Morning arrived without color.
The sky shifted from black to pale gray, but there was no clear line between night and day. Only darkness slowly fading, as if someone wiped away shadows with a wet cloth and forgot to redraw the light.
Dio opened his eyes when the cold seeped in through his spine.
He did not stand up immediately. His body felt heavy in a way different from the previous days. Not just tired, but as if something was being slowly pulled out from inside him. He moved his fingers, waiting for a response.
Joints that usually felt dull now answered more clearly. There was a small ache when he clenched his hand. When he inhaled, his chest pulsed—not in pain, but dense. The air felt heavier as it entered his lungs, pressing from within.
He slowly sat up, leaning for a moment against the tree behind him. His vision blurred briefly, the edges trembling faintly, then returned to focus after he blinked a few times.
Day twenty-four.
He hadn't counted precisely, but his body told him something more honest than numbers. The protection that had wrapped around him all this time was thinning. The layer that dulled sensations, held back damage, and maintained a thin distance between life and death… was beginning to disappear.
Dio stood. His knees almost buckled before they could support his weight. He locked his joints, corrected his balance, then drew in a deep breath. There was a subtle sensation in his shins, like an unseen fracture line being tested by his own weight.
He lifted his shield. Its weight was different.
Not because it had grown heavier, but because his arm was no longer supported by something unseen.
The sword at his waist felt cold against his thigh. The straps of his chest armor scraped his skin, leaving a small sting that hadn't been there before. Little things that had been erased until now returned.
He raised his gaze toward the gaps between leaves.
The forest was silent.
Too silent.
Not silence from peace, but silence that settled. Like a large room already emptied of people, yet still holding the smell of someone who had just left.
Dio adjusted his helmet, gripped the shield strap, and stepped forward.
The first step felt like testing a new floor.
The ground beneath him was firm, slightly slick, and its cold crept from his soles up to his calves. For the first time, that sensation felt sharp.
He took another step.
Somewhere deep within the forest, the earth trembled.
Not like a falling branch, not like an animal's run. Deeper than that. The vibration touched his heels, moving up through his shins, echoing in his knee joints.
Dio stopped.
A second tremor followed.
Closer.
Still soft.
But clear.
He straightened his posture, forcing his chest to calm even as his breaths shortened. The forest ahead seemed to shift itself slightly—trees that had been dense now offering a narrow corridor, straight, and he could not recall when that path had formed.
There was a road waiting.
Dio swallowed. His throat was dry.
Not from thirst, but because his body suddenly remembered that it could run out of breath.
He stepped into that corridor.
◆
The farther he walked, the thicker the silence became.
The sound of leaves whispering disappeared. No insects, no birds, no spontaneous snapping branches. The wind stopped touching the foliage. The thin fog hanging between trunks seemed to harden, like damp cloth stretched without moving.
In that silence, the heavy footsteps returned.
One.
Two.
Another.
The ground under Dio's feet shook, enough to make him lose balance for a moment. He steadied himself against a trunk, his palm pressing into bark that was cold and rough. The fibrous scratch of the bark against his skin felt more real than in the previous days.
The next tremor came closer.
The air changed.
Not colder, not warmer. Just changed—
as if something enormous had entered a narrow room and swallowed the air that once moved freely.
The fog ahead shifted faintly.
Not carried by wind, but broken apart by something pushing through it.
The creature appeared.
Not walking closer from afar, but as if it had been there for a long time and simply chose to be seen.
It stood between two massive trees, making even those giants seem small. Its shoulders rose above the low branches, its head nearly touching the cluster of leaves hanging above. Its body was cloaked in a grayish-green—
not quite skin, not quite stone, but something between.
Large cracks split its surface, following the lines of muscles that moved slowly beneath. In some places, the cracks seemed older, deeper, as if its body carried an age that had no number. Each breath shifted those lines slightly, adjusting.
Its eyes were small.
Far too small for a body that size. But deep. Too deep. When those eyes looked, the world around seemed to shrink.
Dio stood several dozen meters away.
His hand gripped the sword hilt, not to draw it, but to make sure his strength hadn't left. His fingers were sweaty, his palms slick. Only now did he truly feel how sweat met steel.
