Years before the night of reckoning, before the masked figure haunted the corrupt elite, Lucian Valtheron was nothing more than a name buried beneath the weight of nobility—a boy born into privilege, yet suffocated by the rot festering within the very system meant to uphold justice. But unlike others of his lineage, Lucian’s eyes were not blinded by wealth, nor was his heart hardened by power. He saw the cracks in the empire’s foundation, the injustice that lurked beneath the grandeur, and he despised it.

  Lucian was the firstborn son of Lord Castor Valtheron, a man whose name commanded both fear and respect. Castor was more than just a noble; he was a tactician and a master manipulator whose influence reached beyond his lands and into the highest echelons of the kingdom. His rule was absolute, his judgment final, and his methods ruthless. He believed in control through power, and he wielded it mercilessly.

  From a young age, Lucian was subjected to a rigorous and often brutal education. His father ensured that he learned the nuances of diplomacy, the intricacies of financial exploitation, and the cruel efficiency of war. By the age of ten, Lucian could recite entire economic treaties from memory. By twelve, he had outmaneuvered seasoned advisors in strategic war games. By fourteen, he had been forced to witness public executions—to understand, as his father put it, the price of defiance.

  But for all his brilliance, Lucian was not his father’s son. He was different. Where Castor saw people as pieces on a board to be moved, sacrificed, and discarded, Lucian saw individuals with hopes, fears, and dreams. He did not delight in suffering; he loathed it. While his father thrived in the cruelty of governance, Lucian secretly questioned the morality of their rule. And questioning, in the Valtheron household, was a dangerous thing.

  Lucian’s break from his father was not sudden—it was a slow, festering realization, a creeping awareness that grew stronger with each passing year. It started with the small things: the way he hesitated when ordered to discipline a servant, the discomfort he felt when noblemen laughed at the misfortune of peasants, the growing bitterness he sensed from those forced to bow before his family’s wealth. But the true breaking point came when Lucian uncovered the truth behind their prosperity.

  One evening, under the glow of candlelight, Lucian stumbled upon his father’s private ledgers hidden within a locked chamber of their estate. What he found shattered the illusion of nobility. The documents detailed systematic extortion, forced labor camps disguised as workhouses, and villages razed to the ground for resisting the Valtheron rule. His father was not merely a ruthless ruler—he was a monster.

  Lucian could not ignore what he had seen. For the first time, he confronted his father, standing before him with the ledger in hand, his voice trembling with suppressed rage.

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  "How many lives have you destroyed? How much blood stains our name?" Lucian demanded.

  Castor did not flinch. He did not deny it. Instead, he smiled—a cold, knowing smile. "Power is not built on kindness, boy. It is forged through sacrifice. The world is a game, and only those who are willing to play without mercy will survive."

  Lucian clenched his fists, his entire being rejecting the words. "Then I want no part in it. I will not be your heir. I will not be a part of this madness."

  His father’s gaze turned sharp, his smile vanishing. "Then you are a fool." There was no fury in his voice, only disappointment. "And fools do not last long in this world."

  Lucian did not realize the full weight of those words—not until the night that followed.

  That night, Lucian’s world was torn apart. He awoke to the sound of screams—his mother’s screams. Rushing through the corridors, he found her lifeless body sprawled across the floor of their chamber, blood pooling beneath her. A dagger lay beside her, its hilt cold in his trembling hands.

  And then came the guards.

  Castor stood in the doorway, his expression one of feigned sorrow. "A tragic madness," he murmured, loud enough for the assembled guards to hear. "My own son… murdering his mother in a fit of lunacy. I had hoped to guide him, but he has lost his way. Justice must be served."

  Lucian could barely comprehend what was happening before he was seized, his wrists bound in chains. The trial was swift, the judgment predetermined. Within days, he was sentenced to execution—a mere formality to cleanse the Valtheron name of his disgrace.

  But fate had other plans.

  The night before his execution, the prison erupted into chaos. A fire, set deliberately, raged through the dungeons, and amid the smoke and screams, a hooded figure slipped into his cell. Selene—a woman he had once met at court, the daughter of a noble family that his father had ruined. She had waited years for this moment.

  "I will not let him win," she whispered. "Come with me, or die here."

  Lucian did not hesitate.

  That night, the boy who was once a Valtheron disappeared, and in his place, a phantom was born.

  Lucian spent the next years in the shadows. He traveled through the kingdom’s underbelly, learning the ways of thieves, assassins, and revolutionaries. He honed his mind, studying the art of manipulation, deception, and subterfuge. He read the scriptures of fallen empires, memorized the mistakes of past rulers, and learned how to break men without ever raising a blade.

  Through experience, he sharpened his cunning. He learned to anticipate moves before they were made, to understand the desires and fears that drove men to betray or follow. He became a strategist, a ghost in the web of the kingdom’s corruption.

  And he never forgot.

  Each day was a step toward vengeance. Each lesson was another tool to dismantle the world his father had built. And when the time was right, he would return—not as the fallen heir of House Valtheron, but as the faceless nightmare that would tear it all down.

  For Lucian was no longer merely a man.

  He was a storm waiting to break.

  CHAOSRAVEN