Prologue – The Hollow Vessel
The lab reeked of scorched bone and dying magic.
Beneath the crypt's shattered dome, green alchemical fire sputtered from rusted sconces, casting twitching shadows over the ritual circle carved into the stone. The floor trembled under layered runes, ancient and forbidden, pulsing like veins connected to a dying heart.
In the center of the circle, the creature lay still.
It was monstrous and magnificent.
A lupine frame, lithe and deadly, stretched nearly four meters in length. Its fur shimmered like molten silver, marbled with veins of faint blue glow. Black talons curled from bestial paws; membranous wings—folded tight against its back—bore the ragged, serrated look of a wyvern's. And there, between its shoulders, the delicate symmetry of an elven collarbone and ear shape peeked through the fusion of beast and magic.
It was no beast.
It was no man.
It was a weapon shaped like a god.
And it was dead.
The Chimera Master stood above his creation, drenched in sweat and fury.
His robes were scorched and soaked, the once-crimson sigils etched on them burned into ash. His eyes—sunken, glowing faintly with arcane exhaustion—reflected nothing but disbelief.
"You ungrateful vessel," he hissed through cracked lips. "I gave you grace. I gave you instinct. I gave you flight."
No response. Not even a twitch.
"You were supposed to live." His voice trembled. "You were supposed to awaken."
He slammed a blood-soaked hand onto the beast's chest. Mana surged in a violent pulse, and for a moment, the sigils flared like wildfire.
But the body didn't move.
No breath. No spark. No soul.
Only stillness.
Only failure.
The master staggered back from the altar, nearly slipping on the black ichor pooling around the base. His knees buckled. Centuries of research, extinct bloodlines harvested, wyvern marrow ground under moonlight, elven nerve-thread spliced with primal wolf sinew...
And nothing.
"I crossed every boundary," he whispered, more to himself than the corpse. "I called to the void. I opened the gate. Why did nothing come?"
The chamber answered only with silence.
Then—
A sound.
Barely audible. Like wind passing through cracked stone.
The master stiffened.
The creature's claw flexed—once, then twice.
Its chest rose… shallow and ragged, like breath dragged unwillingly into rotting lungs.
The eyes opened.
Slits of swirling silver and abyss.
And they were not empty.
The master stumbled back, his mouth parting. Something had entered the vessel. Not what he summoned. Not what he expected.
Something else.
The body shifted on the altar, low growls rumbling from its chest—feral, confused, ancient.
Its eyes locked on him.
And the Chimera Master—for the first time in centuries—regretted his success.