The alarm bell rang out with a harsh, metallic clang, slicing through the stillness of Valmount like a sword through silk. Just moments ago, the town had been steeped in its usual twilight hush—shops closing, lamps flickering to life, commoners retreating behind worn wooden doors. Sounds of moans and grunts drifting from the section where the guards were off their shift. It was clear they were involved in.. some extra activities besides guarding the vault. But now? Now, the air pulsed with urgency.
"Sound the alarm!" a guard had shouted, panic lacing his voice.
Within seconds, trained soldiers poured into the streets, armor clattering, blades unsheathed. Spears were leveled, and the noise of disciplined chaos filled the town square. A cluster of mages in dark robes emerged like ravens from a disturbed roost, A mage at the head of the group rushed to wear her mage's cloak. She looked pure and radiant, but in reality, her mind and heart were not as pure. The mages came out in droves. Their presence was unmistakable—cloaks swirling with minor enchantments, eyes glowing faintly from stored magic.
All this commotion pointed to one place: the vault.
Built into the side of a fortified ridge just beyond the outskirts of Valmount, the vault held the tax coffers of Duke Caspian's riverside dominion. It was an ugly truth, known and whispered through the cracks of poor neighborhoods: the taxes were suffocating. Crops, crafts, and coin—nothing escaped the duke's greedy grasp. The commoners of Valmount toiled endlessly, feeding a system designed to keep them hungry. Resistance had always been futile.
Until now.
A shadow had suddenly risen.
A name passed from whisper to whisper in back alleys and busy markets. Nightshade. Some claimed he was a former royal mage gone rogue. Others said he was a noble son turned rebel. All they truly knew was that wherever he appeared, nobles found their vaults empty and their pride shattered. After the noise died, he discreetly shared the money with a lucky few.
If you didn't receive it, he would make it up to you and your household during his next raid; When Nightshade attacked, it was no different from Christmas for the townsfolk. he had practically been to all the houses in the town.
Tonight, he watched it all unfold from the rooftop of a tailor's shop opposite the vault.
He sat casually on the ledge, one leg draped over the edge, the other bent beneath him. His black suit clung elegantly to his frame, sleek but flexible. A theatrical cape flapped behind him in the breeze like the banner of some forgotten hero. At his side hung an old, black sword—its value less in its steel and more in the story it told.
Only the lower half of his face was visible beneath his hood. His lips attached to chiseled jaws, curled into a smug smirk as the guards below rushed around like startled ants.
"I must be famous then," Zac muttered, his voice laced with dry amusement.
He was the kind of figure that demanded attention, even in stillness. Tall, with an unnaturally calm presence, he made chaos look like choreography. It was that cape, ironically, that had given him away. A flick of fabric too bold, too dramatic—just enough for a sharp-eyed archer to glimpse. That guard had sounded the alarm before Zac could even finish getting comfortable.
But Zac didn't mind.
He liked the attention. It made things easier.
From up here, he had a perfect view. The guards were taking defensive positions. The mages formed a protective semicircle around the vault doors, hands glowing, murmuring incantations under their breath. Rune traps—Zac noted three already. Likely more, hidden beneath the dirt.
Still, he didn't move.
To any onlooker, he must've seemed incredibly powerful. A dark figure suspended above the madness, cloaked in mystery, daring the world to reach him. That impression was useful.
But also wrong, he wasn't powerful, he was a hack. A glitch in reality that needed to be patched. It wasn't fair to regular people.
Zac—better known as Nightshade—was not a warrior forged in battle. He wasn't even particularly diligent in his studies. If anything, he was lazy by nature, distracted by boredom, always skipping lessons at that rundown magic school where most of his peers could barely conjure a spark.
What set him apart was one thing: imagination. And a bit of genius.
Where others memorized and recited spells passed down by dusty professors, Zac invented. He didn't just use magic—he reshaped it. And at the age of eighteen, he had created something that no licensed mage had ever considered: a spell that manipulated space itself. Maybe he would learn new spells in the future. That, he lazily didn't think about.
For an eighteen-year-old to create a spell was unheard of. If his classmates in that old run-down magic school knew this, their mocking laughter would be stuck in their throats. Being tall had its perks and made him look good in a suit. But having a deep raspy voice made the dramatics even more appealing.
Who needed stupid wind spells when you had control of space? Err.. maybe only a few wind spells. Like the one he used to descend the building, although incredibly simple, it still worked.
