Blackhunt Origins Arc – Part 2
Location: Blackhunt Guildhall – Training Grounds, Earthside
Time: 2 Weeks Before Floor 3 Re-entry
The echo of twin blades slicing through mana-dummies filled the air.
Asha's movements were silent, ghostlike—every strike made without hesitation, every cut landing on a vital point. Her soul weapon, the Whisper Blades, shimmered as translucent daggers formed from a fine mist that never clanged, never gleamed—only killed.
Raghav and Kaido watched from the sidelines.
"She doesn't make a sound when she fights," Kaido muttered.
"She doesn't need to," Raghav replied. "Sound is for those with something to say."
Ankit approached the field with a mana-core-enhanced water bottle and tossed it to her. Asha caught it mid-air, unsmiling, eyes steady.
"You don't stop practicing, do you?"
She didn't respond immediately. Then, "Silence is what kept me alive. Habits die hard."
Ankit nodded. "Then maybe it's time to let one of those habits speak."
A pause.
And then—
"Fine. I'll tell you what the Tower made of me."
🕯️ Six Years Ago – Old Delhi Slums
Asha didn't remember her mother. Her earliest memory was of a blood-soaked alley where a man screamed as he was dragged into the shadows.
She and her younger brother, Aman, grew up scavenging food from garbage bins behind government buildings. Aman loved spicy wafers and wanted to become a vet. Asha just wanted to survive.
At age 11, she manifested her Soulmark—a faded grey lotus with a single petal inked in red.
The slums called it "the death flower."
By 12, her soul weapon awakened—a set of ethereal daggers that obeyed her thoughts like extensions of her limbs.
But the Tower didn't find her.
The syndicate did.
🕸️ Four Years Ago – The Red Veil Facility
The Red Veil was an illegal Tower-aligned blacksite—a soul weapon training center for "expendable assassins."
They trained children.
There were no windows, only simulation chambers and pain reinforcement trials.
Asha was taught to slit throats before she ever learned to laugh. She killed her first instructor at age 13—during a training match. They promoted her.
She never found Aman again.
🕶️ Two Years Ago – Tower Floor 1, Dungeon Ruins
On a contract mission, she encountered a "rogue climber" marked for execution.
When she tracked him, she realized something strange: he had no killing intent. He was a healer.
He gave her food.
She killed him anyway.
"Survival has no morality."
That was the rule.
And yet, after she retrieved the soulcore from his corpse, her blade shuddered for the first time—trembled like it had felt shame.
She realized: her weapon had grown tired of silent death.
🌕 Present Day – Blackhunt Barracks, Tower Moonlight
"I left the Red Veil during a Tower raid. An earthquake opened a fissure in the dungeon wall. I escaped through blood and dust."
Asha looked at Ankit. Her voice had softened.
"I ran until I reached Earth. I didn't care where. And then I saw you."
Ankit remembered that night. A girl in bloodied rags had held a poisoned dagger to the neck of a merchant scamming soulbearers. Before she could slit his throat, Ankit blocked her with a blade—not to hurt her, but to stop her.
He'd said:
"If you want to kill, make sure it's not the only thing you know how to do."
Asha had laughed.
Her first laugh in years.
Now, in the present, Ankit tossed her a combat jacket with the Blackhunt insignia.
"You're not just our blade anymore, Asha."
He paused.
"You're our shadow."
She blinked.
Then slipped the jacket on.
She wasn't just surviving now. She was hunting beside a pack that didn't flinch at her silence.
The Whisper Blades had finally found a name worth fighting for.