Elias withdrew into the cave once more, far from civilization.

  The world had changed.

  Not suddenly. Not loudly.

  More like a shift in the wind—something you feel long before you can name it.

  He sat in the darkness and listened to the silence pressing in on him.

  Not thinking of what had been.

  Only of what now was.

  ---

  Above the world, Aethron stood as if before a vast chessboard.

  He observed the movement of pieces. Shifted them without emotion. Calculated. Planned.

  Elias was a flaw in the system—

  but even flaws could be turned into tools.

  *He was created from me,* Aethron realized.

  *The aura he carries is mine. The same aura all my messengers possess.*

  And then the thought formed.

  *If Elias can grow…*

  *what if the others can grow as well?*

  He revisited the moment Elias had broken free.

  The obedience had never been absolute.

  With the other messengers, control remained intact.

  So Aethron changed the rules.

  The number of the Marked multiplied.

  The messengers were unleashed.

  Killing ceased to be controlled.

  ---

  **Narrator:**

  Humanity entered an age of fear and collapse.

  For Aethron, it was merely an experiment—

  a game played by a higher being without mercy.

  ---

  Deep within the cave, Elias struggled to restrain his power.

  He failed.

  The harder he tried, the heavier the aura pressed against him, like a weight threatening to crush his existence.

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  Yet something else awakened alongside it.

  He began to sense what had never been there before.

  Life. Death.

  The fear of people across impossible distances.

  The reach of his aura had expanded.

  He could shrink it—

  but he could no longer silence it.

  Then it came.

  A wave of terror. Screams. Despair.

  Not his own.

  The world was drowning in disease and epidemic.

  Cities burned. Thousands died by the hour.

  And within that chaos, Elias felt something alien.

  An aura of death.

  Not his.

  He understood instantly.

  *Aethron.*

  Without hesitation, Elias moved.

  He chose his path carefully, flowing through shadows, minimizing the harm his presence could cause.

  When he reached the city, only remnants of life remained.

  Corpses lined the streets. Panic filled the air.

  People whispered of a lethal plague. A sickness without cure.

  Elias noticed something wrong.

  His aura did not harm the wounded.

  Nor the living.

  Only then did the truth reveal itself.

  All the victims were infected by a foreign aura.

  Relief followed—

  and then anger.

  That was when he saw him.

  A messenger.

  He looked like an ordinary man.

  But Elias saw no life within him.

  He knew the messenger had to be stopped.

  Aura met aura.

  Nothing happened.

  The messenger had already received his order.

  *Kill him.*

  Two auras in close proximity created resonance.

  They canceled each other out.

  The messengers no longer possessed physical bodies.

  They were pure energy—

  death without form.

  The messenger lunged with a knife.

  Elias dodged at the last moment.

  The next strike pierced straight through his chest—through the heart.

  Fear.

  *Is this how I die?*

  There was no pain.

  No blood.

  Elias understood.

  He was the same as the messenger.

  Only denser. Stronger.

  He struck back with everything he had.

  The messenger was hurled several meters, crashing through a wall.

  With every blow, Elias felt Aethron’s energy unravel.

  The aura was useless.

  But the touch of decay remained.

  The fight lasted minutes.

  The messenger was skilled.

  Elias was not.

  He won through brute force alone.

  The final strike shattered the messenger’s core.

  And Elias felt something new.

  He was consuming the power.

  The aura recoiled inward.

  Then—

  memories.

  Decades of slaughter.

  Pleasure taken in death.

  And something else.

  A blurred image of Aethron.

  A fragment of a path.

  A partial location.

  Elias understood.

  *If I destroy more messengers… I can find him.*

  ---

  Hours later, the region began to heal.

  Aethron felt the loss.

  For the first time, his energy did not return.

  For the first time, fear touched him.

  The attacks were reduced.

  The epidemic faded.

  During the experiment, four percent of the population perished.

  ---

  **Narrator:**

  The first failed experiment.

  The first battle.

  The first messenger slain.

  Elias gained direction.

  Aethron learned the taste of fear.

  The hunt begins.