take shape in his mind: revenge. Not revenge as an irrational impulse, but as a form of redemption. If he couldn’t receive a blessing, then he would have to find his power on his own, so that no one could ever humiliate him again.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "It’s not over, Kyra," he finally said, with a determination he had never felt before. "Maybe I’m not like them. Maybe I’ll never get what they have... but my fate won’t be decided by them."

  Kyra didn’t answer immediately. She looked at him with an expression that mixed hope and sadness. But she said nothing more. She simply took him for a moment, squeezing his arm, as if trying to pass on her courage to him.

  "Then, walk your path, Eryon," she finally said, letting him go. "Never take a step back again."

  Eryon didn’t respond. He turned and, without looking back, walked toward his family’s house. His heart was pounding, his spirit was changing, and within him, a new strength was growing. A fire burning in his chest.

  It was only the beginning.

  The sunset painted the sky of Vladore in fiery shades of orange and red, but none of it seemed to touch Eryon. His steps were slow, heavy, as if every movement was an act of resistance against a fate he had not chosen.

  When he returned home, he found his parents waiting for him, but their gaze was not one of welcome. His mother, with dark hair and tired eyes, looked at him with a sadness she couldn’t hide.

  "Eryon..." his mother began, but it seemed she didn’t know how to continue. There was a tremor in her voice, a kind of shame heavier than any words.

  "I’ve been labeled as the Silent Archive," Eryon said, not looking at her. "Nothing. Worthless."

  "I’m sorry," his mother said, her tone filled with an undeniable sadness. "You should have received a blessing that would have given you strength. Instead..."

  At that moment, the door suddenly opened, and his father entered. His gray eyes, always stern, didn’t even move when he noticed his son.

  "What happened?" he asked brusquely, but his voice betrayed a form of embarrassment. "You were supposed to be different, Eryon."

  The words burned like a wound, but Eryon didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. His father looked at him as if he were already a failure.

  "I can’t change you, Eryon," his father said, his voice tired and resigned. "All I can do is watch as the world rejects you, just like it does to those who never received a true blessing."

  His father’s words were the final blow. Eryon felt as if something inside him was breaking. Despite the love of his parents, there was no hope for him. There was no place for someone like him in a world that valued only those with power.

  In that moment, a voice echoed in his mind: "The Void." A name with no power, but one that seemed like an indelible mark.

  It was the day he would receive his new title: "The Void." It wasn’t just a label, but a sign of complete uselessness, a judgment that condemned him to oblivion. An emptiness inside and out, that could never be filled.

  Eryon didn’t know how true that was, but his heart was beginning to become like that title: empty.

  The next day, as he walked through the streets of Vladore, he could feel the eyes of others following him, the disdain, the shame. Voices rose behind him:

  "He’s The Void. He has no power."

  "They say he can’t do anything. How can someone like him call himself a hero?"

  People looked at him, but not as they looked at others. They didn’t see him as a person, but as a walking failure. The label of "The Void" was now more powerful than any blessing, and there was no escaping its meaning.

  As Eryon walked, his steps were filled with anger and frustration. But it wasn’t just anger toward others; it was anger toward himself. "Why am I like this?" he asked himself. "Why can’t I be like everyone else?"

  But then, in that solitude, the thought that had been swirling in his mind returned to a truth he couldn’t ignore: revenge. Not revenge as everyone thinks of it, not the desire to destroy others, but the desire to change his own fate, to no longer be defined by anyone.

  After days of solitude, Eryon decided to take the first step. He would no longer accept his label without reacting. The anger he felt would become his strength, and his revenge wouldn’t be on those who humiliated him, but on his own existence, to prove that he was more than what others saw.

  His path wouldn’t be easy, but Eryon would no longer let the world judge him. If he was The Void, then he would be the one to fill that void. And he would find a way to prove that, even in a world without apparent blessings, one could find a power that no one could destroy.

  Eryon had been walking for hours, his step heavy like the burden he carried inside. The cold winds of Vladore brushed against him mercilessly, but within him burned a fire he couldn’t extinguish. The "Void" scorched his flesh, weighed heavily on his heart like a boulder. The Void... that damned label they had given him. Was this what fate had in store for him? And yet, something inside him screamed that he could not remain in this darkness.

  The ground beneath his feet was covered in gray sand and debris, a sign that no life existed there. But suddenly, a figure appeared in the midst of the fog. A tall man, wrapped in a black cloak, with a face hidden by a mask that reflected the light like a metal plate.

  "I've been waiting for you, Eryon Valestra." His voice was like a whisper that expanded into the air, dense and unsettling.

  Eryon, despite having seen many men like him in his life, immediately sensed a tension that made his hair stand on end. "Who are you? What do you want from me?" he replied, trying to mask the fear in his voice.

  The man didn’t move but gestured toward the distant black mountains. "What you want doesn’t matter. But what awaits you is a trial."

  Eryon frowned. "A trial? What kind of trial?"

  The man took a step closer. "An encounter with a mythical creature."

