“Chapter III: The Oath of the Mask”

When he returned from the dusk, he was not the same.

The silence had carved him clean.

There was no longer the man who sought,

only the one who knew.

He fashioned the mask not to hide, but to declare.

It was a seal — between his former self and the vow that would guide all that followed.

In its reflection, he saw every failure, every betrayal, every wound that once defined him.

Then, without hesitation, he placed it upon his face and breathed for the first time as something new.

The air was heavy.

The world grew quiet.

And in that stillness, he whispered his oath:

“I will carry the fire through shadow.

I will speak truth where silence reigns.

And I will wage war, not for glory — but for the soul.”

From that day on, the world would know him by another name —

not as the broken man,

but as the one forged in silence.

The mask was not concealment.

It was covenant.

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