In a world smaller than ours, walled by stone and ruled by steel, fourteen kingdoms fought endlessly to stand above the rest.
For centuries, their wars raged until two hundred years ago, when Blitz, a western nation, rose to dominance with a military unlike any the world had ever seen.
By the year 1100, Blitz had crushed its rivals and ruled as the largest and most advanced nation alive. Peace followed, but uneasily.
Whispers claimed Blitz's soldiers wielded unnatural power, strength no mortal should possess. Power used to bend nations to their knees.
Then came the vanishings.
Villages gone overnight. Towns emptied of life. Survivors spoke of monsters crawling through the dark, of blood and shadows. Others blamed rival kingdoms. None knew the truth, only that war was coming.
Far from the capital, deep in the forgotten forests at Blitz's edge, lay a small village untouched by politics or power.
There, two sixteen-year-old boys hid a secret of their own—unnatural strength. Monstrous strength.
A power that should not exist.
And soon, their world was about to burn.
***
Nox slammed his fist into a tree.
The trunk cracked, a branch splintered, and the whole thing crashed to the forest floor.
"See that?" he grinned, shaking his hand. "I think I'm getting stronger."
Nox was tall for his age, with rough black hair and a face full of restless energy. His grin fit him perfectly, loud, reckless, impossible to ignore.
Juro smirked, brushing his dark hair from his eyes. He was quieter, leaner, sharper.
"You mean dumber," he said. "What if someone hears us?"
"They won't. We're too deep in the forest. No one's dumb enough to come out this far."
"Except us, right?" Juro shot back.
They laughed, short and easy, like they'd done it a hundred times before.
They weren't here for fun. Their strength was a secret, one their parents had forbidden them to show.
Nox still remembered the fear in his mother's eyes. Not fear of him, but for him.
Out here in the woods, they could forget that.
Out here, they could be wild.
***
The sun bled low through the trees.
"We should head back," Juro said.
"You worry too much," Nox replied. "We'll just lie about it."
But Juro was already walking off.
"Hey, wait up!"
They broke from the forest. Just ahead, their village should've been visible, but they stopped.
The air was wrong.
Acrid. Bitter. Like scorched metal.
Nox felt the heat on his skin before he saw it.
The sunset burned too bright because it wasn't the sun.
Flames.
Their village was burning.
They ran.
Smoke clawed their throats. The stench of blood and molten metal filled the air.
Dark shapes writhed in the firelight, hulking, horned, inhuman.
Claws flashed. Fangs gleamed. Shadows twisted.
And in the heart of the chaos stood a man.
Red hair blazing like fire, his eyes cold as frost.
His hand gripped Nox's mother by her silver hair, yanking her head back.
"Mother!"
Nox's scream tore through the inferno.
He charged.
Juro faltered, his gaze locking on his own house, collapsing in flame.
The village was void of anybody still alive but filled with lifeless bodies.
His parents were definitely gone.
Grief stabbed through him, but he forced it down. Nox needed him.
Nox crashed into the monsters, fists breaking bone, blood spraying hot across his face.
He didn't feel the claw that ripped his arm open.
Didn't stop when a horn slammed into his ribs.
Juro tackled him clear, but the next swipe caught him instead, tearing deep across his back.
They rose, back to back, surrounded.
Only four confirmed lives were still left in the village.Nox, Juro, his mother, and the red-haired man.
The ground trembled.
More beasts closed in.
And then the sky cracked open.
Thunder crashed so loud it felt like the sky was splitting apart. Lightning ripped through the smoke, turning night into day for a heartbeat.
A figure dropped through the storm, gray hair whipping in the wind, his blade caught the light.
The beasts froze, their bodies trembling under the sheer pressure that came with him.
Nox couldn't breathe. The air itself bent under that presence.
Just before Nox's vision went dark, he caught a glimpse of the stranger's eyes, sharp and cold, lit by the storm.
Then darkness.