Armin awoke to a searing pain that clawed through his skull, as if his mind was being forged in a crucible of molten iron. His thoughts were a storm of fragments, each one dissolving into haze before he could grasp it. His vision flickered, the world a smear of dim light and indistinct shapes. His breath came in shallow gasps, the air thick with the scent of burnt flesh and something metallic, like blood or rust. His body felt wrong—small, frail, yet unnaturally resilient, as if it refused to yield to the exhaustion that weighed him down. His fingers twitched, scraping against a cold stone floor. Panic surged in his chest: 'Where am I?'
The chamber around him took shape through the fog of his senses. It was a windowless dome of sandstone and metal, its curved walls looming like the ribs of some ancient, petrified beast. Intricate runes were carved into the stone, glowing with a sickly green light that pulsed in time with his throbbing headache. The runes coiled around each other, their patterns alien, humming with a low, resonant energy that vibrated in his bones. Dust hung in the air, stirred by an unseen draft. The chamber felt sealed, as if it existed outside the world—a secret buried beneath a wasteland.
Armin tried to move, but his limbs were heavy, his muscles trembling like those of a child too weak to stand. His body was small, unnervingly so, its proportions unfamiliar, as if it didn't belong to him. A flicker of memory sparked and died: a city street, the hum of traffic. Earth? The thought slipped away, leaving only questions. Had he died? Had he been torn from his old life and cast into this one? His mind still unable to hold coherent thoughts.
Footsteps broke the silence, slow and deliberate, echoing off the walls. Armin's gaze snapped toward the sound, his heart pounding. A figure emerged from the shadows—a middle-aged man, gaunt and weathered, his face etched with lines of hardship and defiance. His gray-brown hair was tied back in a tangled knot, and his ancient robes hung loosely on his frame. His pale eyes burned with a desperate intensity, fixed on Armin as if he were a miracle made flesh. In his hands, he clutched a staff carved with runes that mirrored those on the walls, its tip glowing with a faint, crimson pulse. This was Syn, though Armin had no name for him yet—who had poured decades of hope and obsession into crafting the body Armin now inhabited.
Syn spoke, his voice a low, fervent chant in a language Armin couldn't comprehend, its cadence both melodic and guttural. Armin opened his mouth to respond, but his tongue was clumsy, his throat raw as if scoured by sand. Only garbled sounds escaped, yet Syn's face transformed. A grin split his weathered features, wide and trembling, tears welling in his eyes. "My son," he whispered, the foreign words carrying a weight of longing that Armin felt rather than understood. Syn knelt beside him, his trembling hands hovering over Armin's small form, as if afraid to break something sacred. His touch was gentle yet possessive, a father's love twisted by years of loneliness and vengeance.
Syn pulled Armin into a tight embrace, his arms strong despite his frail appearance. His heartbeat thundered against Armin's cheek, frantic and uneven. Armin's body ached under the pressure, but it didn't break. His skin tingled, a strange warmth spreading through his wounds, knitting them shut faster than should have been possible. Syn's tears fell onto Armin's face, and for a moment, the dome was silent, save for the hum of the runes.
A low rumble shattered the moment, vibrating through the stone floor, swelling into thunderous booms that shook the dome. Dust rained from the ceiling, and the runes flared brighter, their green glow turning erratic. Syn froze, his grip tightening on Armin's shoulders. His eyes darted to the walls, the hope in them replaced by determination. "They've found us," he hissed, his voice barely audible over the growing cacophony. The booms were closer now, each one a hammer blow against the dome's defenses.
Syn hauled Armin to his feet, his movements urgent yet careful, as if handling a fragile relic. Armin's legs wobbled, his small body barely able to stand, but Syn half-carried him toward another circle of runes etched into the floor. These radiating a raw, otherworldly power that made Armin's head spin. The runes were different—sharper, more chaotic. Syn lowered him into the circle, his hands traced the runes with his staff, muttering incantations under his breath. The ground quaked violently, and Armin's vision blurred, his body rejecting the mana that saturated the air, expelling it in invisible waves.
The dome shuddered as a deafening crack split the air. The walls exploded inward at multiple points, sandstone and metal erupting in clouds of choking dust. Through the haze, armored figures stormed in—knights of the Holy Empire, their shining plate armor gleaming with mana-infused runes. Their movements were precise, honed by decades of hunting Syn. Their swords and spears glinted in the rune-light, and a faint sigil on their armor—a radiant sun pierced by a spear—marked them as enforcers of the Empire's will, sent to erase its biggest shame.
Syn shouted, his voice drowned by the chaos, his hands pressing Armin down into the rune-circle, whispering something under his breath that might have been a prayer or a farewell. The runes flared, swallowing Armin's vision in blinding light. His body felt weightless, torn from the world, his stomach churning as if he were falling through an endless void. Nausea overwhelmed him, his headache roared, and then—silence. The dome, Syn, the knights—all vanished.