The rain fell like blades from the sky. Thick, cold, and dirty. Another storm over the scorched remains of what once was the city of Veyra. Collapsed buildings, dead trees, cracks in the earth that still smoked. But Kai didn't care about the cold, the water, or the smell of ozone and blood.
All he cared about was that the string on his right puppet was loose.
—"No, no, no… not again!"—he muttered, taking shelter under what was left of a shop awning.
He pulled out a thin needle and some enchanted thread. His fingers trembled with exhaustion, but his mind stayed sharp. The wooden puppet before him stood one meter tall, with blades instead of arms and a face carved in a furious grimace. He called it Rokk.
—"Come on, Rokk, don't fail me now,"—he whispered as he tightened the string that connected the magical heart to the puppet's core.
A screech. Then a deep hum. An Abyss Claw descended from above, tearing through the cloud with its winged body and multiple eyes. It had wet, black scales, a body like a hellish mantis, and it shrieked as if the world itself were weeping.
Kai didn't move. He only whispered:
—"Now."
Rokk sprang violently to life, its mechanical legs pounding the ground as it leapt at the creature with a speed unthinkable for something made of wood. Its blades spun and sliced through one of the monster's wings. The creature roared, spiraling down.
From the darkness of the alley, another puppet emerged: smaller, shaped like a steel beetle with sharp legs. Klink slid across the ground, climbed up the Claw's body, and exploded with a bluish flash in the beast's chest.
When the smoke cleared, Kai walked toward the still-twitching corpse of the monster. He placed his hand on the inert body.
—"Thanks for the mana."
A magic circle lit up beneath his feet. The energy of the Rift still pulsed in the air. Kai looked up at the sky. Another portal was beginning to open, slowly spinning like a waking eye.
—"Great… another one."
He had no sword. No shields. No explosive spells.
All he had were his puppets.
But that was enough.
—"Rokk, now!"—Kai shouted firmly as he performed a quick gesture with his fingers.
The massive puppet—a bulk of black wood reinforced with rusted metal plates—launched toward the descending creature tearing through the sky. It had a humanoid face—too human—with a frozen, empty grin. But its body was elongated, covered in a gleaming, translucent exoskeleton like a dragonfly's, distorted by unnatural mutation. Four wings trembled with an unbearable buzz, and six sharp legs scraped the ruined ground as it let out a high-pitched screech.
The creature turned its head toward Rokk just as the puppet launched forward with its heavy iron legs. The impact was brutal. Both crashed to the ground in a whirl of dust and screeching metal.
Kai didn't stay to watch the result.
He ran.
He leapt over the remains of a scorched vehicle, dodged twisted beams, and crossed a street whose walls were decorated with moss, dried blood, and arcane symbols. The buzz of battle between his puppet and the monster faded behind him, like a brief nightmare.
Finally, he reached a collapsed building. He slipped through a hidden gap in the rubble and descended through a rusty trapdoor into his refuge.
A subterranean room, barely lit by magical light crystals and decorated with sketches, tools, and the remains of what once were other puppets.
Kai collapsed against the wall, breathing heavily, adrenaline still burning in his chest.
—"That was… too close,"—he murmured.
Rokk wouldn't last long out there, he knew. Every battle left it more damaged. And with materials running low, repairing or creating new puppets was nearly impossible. He looked at his workbench. Three puppets lay in pieces: one with a shattered core, another without a head, the last one… beyond repair.
—"How much longer can I keep doing this?"
He looked up toward the crack in the ceiling where a thin line of light slipped through. Up there, the sky was no longer blue.
Floating rifts tore it open with luminous edges, like open scars in the world's skin. Some pulsed like dark hearts. Others spewed more of those things.
—"There are more every day…"—he whispered. "Is it a sign? Is this the end?"
He shook his head, clenching his fists.
—"It shouldn't be like this. There are Rift Hunters, the great guilds, the government mages… they can handle this. Right?"
Silence answered.
Kai looked at his broken puppets.
His fingers trembled.
—"Maybe… it's time to give up. My puppets can't keep up. Not with what's coming."
But even as he said those words, a part of him—the stubborn part, the one that still hadn't broken—kept circling around an idea.
A new puppet. A different one. One that was… alive.