  With a sharp movement, the man launched a shard of light into the gray sky. The light exploded, creating a rift in the air. From it, a mythical beast appeared, a gigantic dragon with black wings, its eyes burning with flames. Its skin was scaly and hard, like rock, and its presence crushed the very air itself.

  Eryon hesitated. He could feel his heart racing, but he didn’t know what to do. His sword trembled in his hands. He wasn’t an experienced fighter. He wasn’t prepared.

  "Defeat it," said the masked man, his voice filled with cold indifference. "And perhaps you’ll have a place outside the Void."

  The monster roared, a deep cry that made the earth tremble. Eryon didn’t move. He didn’t know how to face such a creature.

  "Silent Archive," he thought. He knew he possessed that strange ability, but he didn’t fully understand it. He simply watched things, and they remained imprinted in his mind, but he had yet to learn how to use them to his advantage.

  The dragon launched a searing flame at him, but Eryon didn’t move. The heat struck his side, causing him to fall backward. His flesh burned, but the pain seemed to fade immediately.

  Slowly, a strange sensation began to creep inside him. His mind focused on the movement of the beast, on how its jaws opened and how its tail moved with devastating power. "If only I could understand..." Eryon thought, as he tried to study every detail of the dragon.

  Suddenly, a fragment of memory slipped into his mind. His mind registered it as if he were watching a technique he had seen before. The dragon attacked again, but this time, Eryon managed to spring up quickly, unconsciously invoking a parry. He had seen that move somewhere...

  The energy came from a moment. Silent Archive was helping him reproduce a defense he had never practiced.

  His sword deflected the flame, but the monster didn’t stop. It was only the beginning. Eryon felt his body wasn’t responding as quickly as he would have liked, as if his mind was a surge of electricity, but his body was too slow to follow.

  The dragon attacked him with a devastating blow to the abdomen. Eryon collapsed to the ground, his sword far from him, as pain overwhelmed him.

  "It’s not enough... It’s not enough!" he shouted, trying to get up.

  Silent Archive activated once again. A new vision struck him: a quick movement, a precise strike that could have weakened the beast.

  But Eryon couldn’t fully control the ability. He couldn’t piece everything together.

  "I have to make it!" His mind was a vortex of anger and frustration. The creature was overwhelming him. But then, finally, an idea surfaced in his mind. Eryon had seen something in the past, something that would give him the opportunity to bring down the dragon.

  With a wild cry, Eryon stepped forward and struck the creature. The sword cut through the dragon’s scales, but not without difficulty. His ability had given him the key to defeat it, but the power of Silent Archive was never perfect.

  The beast finally collapsed to the ground, and Eryon fell beside it, gasping, exhausted. His eyes burned, but inside him was a sense of satisfaction he had never known before.

  The masked man slowly approached, saying nothing.

  "You did it, but don’t forget," the man said with an enigmatic smile. "You’re not yet out of the Void."

  Eryon stood up, his heart pounding. His battle had just begun.

  The air was heavy, saturated with a fog of frustration and anger. Eryon sat in a dark corner of the battlefield, his hands still gripping the hilt of his sword, his breath, labored and heavy, mixing with the sounds of his comrades celebrating their victory.

  The image of the black dragon he had faced haunted him. The beast, colossal and invulnerable, with scales as dark as the night, still lingered in his mind. Its breath had clouded the air, and its claws, as long as lances, had torn through the ground as if it were paper. There was nothing he could have done to stop it, and his power, the ability that was supposed to set him apart, had proven useless.

  "How... can I...?" he murmured, lowering his gaze to the dirt, trying to sort out his thoughts. "What do I do with all of this?"

  The image of his father flashed before his eyes. His cold voice, his disdainful look when he had been given the title of "The Void." Every word of contempt, every laugh behind his back, it all came rushing back now with an unbearable weight.

  He stood up, his body trembling, his face marked by sweat and tears of unexpressed rage. The scene of the battle spun in his mind: the blows he couldn’t block, the ability he couldn’t control. "Silent Archive..."

  With a violent motion, he hurled his sword at a rock. The metal bounced with a dull thud, and his hands trembled even more. His rage was alive, strong, burning. But he couldn’t afford to just be rage. He had to understand, he had to change.

  He knelt on the ground, his hands gripping his hair. "It’s not fair... Why me? Why do I have to be the failure?"

  Then, silence. His mind stopped for a moment. There was no answer. Nothing, just the void that had always accompanied him, the same feeling of helplessness that had driven him away from the kingdom.

  "But if I have to be the Void, then..." Eryon lifted his gaze, staring at the dark sky above him, the wind lashing against his skin. "...then I’ll fill the Void myself."

  That phrase, which had seemed like nothing more than a way to endure, now felt different. For the first time, he felt the words held meaning. "And I’ll change this world. With or without power, I’ll change it."

  He slowly stood up, his breath deeper, the determination beginning to burn in his heart. He didn’t know how, but he knew he wouldn’t just stand by. His rage was no longer a weakness: now it was his strength.

  With one last look at the battlefield, he turned and began walking toward the future, knowing the road would be long and difficult. But the Void that had defined him was no longer a sentence: it was a possibility. "I will change, or die trying."