They say the world used to be quiet.
Not peaceful. Not kind. Just… quiet.
Before the Halos. Before the Awakenings. Before light became weapon and belief became blood.
Back then, people still died from common things—disease, hunger, war. We didn't understand the sky, didn't understand ourselves. We built monuments to gods we never saw, prayed to stars that never blinked back, and hoped that maybe, just maybe, something out there was listening.
It wasn't.
At least—not until the sky cracked.
They don't teach this part in the academies. Not anymore. They say it's folklore. Revisionist mythology.
But the older generation remembers. The ones who lived through the Breaking. If you ask them—really ask them, not in the classroom but in the back alleys, by dim lanterns and sullen drinks—they'll tell you:
The Halos were never meant to exist.
They came like fire.
Some say it was a war between gods, fought in realms above our understanding, and when one of them fell, its body shattered reality itself. Others say it was science gone too far—an attempt to reach the core of magic, to rewrite the code of existence.
Some believe it was a wish. The wrong wish.
Whatever it was, it ended everything.
The sky split open, veins of white flame pouring across the heavens like lightning that refused to vanish. Then silence. For seven days, the sun never rose. The oceans held still. Gravity weakened, like the world had lost interest in holding on to us.
And then, the first Halo appeared.
It hovered above a child's head in the ruins of a fallen city. A ring of light—thin, almost fragile—glowing with a deep blue shimmer. No one understood it. Not even the child. But when soldiers tried to take her, she whispered a word she didn't know, and every man within a hundred meters turned to salt.
That was Year Zero.
That's when everything changed.
The Halos spread quickly. Not like disease—but like memory. Like something ancient waking up in people, one by one. The rings came in all colors—gold, crimson, white, silver, violet—each one with different gifts. Some granted strength. Others gave sight beyond sight. A few twisted time itself.
Society did what it always does: it broke the unknown into categories.
The Church of Radiant Order declared Halos divine gifts—marks of those chosen to lead.
The Archanic Council called them arcane interfaces—magic brought into visible form.
And the kingdoms of man, hungry and afraid, built towers, schools, armies.
They called it the Age of Awakening. But it wasn't awakening. It was escalation.
Wars became divine. Children were raised not with lullabies, but with mantras—chants to stabilize their Halos before puberty, lest they combust in their sleep. Whole nations were measured not by borders, but by the power of their bearers.
And as the lights grew brighter… so did the shadows.
It started as a rumor. Just one.
A village burned down in a single breath. No light. No glow. Just… absence. Witnesses described it like the world itself had been "turned off." No magic residue. No trace of a ring.
Just one thing left behind:
A black scorch in the shape of a circle, floating silently where a Halo should be.
A Black Halo.
It didn't shine. It devoured.
Not fire. Not blood. Not air.
But magic itself.
People panicked. Called it a curse. A sign of the end.
The Church declared it an abomination. "A wound upon the Light." They erased records, purged scrolls, burned cities that dared to speak the name.
The Council quietly created entire divisions dedicated to finding the source—and eliminating it.
And the public? They forgot. Or pretended to.
But not all of us forgot. Some of us listened. And we heard the whispers behind the veil.
They say there was once a child born under a moonless night—no Halo, no color, no prophecy. His presence alone disrupted magic. Nullified spells just by breathing. Made lights flicker and voices go quiet. He didn't shine like the rest. He… unraveled.
The world rejected him. Schools refused him. Churches called him cursed. Even the land itself seemed uneasy beneath his feet.
And so he vanished. Buried in history.
But history isn't so easily buried.
Because now, centuries later, in the crumbling outer zones far from the Council's reach… the Black Halo has returned.
And it remembers everything the light tried to erase.
Authors Note:
Thanks so much for reading. I know this first chapter was more about the world than the characters, but I really wanted to lay the foundation before diving into the chaos ahead. If you made it this far, seriously—thank you. It means a lot.
Rai's story starts soon, and things get a lot more personal from here.
Stick around. We're just getting started. 🖤
See you in Chapter 2. Coming out on Friday Or Saturday