Chapter One: A Bargain in the Shadows

The multiverse was a graveyard of ambition

Once-bright worlds were reduced to husks, their skies dimmed and their soil infertile, drained of vitality by the overuse of magic and spiritual energy. Civilizations clung to life like parasites, unaware that the very foundations of their existence were eroding beneath them.

For most, the decay was an unsolvable mystery. For those in the shadows, like soul merchants, it was an opportunity.

At the heart of the decaying multiverse lay a man without a name—a soul merchant who had clawed his way to power by sheer cunning and ruthlessness. To his clients, he was known only as Maelvas, a name whispered in fear and desperation. But Maelvas had not always been this harbinger of doom. Once, he had been a mortal like any other: a laborer, a son, a slave.

Born into poverty on a dying world, Maelvas had known suffering intimately. His village had been sold to a warlord for the promise of protection, only to be harvested as fodder in a war they did not understand. He was dragged to the frontlines, stripped of freedom, and cast into servitude. Every day was a struggle to survive, but he had one rule: never bow.

That defiance, however, nearly cost him everything.

One fateful evening, in the aftermath of a failed uprising, Maelvas found himself bound and beaten, awaiting execution. His body ached from the punishment, and his blood soaked the earth beneath him, but it was his spirit that burned with fury. He had defied the warlord, and now, at the mercy of fate, he realized the true cost of that rebellion.

But instead of the cold bite of a blade to his throat, he was visited by a figure wreathed in shadow—a novice soul merchant sent to claim the spoils of war.

"Your life has no worth," the merchant sneered, his voice like a rasping whisper, cold and distant. He held up a crystal vial, filled with swirling, ethereal light. "But your soul? It will serve a greater purpose."

Maelvas's eyes flickered with recognition. Soul merchants—predators who harvested life energy to feed their dark powers—were not new to him. He had seen them come and go over the years, feeding on the broken, the desperate, the forgotten. But this one... there was something in the merchant's eyes.

A flicker of arrogance.

Maelvas did not beg. He did not plead. He had learned long ago that such things were futile. But as the merchant spoke, he listened—truly listened—not just to the words but to the underlying currents of weakness in the soul merchant's voice. He could feel the merchant's uncertainty, the trepidation hiding beneath the veneer of smug authority.

Maelvas had a choice. Beg for his life and die, or listen for the smallest crack in the merchant's control, an opening that could be exploited.

He remembered the lessons from his time as a laborer—a slave to others' whims, bound by chains and promises. He had learned to observe, to study, to see the lies beneath the surface. And now, he would turn that knowledge into something far more dangerous.

The merchant, in his overconfidence, had left a loophole in the contract, a small but critical omission. The phrasing was imprecise—an incomplete binding clause that would not tie Maelvas's soul inextricably to the contract. The merchant had been so eager to harvest a soul, so hungry for power, that he had overlooked it. That was his mistake.

Maelvas's voice was calm as he spoke, "You claim that my soul is of no value, yet you offer it in exchange for your power. But I don't need your mercy. I don't need your offer. What I need is an agreement."

The merchant's eyes glinted with interest as he took a step closer, raising the vial higher. "And what agreement would that be, mortal?"

"The soul you seek is mine to give," Maelvas said, staring directly into the merchant's eyes. "But it will not come for free. I will give it to you—but only if you provide something in return: a promise, not of power, but of absolute freedom—freedom from the very laws that bind us. I will trade my soul, but only for the guarantee that you will not control me, not now or ever."

The merchant smirked, misinterpreting Maelvas's words. "A fool's request. You speak of freedom as if I have the power to grant it. You are but a broken man on the verge of death. Your soul will be mine—just sign the contract."

Maelvas smiled, the hint of victory creeping into his expression. "That is exactly what I am asking for. Freedom. A soul—freely given, not stolen. You will have my soul, but you will not have me. I bind myself to you in exchange for power, but not in the way you think. I will be bound by my own will."

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The merchant's smile faltered for a split second—an imperceptible crack in his confidence. The contract he offered was a standard one, designed to enslave a soul entirely, to weave the essence of the soul into the merchant's very being. But the clause Maelvas demanded was a careful manipulation of the language, one that created a chasm in the wording. The merchant could take the soul, yes, but the exchange Maelvas requested was one he did not anticipate: the binding would not be absolute. It would not enslave him entirely—it would simply transfer his essence, leaving a small portion of his soul free, outside the contract's reach.

In a moment of overconfidence, the merchant agreed, and Maelvas's hand reached out to sign the contract.

But there was more. Maelvas wasn't done. His fingers moved quickly, his thumb flicking over the edges of the contract, using the tiny gap in the words to make a mark that would alter its meaning. As the merchant's eyes flickered momentarily to the grimoire, Maelvas's mark activated a hidden rune in the soul merchant's own book, a symbol the merchant himself had never noticed before. With that single motion, Maelvas's signature was infused with his own emergency sigil—an escape clause hidden in plain sight. The soul merchant was unaware that Maelvas had just made the terms unbreakable in his favor.

The merchant raised the vial triumphantly, and Maelvas allowed himself to be consumed by the energy. It flowed through him, but with it came a twist. The merchant's influence over Maelvas's soul was fractured, incomplete. What Maelvas had done was simple yet devastating: he had ensured that his soul was not just harvested, but empowered.

