The wind whispered across the blood-colored horizon, carrying the scent of crushed blossoms.
Far to the north of the Ashen Expanse, nestled within the hollow embrace of mist-cloaked peaks, lay a city too small to matter in war councils and too peaceful to be remembered in war songs. Its name was Sky Drowning City, a place where time folded over itself and flowed like a forgotten stream, tracing the edges of demon civilization with a serenity that almost felt unnatural in these chaotic times.
There, among crooked lanterns and houses built of bonewood and riverstone, lived a boy who did not belong.
His name was Ashen. No surname. No lineage. Only a name given by an old demon who had found him bleeding beneath a tree under a sky that was swallowing itself in thunder. That man the villagers called him Grandfather Bone was one of the old kinds, with skin like iron bark and eyes that had seen too much death to ever truly reflect joy. Yet in his weather-worn hut, there was a hearth that always burned, and a pot that never emptied. For Ashen, it was enough.
Ashen's eyes were not red like the other demons of Sky Drowning City. They were gray like morning ash and his skin was pale with veins that shimmered faintly in moonlight. No horns. No claws. But when he was angry, the air bent around him like it feared his blood.
He knew what he was.
Or rather what he wasn't.
Not fully demon. Not truly human.
Something in between.
And in this world, being "in between" was a curse worse than death.
"You've been in a fight again."
The old demon's voice was cracked like autumn leaves, but it cut through the room with a warmth only age could give.
Ashen sat on the wooden floor, nursing a bruised cheek and a torn tunic. "They called me Meatspawn again. Said I smell like human filth."
Grandfather Bone stirred the stew in the pot. "Do you?"
Ashen blinked. "What?"
"Do you smell like filth?"
The boy frowned. "No."
"Then why does their opinion matter?"
Ashen was silent for a long while. The fire crackled. Somewhere in the distance, the bells of the Temple of Remorse tolled for a child who had been taken by humans on the southern border.
Sky Drowning City had always known war, but it chose peace. It wasn't a peace of power—it was the kind born from exhaustion. The demons here no longer believed in conquest. They sang of ancient empires not with pride, but with shame.
The humans, however, remembered differently.
To them, the demon world was a plague a stain on the purity of their realm. They called themselves the Enlightened and believed that slaying demons was not just justice, but salvation.
That was the truth of the world.
Not good. Not evil. Only perspective.
One night, Ashen asked the question he'd been swallowing for years:
"Grandfather... who are my parents?"
The old man didn't answer immediately. He poured tea into a cracked porcelain cup, passed it to the boy, and then sat down beside him.
"I do not know," he said at last. "You were barely a year old when I found you. Wrapped in black silk. Covered in runes that pulsed like old magic. There was a blade beside you broken at the hilt, soaked in human blood."
Ashen gripped his cup tighter. "Then I... I was born in war."
"No, child." Grandfather Bone's gaze drifted toward the ceiling, where shadows danced in the lamplight. "You were born after it. War only creates orphans, not sons. Your life began when someone chose to walk away from killing and instead left you beneath a tree."
Silence filled the room. The wind outside had stilled.
"But the blood in my veins..." Ashen whispered, "...it's not just demon."
"No," the old man said. "And that is your strength."
Sky Drowning City had a rule: outsiders were not allowed within its walls without first undergoing the Ritual of Roots a spell that bound the soul to the soil. Humans never passed it. They either fled in agony... or died in madness.
But rumors had begun to spread in recent moons.
Human scouts had been seen near the valley. Entire villages north of the Red Lotus Lake had vanished overnight. Some believed the God Hunters had returned humans trained to kill demonkind with weapons forged from divine ore and righteous hatred.
Ashen began to feel it in his bones: the peace would not last.
And so, one morning, before the sun had fully risen, he walked to the edge of the village and stared down the path that led out of Sky Drowning City. In his hand, he carried the broken blade from his cradle. At his side, a satchel with dried meat, two soul crystals, and a scroll of minor flame incantations.
Grandfather Bone watched from the distance but said nothing.
He knew.
The world would not wait for the boy to grow.
And so, Ashen walked into it not with certainty, but with fire in his blood and silence in his heart.
"When the gods we worship turn to hunters, and the demons we fear seek peace, who is left to speak for the lost?"
The journey of the Ashen had begun.