"DUSKCHORD: Wings of the Hollow"
Light Novel Format – Vol. 1: Echoes Before MoonfallA story of cursed eyes, sacrificial pacts, and a child born of night.Genre: Supernatural, Dark Fantasy, Action, PsychologicalMotifs: Night, Memory, Ravens, Shadows, Coins, Death
📖 Prologue — When Light Abandoned the Sky
In the forgotten edges of the world, when the last sun flickered into nothingness, something stirred.
Not death.Not life.Something in between.Dusk.
In this hour—neither night nor day—Tenebris Hollow came into being. A wasteland, stitched together from failed dimensions, cursed techniques, discarded jutsu scrolls, and unfinished rituals. Time limped here. Shadows ruled here.
No human ever returned from its center.
Until the day three wings beat across the hollow skies.
🌒 Chapter 1: The Blood-Eyed Raven Descends
Karasu no Itou walked as if gravity did not apply to him. His tattered cloak billowed behind him like the wings of an angel left behind in hell. His weapon—a black tanto named Kurotsuba—never left its sheath. He rarely needed it.
His eyes did the killing.
He bore the Akagan, the Blood-Eye, a rare ocular technique that allowed him to enter the enemy's soul—fracturing their mind, memory, and will. Through his signature ability Tsugikami ("God of Grafted Time"), he could trap someone in a moment and rewrite their fate over what felt like centuries.
He arrived at the edge of Tenebris Hollow, guided by whispers from the Raven Order—monks who spoke only in riddles.
"Go to where the world stops turning. There, your fate awaits beneath broken moons."
🦅 Chapter 2: The Golden Pactsworn
She dressed like royalty, but her scent was iron.Silva Vespera, known across mercenary circles as "The Coinborne," was a Grade-1 Cursebearer and Tactician of the Crow. Her cursed technique, Nocturna Pacta, allowed her to manipulate enchanted familiars—crows infused with cursed essence—but with a price.
Through Golden Oath Seals, she could offer her own life to amplify her crows' power. The final level of this was a shared death pact: if the crow died, she would too. But if it succeeded in killing her target… they all went together.
It was why she charged in gold.And why no one questioned the price.
"The rich die slowly. I prefer something quicker—cleaner."
She entered the Hollow on a contract she was never meant to survive.The bounty: Retrieve the Orb of Unbinding.The risk: Unknowable.
🌑 Chapter 3: The Nightspawn Awakens
Yorugan Kurō had never asked to be chosen.He was born during an eclipse in the Temple of Dusk, a place of night-priests who believed the world was ending—slowly and beautifully. As a child, Kurō's body was light, but his shadow… heavy.
Too heavy.
He became bonded with Kuro'ei, a sentient shadow construct passed down from the first Nightspawn. A quirk of darkness with personality, desire, and violence—especially when Kurō was emotionally unstable.
At dusk, Kuro'ei would become stronger.At midnight, it would become unstoppable.In full Baneborn Form, it devoured thought. Instinct ruled. Only blood satisfied.
The monks cast him out when his friend was consumed by the shadow.
"You're not cursed… but you're not human either."
Now, Kurō wanders, hearing Kuro'ei's whispers like tinnitus behind the silence.
He entered Tenebris Hollow because he dreamed of it every night.Or perhaps… because Kuro'ei wanted him to.
🕯️ World-Building: The Age of Hollowlight
After the collapse of the Five Great Domains, the sky itself cracked—an event known as the Nightfall Fracture. The world became divided into three eras:
Pre-Dusk – An age of blinding sun and justice.
Half-Light – An age of betrayals, lost jutsu, and broken treaties.
Duskborn Era – Present day. Monsters no longer come from outside the cities… but from within.
The Tenebris Hollow lies between two faultlines:
The Vale of Forgotten Techniques
The Scar of Yameru-no-Kami (The God That Fell Asleep)
🎭 Supporting Factions
Raven Order – Monks who serve Time and Memory. Wielders of the Akagan. Itou is their last active member.
The Gilded Hand – Mercenary brokers who sell death for profit. Silva's past is soaked in their contracts.
Temple of Dusk – Priests who meditate on shadows and loss. Kurō was their brightest—and final—student.
🔥 Chapter 4: Three Wings, One Sky
The Orb pulsed at the center of Tenebris Hollow. Reality shimmered around it—stretching like wet paper.
All three warriors arrived at once.
Kurō stepped forward, already trembling. Kuro'ei hissed:
"They want the orb. They want us caged. Tear the pact-woman. Shatter the blood-raven."
Silva's crows circled wide, baiting. She read Kurō immediately—untrained, volatile, lethal. Her fingers glowed gold with Oath Seals.
Itou simply… observed.
"You two have already lost."
He blinked. Akagan flared.The Hollow... paused.Time folded.
💀 Chapter 5: The Tsugikami Trap
Kurō gasped.Silva blinked.But only she found herself in an infinite library—pages made of her past contracts, and mirrors of dead allies who never forgave her.
"Tsugikami traps not the body, but the guilt tethered to memory," Itou whispered across the void.
She clawed her way out by rupturing a hidden Oath Seal in her ribcage.
Kurō, meanwhile, was lost.Kuro'ei took over.
His arms extended into black wings. A beast with no face screamed through him.
"BANEBORN FORM: KURO'EI REND!"
🌌 Chapter 6: The Final Mirror
Silva, bleeding and limping, summoned her final pact—Amon Ultima, a crow with wings made of sacrificial blood.
"If he dies… I die. But if the beast falls… maybe we all rest."
She sent it into Kuro'ei's chest.The crow exploded.The air cracked.
But Itou stepped forward.
His Yami-no-Kyo—The Mirror of Endless Night—emerged from his palm, catching the death-pact in a prism of black crystal and redirecting it into the Hollow's sky.
The world didn't explode.But it was scarred permanently.
☁️ Epilogue — Echoes Before Moonfall
The Orb disappeared.So did most of the Hollow.
Silva woke first, muttering about contracts undone.Kurō dreamed of a peaceful field with no shadows.Itou stood at the edge of the ruins, his eyes finally closing.
He whispered to himself:
"I don't fight to win.I fight so no one else has to."
🌙 Volume 1 End — Next Volume: "The Eclipse Treaty"