The merchant was left reeling, sensing something was wrong but unable to react in time. The power Maelvas had taken was not just raw energy—it was an infusion of control, a thread that Maelvas could use to sever the merchant's power entirely. In that moment, Maelvas's own power blossomed like a flower of fire, consuming the merchant's essence and twisting it into something new.

"You think you can control me?" Maelvas said, his voice a low growl of dark satisfaction. "You are not my master. You never were."

With a single, brutal gesture, Maelvas tore away the merchant's power, leaving him nothing more than a hollow vessel. The merchant collapsed to the ground, and Maelvas, now holding the tools of the soul merchant, stepped forward, breathing heavily.

The act of defiance did not grant him freedom—it sealed his fate as a soul merchant himself. But in that moment, he had gained something far more valuable: the ability to choose, to carve his own path.

No longer a victim, Maelvas had become the predator.

By the time Maelvas had mastered his craft, his world was no longer recognizable. The overuse of soul energy had rendered it barren, the once-lush forests now twisted and lifeless. Cities floated in the sky, desperate to escape the creeping desolation below, their leaders clutching at ancient relics to stave off collapse.

Yet even here, in the heart of decay, people dreamed. They dreamed of salvation, of power, of escape. And Maelvas was always there to offer it—for a cost.

The sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows over the ruins of a forgotten temple. Maelvas stood at the altar, cloaked in black, his eyes glinting like embers beneath his hood. Before him knelt a young man, his face streaked with dirt and tears.

"I… I don't care what it takes," the man stammered. "I want them dead. All of them. My family, my home—those bandits destroyed everything!"

Maelvas regarded him coldly. "And what would you give in return, mortal? Your soul?"

The man hesitated, but only for a moment. "If that's what it takes, then yes. My soul, my life, anything. Just grant me the power to kill them."

The merchant's lips curled into a predatory smile. He waved his hand, and the Ethereal Script appeared in the air—shimmering runes that twisted and writhed like living things.

"Very well," Maelvas said. "You will have your vengeance. But know this: the vengeance I will grant you will consume you piece by piece. Each life you take will strip away a piece of your humanity. When you are nothing but a hollow shell, your soul will be mine. Do you still dare?"

The young man, named Gideon, had not always been consumed by rage. Once, he had been just a boy with dreams of a simple life, running through the fields of his village, playing with his younger sister, and laughing with his parents. Life wasn't perfect, but it was peaceful, and that was all he needed.

But that all changed in a single night.

Gideon's village was attacked by a group of ruthless bandits—savage men who had raided countless towns for wealth and sport. The night they came, the world as Gideon knew it was torn apart. His father, a proud and strong man, had tried to rally the villagers to defend their homes, but the bandits were too many, too brutal. The walls of their village had been torn down in mere hours, and the once vibrant streets were stained with blood.

Gideon had watched in horror from his hiding place, unable to do anything but watch as the bandits set fire to everything. He saw his father's struggle to protect his family, the light fading from his eyes as he took blow after blow. His mother, too, had fought, but there had been no stopping the onslaught. She had tried to shield his younger sister when the bandits took her as a prisoner. Gideon's last memory of her was her pleading face as they dragged his sister away.

He had survived the massacre, but the cost was high. His parents, his home, and his sister were gone, and in their place, there was only an insatiable hunger for vengeance.

The days following the attack had been filled with emptiness, a void that could not be filled by anything but revenge. He had wandered, broken and lost, searching for meaning, searching for some semblance of justice. But the world was indifferent to his pain. The guards in nearby towns refused to help, offering only words of pity, their hands tied by bureaucracy and fear. The authorities turned a blind eye to the small villages, to the people whose lives had been shattered by violence, because they weren't worth the effort.

That was when Gideon had learned the harsh truth: in this world, pain had no value unless you had the power to make others feel it.

It was then that he sought out Maelvas, the soul merchant, hoping against reason that the dark power promised by the merchant could help him get the vengeance he craved. He had no illusions about the cost. He had nothing left to lose. His humanity had already been stripped away by the bandits, and now it was time to take from others what had been taken from him.

The man's eyes burned with hatred. He didn't even read the contract before signing.

Maelvas snapped his fingers, and the air around them crackled with energy. A blade materialized in the young man's hands—a weapon forged from a fragment of his own soul. It pulsed with an unnatural light, promising carnage and destruction.

The man rose, his face a mask of determination. Without another word, he disappeared into the night, leaving Maelvas alone in the temple.

As the echoes of the man's footsteps faded, Maelvas turned his gaze to the horizon. The decaying sky bled hues of red and gold, a reminder of the multiverse's inevitable fate.

"People think they desire power," he murmured to himself. "But what they truly crave is freedom—from weakness, from pain, from the chains that bind them."

He stepped down from the altar, his cloak billowing behind him. "And yet, in seeking that freedom, they only bind themselves further. Fools."

The temple dissolved into shadow as Maelvas vanished, leaving behind no trace of his presence.

For him, this was just another day—a small step toward a much greater ambition. To rise above the decaying multiverse, to become an Eidolon, was not merely a dream. It was his destiny.

And nothing—not heroes, not rivals, not even the multiverse itself—would stand in his way.