The VEIL

Synopsis

Before the darkness, Elyndra was ordinary. Rei Kageyama was seventeen years old, the oldest of three inseparable friends. Alongside Makoto Kisaragi and Seiji Kurokawa, Rei lived an unremarkable life in a world untouched by magic, monsters, or anything beyond human understanding. Until the day Rei saw something no one else could. A mysterious interface appeared before him. A System. It called him its **first user**. Then it disappeared. For an entire year, Rei received no answers. No explanation. No second message. Yet something inside him had begun to change. His memory sharpened. His instincts improved. His understanding of people, combat, knowledge, and the world around him grew at an unnatural pace. Rei didn't know why. He only knew that he was becoming someone he didn't recognize. Then, on Seiji's eighteenth birthday, the System returned. This time, it brought a message Rei had been waiting a year to understand. **AWAKENING CONDITIONS: SATISFIED.** Two months later, on Christmas Day, the world went dark. The event would become known as the **Blackout**. Power vanished. Communication collapsed. The rules of civilization shattered within minutes. And for the first time, the System appeared to everyone. But the Blackout was only the beginning. In the chaos, Rei, Makoto, and Seiji are separated, each thrown into a world that no longer resembles the one they knew. As humanity struggles to understand the System and the strange forces now emerging from the darkness, Rei begins to uncover fragments of a truth far older than himself. The System did not appear randomly. The Blackout was not an accident. And Rei was not chosen by chance. As the three friends fight to survive and find one another again, they will discover that the world has always contained secrets hidden beneath the surface. Secrets that were never meant to be found. Because before there was a Blackout... There was **the Veil**.