It allowed him to fall like a feather, he rose to his feet, letting the cape flutter dramatically as the wind pulled at him. With a theatrical flourish, he extended both arms wide, as if preparing to conduct an invisible orchestra. Then he stepped off the roof.
Not jumped. Not leapt. Stepped—as if gravity itself had politely agreed to delay its duties.
The fall was slow. Graceful. Zac drifted downward like a curtain drawn by invisible strings, arms still open, eyes half-lidded. His cape rippled behind him, catching the lamplight in ways that made the nearby guards hesitate.
He landed soundlessly, his boots pressing into the earth with a whisper. No crater. No tremor. Just presence.
A murmur rippled through the soldiers.
"...It's him."
"Nightshade."
"Don't let him near the vault!"
Zac rolled his neck lazily and adjusted the gloves on his hands. With a soft inhale, he deepened his voice, the tone shifting into something guttural and commanding. Another trick, another layer to the myth.
"Tremble before me... insects."
He watched their expressions twist. Confusion. Fear. A flicker of anger. Many of these same guards strutted through market squares, pushing peasants aside with chests puffed out and egos high. Mages barked orders at hungry children. Nobles rode past the dying with not even a glance.
Calling them insects wasn't just a taunt. It was poetic justice. And Zac lived for it.
Their leader, a mage, tall with silver hair braided down her back, stepped forward. Her staff burned blue at the tip.
A simple artifact used to enhance one's spells.
"You finally came." she snapped. "You cursed devil"
Zac sopke in his usual deep menacing voice. "Cursed? Don't give me that innocent speech Debra, if anyone here is cursed. It's you, you're probably the most immoral human being here."
"Yoouu... how do you know my name?"
A shade of red crept over Debra's face, calling her immoral was an understatement. Nightshade's next words made her expression turn solemn. As if saying "I can't let you leave here alive."
Zac laughed sending chills down the spine of the guards. Many of them wished they could just go back to what they had been doing.
"Nothing hides from the shade, especially not the ones you do at night!"
Debra voice quivered
"You.. you think you can scare us with words and theatrics?" she snapped..... for the second time.
"We know who you are. We've prepared for you."
Zac tilted his head, feigning curiosity. "Oh?" His voice was silk now, light and mocking.
"Did you prepare your will, and a burial ground too?"
Debra's face went through three different frowns before settling on one. She struck her staff into the ground. Magic flared, and several runes lit up on the ground around
There was a reason Zac, better known as Nightshade, could walk into traps set by elite mages and still walk out without a scratch.
His power wasn't brute force. It wasn't some cursed bloodline or forbidden pact.
It was space.
Zac had created a spell—one so precise, so fundamentally advanced, it left even high-ranking mages baffled. At first, it was a crude teleportation spell, simple in theory. Create a portal and teleport. But over time, his analytical mind dug deeper. He studied distance as a concept. He explored the friction between physical movement and magical displacement. What others saw as boundaries, Zac saw as stretchable fabric.
He could teleport himself. He could teleport objects. He could teleport attacks thrown at him. But that was only the beginning.
His true genius came when he applied another rare skill on top of it. One that seemed incomprehensible to anyone who didn't have a high talent it magic.
Invisibility.
Even seasoned mages could only render a horse, or a weapon, invisible for a few minutes at best—ten, maybe fifteen. Beyond that, the spell would flicker, collapse, or become unstable. That was the accepted limit.
But Zac didn't accept limits.
He studied the composition of the spell. Broke down every rune, every vibration, every fluctuation in mana draw. And then he did what no one else had ever done: he stabilized it.
Not for minutes. For hours.
Objects made invisible under Zac's spell didn't shimmer or distort. They vanished. Cleanly. Entirely. No aura. No magical trace.
And then he pushed it further.
He combined his space magic with invisibility.
The result? He didn't just vanish—he erased presence itself. Portals became phantoms. Objects were teleported and hidden simultaneously. No flash. No sound. Just gone.
To those watching, it was as if Nightshade made things cease to exist. Even the way he always appeared over the rooftops. No one saw him climb, jump, fly, or even appear there. He was always just... there, suddenly out of nowhere.
Did this mean he was overpowered? Zac would have loved to believe that. But, being a genius who understood the complexity of magic. He was sure there were other powers out there as strong as his. He might have been powerful in this region, but how far could that power take him?
