Nurazam POV.
It was… warm.
The first thing I felt wasn't pain or terror. Just… warmth. A dry, tingling heat that crawled against my skin. My breath came slow and shallow, like waking up underwater. I blinked.
White canvas ceiling.
Crackling wood.
Faint voices, somewhere distant.
I tried to move. A sharp, burning ache flared up my spine and across my chest.
"Hhhhk—!"
The sound I made wasn't a scream. It was something caught between a gasp and a groan. My vision swam. I coughed, and my lungs rattled like they were filled with ash.
"He's awake!" someone said.
A figure leaned into view.
Not Kael. Not the Handler. Someone new.
A woman.
Her short, ash-colored hair was pulled back tight, her face hardened by years of battle. She had a scar over her right brow, and her armor was scratched but clean. She didn't smile—her expression was clinical. Focused.
"You're lucky you're alive," she said. "Barely."
I squinted at her. "…Who…?"
"My name is Ria. Lance user. Elite recon. I pulled you out of the Wastes with Kael."
My mind blanked.
Kael.
Kael.
Like a spark in dry grass, everything came back at once—
The black wings. The scream. The fall. The pain.
Gore Magala.
My chest heaved, panic rising. Ria put a firm hand on my shoulder.
"Easy. You're safe. We're in Astera. You've been unconscious for almost two days. Kael's been by your side nearly the whole time."
The tent flap opened.
"Azam!"
Kael rushed in, disheveled and pale but clearly relieved. His eyes were sunken from lack of sleep. He knelt beside the cot and gripped my wrist.
"You stubborn bastard, I thought we lost you."
I tried to speak, but my throat burned like someone had poured embers into my lungs.
Kael poured a small vial of water and held it to my lips.
"Drink. Slowly."
The first sip was agony. The second was salvation.
"W…what happened…?" I croaked.
Before Kael could answer, a commotion erupted outside the medical tent.
Shouting. Boots pounding the wooden platform. Orders being screamed across the yard.
Ria stood instantly. "Something's wrong."
Kael frowned, eyes flicking to the tent entrance. I tried to sit up, ignoring the stabbing pain in my ribs.
"W-What's going on?" I asked, heart suddenly pounding for a different reason.
Kael looked back at me. His face was caught between hesitation and urgency.
"I don't know. But it's bad."
He turned to Ria. "Stay with him."
Ria nodded, unsheathing a small knife and stepping closer to the entrance.
"Try to rest," Kael said quickly, and disappeared through the flap.
But rest was impossible now.
Because as the footsteps outside grew more frantic, I heard something else—
A voice in my head.
Whispers. Wet and crawling.
"I'm will find you..."
My blood ran cold.
The warmth was gone.
---
The whispers slithered through my mind like eels in murky water.
"He sees… He watches… The chains burn, the Eye bleeds…"
I pressed my palms to my temples, trying to block it out. The pain was like needles pressing into my brain, right behind the eyes. The voice—it wasn't my own. It wasn't Gore Magala either. It was something deeper. Something older. Something waiting.
I staggered off the cot, swaying like a drunk.
"Where the hell are you going?" Ria barked as she turned back inside the tent, blade half drawn.
"I… I need to see—" I coughed, nearly doubled over, but forced myself up. "The voices… they're—everywhere—"
"You're infected with Frenzy," she said sternly. "You shouldn't even be able to stand—"
"Exactly. And yet I am," I snapped back, eyes trembling. "I have to see what's happening."
Ria hesitated. She could've stopped me. I was weak—barely on my feet, chest wrapped in bandages, vision swimming with violet shadows. But instead, she exhaled sharply and nodded.
"Stay close."
We stepped outside the tent—
—and into a storm of chaos.
Astera was in uproar.
Hunters shouted across platforms. Assistants and researchers ran with crates of supplies, potions, and scrolls. The entire central hub of Astera looked like it had gone to war—and lost. I could see the signs clearly: scorched weapon racks, broken support beams, torn sails, frayed nets.
But it was what hung in the air that truly chilled me.
The sky.
It wasn't blue.
It wasn't even storm-gray.
It was… sick.
A deep, churning violet, like rotted bruises smeared across the heavens. And drifting lazily through the air like cursed snow…
…were purple motes.
They shimmered softly as they fell—tiny floating orbs, like spores or corrupted pollen. Beautiful in their cruelty. Wherever they touched the wood or cloth, faint streaks of violet spread like rot.
I reached out instinctively—Ria grabbed my wrist before my fingers brushed one.
"Don't," she said, voice hard. "It's Frenzy Rain."
I froze. "Frenzy… rain?"
"Yeah." Her jaw clenched. "Never seen it before. No one has."
Near the center of the gathering square, the Commander stood tall on the speaking platform, his tattered red cape swaying behind him. His face was grim, his arms crossed. Kael stood beside him, fists clenched, his eyes flicking across the crowd until they found me—then widened in shock.
Ria led me toward the back of the gathering. No one stopped us.
Too many were transfixed by the sky.
The Commander raised one gauntleted hand.
"Hunters. Researchers. Workers of Astera—listen!"
Silence descended.
Even the sky held its breath.
"I do not exaggerate when I say this: we stand on the edge of a calamity unlike anything recorded in Guild history. The monster known as Gore Magala—a creature of darkness and plague—has released a storm of Frenzy, and this…" He gestured upward, his fingers trembling ever so slightly. "…is its wake."
People murmured. Some gasped. Others began whispering prayers.
"During the rescue mission of one of our own, our elite team encountered Gore Magala in its full berserk state. We fought. It fled. But not before releasing this… event. A phenomenon we are calling Frenzy Rain."
