Five years ago, the sky tore open for the first time.
A glowing line appeared in the atmosphere, as if someone had ripped through the very fabric of the world. At first, humanity believed it to be some sort of astronomical phenomenon or an unusually intense lightning storm. But then the monsters came.
Deformed creatures, impossible to classify, emerged from those floating rifts as if hell itself had come to life. Their shapes were unstable, as though their bodies didn't belong to this plane of existence: some seemed to merge with the air, others crawled with limbs that shifted places as they moved.
That was the birth of the Rifts. And with them... came magic.
Almost simultaneously, people around the world began to awaken supernatural abilities. It wasn't something that could be predicted. It didn't follow any genetic logic, nor was it tied to age or gender. It simply happened.
These individuals were called Awakened, and those who chose to risk their lives by entering the Rifts to close them from the inside became known as Rift Hunters.
For each closed Rift, hunters received large sums of money and public recognition. They became celebrities, soldiers, symbols of hope. But not every Awakened was born lucky.
Kai was one of them.
"Is this... it?" he said with a trembling voice the first time his magic core awakened.
He had expected something impressive. A flame in his hand, lightning, the gift of flight... but what emerged from his aura was a small, trembling, clumsy figure made of wood.
A puppet.
A marionette the size of a cat, assembled from scraps of wood, rusty wires, and makeshift screws pulled from a trash heap.
"Your ability is called Puppetmaster," explained an instructor from the low-level Awakened camp. "You can create magical puppets and control them… but their power depends entirely on the materials you have. So yeah… it's pretty useless."
No one bet on him. Recruiters wanted fire, wind, shadow manipulation, brute force. Not a boy who needed nails, gears, and rotten wood to fight.
Still, Kai didn't give up.
Every rusty screw became a tooth for a mechanical jaw. Every splintered board, a potential limb. He learned to improvise, to assemble and breathe life into his puppets as if they were extensions of himself.
While other hunters annihilated monsters with spectacular spells, Kai crawled through rubble, collecting junk, creating silent soldiers with patience and blood.
He wasn't a hero.
He was a craftsman of war.
One who watched silently as the Rifts grew larger over the years. More stable. More active.
Governments claimed the hunters were keeping the threat contained.
But Kai knew they were lying.
He had seen what was on the other side.
And even if his magic wasn't the strongest, it would be enough to survive… or to build his final defense when the real end came.