"I will burn you!" the silver-haired mage captain shouted, slamming her staff into the ground.
Glowing glyphs lit up around Zac in a tight ring—rune magic. Especially Powerful.
Zac didn't move. The rune grew brighter, like a bomb about to blow and then, magic snapped like a whip—energy backfiring in a brilliant explosion.
BOOM.
Dust, smoke, light—chaos.
Dozens of mages unleashed their spells all at once.
Fireballs. Ice lances. Lightning bolts.
Soldiers, panicked and jittery, loosed volleys of arrows into the smoke, for three whole minutes, convinced they'd overwhelmed the vigilante.
For a moment, everything was obscured. One guard almost celebrated, his small mind incapable of comprehending anyone surviving that amount of spells. Heck, not even Grand mages could block that.
Then—footsteps.
A calm figure walked through the smoke, cape fluttering behind him.
Zac emerged slowly, his black suit untouched, not even scorched. At least there should have been dust on his boots. But no, even his boots were shiny.
The air around him shimmered slightly, only visible to those who looked closely—a residual signature of warped space.
Gasps rang out from the soldiers.
"H-he's still standing?!"
"He walked through a barrage!"
"He didn't even move!"
Zac didn't speak. He simply raised his head. His hood still shadowed most of his face, but the smirk was unmistakable.
Then, in a blur of motion, he dashed forward, cape slicing through the haze. Using one of the few spells he knew. The simple wind spell, mastered and effective. He propelled himself—simple, fast, loud. Just enough to stir panic.
The guards scrambled, weapons raised. Another wave of mages panicked and cast again—flames, bolts, light-blasts.
And then, they all saw it.
The attacks phased right through him.
Their spells struck nothing. Zac didn't dodge—he passed through them. Or they passed through him. Either way it was a sight out of story book. Like smoke through a sieve.
"That's impossible!" a young mage shouted.
"I-I think thiiissis guy is a ghost!"
"He's getting closer, more fire power!!!"
A second later, Zac fazed through their front line of shield mages as if they were made of mist.
One tried to raise a barrier ahead of him—but Zac was already through it, gliding like a specter.
The head mage, sensing the breach, lifted her staff and began weaving a high-tier spell, her strongest yet. Light gathered at her core, forming into something vast and deadly.
Zac didn't hesitate.
He blurred forward—then vanished for a second—reappearing behind her.
The spell never fired.
Zac's sword, drawn in a whisper, sliced across her back in a clean, single arc.
Blood gushed out like they spilled from a river. Before it could stain, the shadowy figure he was gone. As if he had never even been there.
Debra crumpled.
A stunned silence followed.
Then—chaos.
The remaining mages panicked. Some cast spells blindly. Others screamed commands. Several launched fireballs and concussive waves in Zac's direction—but Zac was already gone, fading like a ghost into the rising smoke.
Their attacks slammed into each other. Spells meant for Zac struck allies instead.
One shield mage flew backward from a lightning strike. Another burst into flame. A third collapsed as two arrows landed in his thigh—fired from his own unit's archer.
"Stop firing blindly!"
"Where is he?!"
"I saw him near the gate!"
"No—he's behind us!"
Every shadow looked like him. Every movement could be his, In truth, Zac wasn't even among them anymore.
He had already vanished.
His invisibility spell was still active—woven into a spatial fold that masked even his aura. To the enemy, it was as if he'd become the smoke itself.
For the next five minutes, the courtyard turned into a mess of confusion and self-destruction. Mages turned on each other by accident. Soldiers struck out at allies. Half their own squad was unconscious or injured by their own hands before someone finally screamed—
"STOP! STOP EVERYTHING!"
A silence fell.
No more spells.
No more arrows.
Only heavy breathing, groans, and the smell of scorched leather and burnt wards.
Nightshade was gone.
Or maybe he'd never been there to begin with.
Someone finally ran and checked the vault.
The reinforced steel door had no visible damage. Its enchantments were still intact. The guards stepped inside, cautious, weapons drawn, expecting an ambush.
The room was empty.
Gone.
The small chest, filled with gold. They had spent so many resources defending—the one holding the duke's tribute—was missing.
Not broken into. Not moved.
Gone.
No trail. No trace. No spell signature. Just open air where once there had been a fortune.
And beside the pedestal, in the faint dust near the floor, someone noticed a mark burned into the stone.
It was a simple flower—drawn in one smooth stroke.
A nightshade.