He turned toward Ria, motioning for her to speak.
She stepped up, voice cool and firm.
"The rain infects anything it touches—fauna, flora, even soil. If not neutralized or avoided, it will spread. That's not speculation. That's confirmation. You touch it, you risk the virus."
Someone in the crowd shouted, "Then what do we do?! How do we stop it?!"
"You don't," Ria replied without hesitation. "You avoid it. You report it. The Guild has already been notified, and until then—our job is to survive."
The Commander took over again.
"Until we understand more, all non-essential expeditions are suspended. All active squads are recalled to Astera or sequestered in safe zones. The Frenzy is here. And it is evolving."
Silence again.
No one dared speak, not even the loud-mouthed provisions master. The usual confidence and bravado of Astera's hunters had been cut out from under them.
And then… my heart nearly stopped.
Because as the people of Astera tried to process the horror… the whispers returned.
"You were chosen. Not them. You fell… and I caught you."
I clenched my eyes shut. My nails dug into my palms.
Suddenly, Kael was beside me, grabbing my shoulder.
"You shouldn't be out of bed," he muttered. "Come on."
But I wasn't hearing him.
The last thing I saw before I collapsed again was the sky—a moonless void bleeding purple tears.
---
Astera War Room — Morning
The heavy wooden doors of the Astera war room groaned as they swung open, letting in the salt-tanged breeze from the upper deck. The sun had barely broken the horizon, yet every senior officer and elite hunter not wounded in the last operation had already gathered. The air inside was stifling—not from heat, but tension.
Commander Harlan stood at the far end of the war table, his back to everyone, staring silently out the tall window at the distant, blood-tinged sky. The rising sun was veiled in a pale lavender hue—a haunting reminder of the Frenzy Rain that had fallen the night before.
Kael leaned against a support pillar near the entrance, arms crossed, jaw tight. Ria stood nearby, helmet tucked under one arm, her face drawn, eyes shadowed. None of them had slept. None could forget what they saw in the wastes—Gore Magala shrieking in berserk rage, its wings slicing wind and stone alike, the sky erupting in unnatural color as it rained violet orbs of madness.
Laid flat on the table was the latest message from the Guild—delivered by a priority courier wyvern just an hour ago. The scroll bore a black wax seal, stamped with the Sigil of the Directive Board. Not a good omen.
The Logistics Chief, an aging man named Roldo, stared at the scroll like it might bite him.
"That's... a Level Six emergency seal," he muttered. "Guild High Command. Black Directive level. Last time I saw one of those was during the Deviljho Plague in Jhen's Spine."
Kael stepped forward. "Open it. Now."
Roldo obeyed. The wax cracked like bone, and the scroll unfurled in a tense silence. Harlan finally turned around and took it from the Chief, scanning the document line by line. His eyes narrowed.
"Report from Guild Headquarters, Dovan Branch," Harlan began, voice steady but firm. "They have received our incident log on the unprecedented airborne Frenzy outbreak and the appearance of what is confirmed to be a Gore Magala in pre-awakened form."
He paused, glancing at the line again. "The Guild... believes the event is a regional anomaly tied to the natural lifecycle of the Gore Magala species."
Ria's hand twitched. "Natural lifecycle? That wasn't natural. That thing… it was looking for something. Someone."
Kael spoke up, his voice clipped. "They think it was just an accident?"
"They think it's a rare evolutionary frenzy reaction," Harlan replied. "Their exact words: Localized berserk behavior triggered by environmental imbalance or target fixation."
Kael didn't respond. His silence said everything.
Harlan continued, "They are deploying a specialized task force from the Val Haran Outpost—four veteran hunters trained in Frenzy suppression protocols, equipped with anti-virus gear, and advanced tracking tools. They'll arrive in five days via long-range transport wyverns."
Ria exhaled softly. "Finally. Someone who knows what they're doing."
"But there's more," Harlan said, folding the scroll slowly. "The Guild has also reviewed our attached medical reports on Nurazam..."
Kael straightened, alert.
Harlan's brow creased. "They've designated him a non-combatant survivor. Categorized as an unfortunate civilian infected by Frenzy exposure, presumed to have developed partial resistance due to high exposure levels and environmental trauma."
"They think he's just a victim?" Kael asked flatly.
"They do."
Ria's knuckles whitened. "He was in the center of it. Gore Magala hunted him. Obsessed over him. He was... connected to it."
Harlan nodded grimly. "I know. But we have no hard data to support that. No Guild scholar here, no clean samples. Without evidence, they won't listen. And right now, they're more concerned with containing the biological threat than investigating anomalies."
Kael slammed his palm on the table. "They're walking into this blind."
"And that's why we need to prepare, not argue," Harlan said sharply, then softened his tone. "Until the Val Haran squad arrives, you two are to continue internal observation. Kael—you'll stay with Nurazam. If he shows any unusual symptoms, mental or physical, I want it logged and reported immediately."
Kael nodded, jaw clenched.
"And Ria," Harlan continued, turning to her. "You'll lead an aerial recon sweep starting tomorrow morning. Trace the last known flight path of the Gore Magala. If it's still out there, I want to know where it's nesting."
"Yes, Commander," she said, voice low.
The room fell quiet again. Outside, the winds shifted. Somewhere distant, a bell rang—a reminder of the changing shift and the routine life continuing despite everything.
But Kael felt it in his bones.
Routine was dead.
The sky had rained madness, and Nurazam had stood at the eye of the storm. Whether the Guild believed it or not, Kael knew:
This wasn't over.
---