In the blood-soaked age of Sengoku, where famine devoured the weak and warlords feasted on the bones of Japan, one name silenced even the wind: Kurogane Takeshi—the Soul Collector. Men said he did not kill. He harvested. One silent cut, and the light vanished from his victims’ eyes as if he stole their very souls. Armies shattered before him. Daimyo paid tribute to keep him distant. Even the Emperor felt ice in his veins when that black shadow crossed the threshold. He feared nothing. Wanted nothing. Until that frost-bitten day in the Imperial Palace. He came for a traitor’s head, took an apple without asking, and turned to leave. Then he saw him. Behind a painted screen, half-hidden like a secret the world wasn’t ready for, stood the Emperor’s youngest son—Malak. Skin like moonlight on fresh snow, hair black as midnight rivers, lips soft pink and trembling. A fallen angel in a palace of wolves. Their eyes met. The apple fell from Takeshi’s hand and rolled across the tatami, bleeding juice like a fresh wound. In that single heartbeat, something cracked inside the unbreakable iron heart. Desire—raw, absolute, terrifying—awakened. He bowed, not to the Emperor on his throne… …but to the boy behind the screen. And in the silence that followed, Takeshi knew: He would burn the world to ash if that was what it took… to make Malak his. The Soul Collector had found the one soul he would never let go. And he always took what he wanted. (To be continued…)