The creature did not move.
For a long time.
Long enough for Dio to realize it was his own breath that was racing.
Then, slowly, the creature lowered its head slightly.
A movement almost meaningless for a body that large. But enough to give the impression that it was… observing. Not a predator measuring attack range, not a ruler weighing threats.
More like something judging whether what stood before it was finished.
Dio swallowed the breath stuck in his throat.
There was a faint pulse behind his knees. He felt like his legs might fold if he tried to step back.
He did not step back.
◆
The creature raised its right arm.
The motion was slow, heavy, and every inch of it made the air around feel denser. Dio felt a subtle pressure on his chest, like someone stacking thin stones over his bones one by one.
The arm stopped directly above him.
Dio saw the massive palm that could easily crush three trees at once. Its fingers were long, joints jutting like weathered stone. Between them, the fog moved—
not outward, but as if following.
The middle finger shifted.
Just slightly.
A small sideways slide.
Yet that motion stirred the fog around, making it swirl. The mist wasn't blown—it was pulled and moved by a specific center: the creature's presence itself.
The gesture didn't look like a wind-up for a strike.
Not like a blow about to fall.
More like someone brushing aside something invisible from their path.
Dio felt something in his collarbone—a brief pulse, like a knot being pulled tight, then released. At the same time, the skin along his left arm started reminding him of the small cuts he had once forgotten.
The protection slipped.
Not vanishing at once, but being drawn out slowly.
He could feel it—
that faint, warm layer that had rested over his body, peeling away one contact point at a time. Letting the air touch his skin directly.
The creature lowered its arm back to its side.
No attack.
No rampage.
Only silence that had changed shape.
Then it stepped.
One step to the side.
The ground beneath its foot cracked slightly, but did not shatter. Its movement wasn't rushed, wasn't defensive. When the step was done, the massive body no longer blocked the path ahead of Dio.
A straight corridor lay open.
Out of the forest.
Toward the waiting gray light.
◆
Dio did not move at once.
He looked at the path, then at the creature beside him. For a moment, he felt something unfamiliar: not gratitude, not hatred, not fear.
More like acknowledgment.
For 24 days, something had followed his steps. At just the right distance. Not too near, not too far. Not helping, not destroying. Watching.
And today, the same being opened the way.
Dio exhaled a short breath—a breath that felt full in his lungs. He stepped forward.
The first step into that path made his ankles protest faintly.
The second made his soles realize that he had walked on ground he never truly felt.
The third pulled a thin line of pain along his calves, like flesh being reminded that it had limits.
He didn't stop.
As he passed by the creature's side, he realized how small he was. Its shoulders rose beyond his entire field of view. He didn't see its face up close, only felt the enormous shadow swallowing light on one side of his body.
The air under that shadow was colder.
Heavier.
Yet as he passed, no hand moved.
No head turned.
The creature let him go.
Several steps later, Dio felt another change.
Something in his chest—the small pressure that had been resting there—released. Not relief, but like reaching the end of something. His next breath stung slightly on the right, like the air had been given full permission to hurt him again if he inhaled too quickly.
The protection was gone.
He knew it without being told.
◆
The forest's edge appeared as a simple boundary: where great roots disappeared, the ground rose slightly, and the light widened. Dio crossed that line like someone lifting their foot from water after being submerged for too long.
The air outside felt different.
Not particularly clean, not particularly fresh. Just… ordinary.
But it was that ordinariness that made it feel strange.
Ahead, the ground became wide, rolling grassland. Dry grasses and dull green blades reached up to his shins. Far in the distance, a city stood on slightly higher ground—
with simple walls, but clearly marking inside and outside.
The wooden gate was tall, reinforced in places with dull metal. Two figures stood before it—humans with spears and chest armor. They looked small from afar, but clear enough to signal: this world had civilization. Rules. Eyes.
Dio inhaled.
His lungs were full. His chest ached slightly.
He felt the full weight of the shield on his left arm, the sword at his waist, sweat drying along his spine, and every little cut he had ignored.
He took one step into the grassland.
Nothing shook.
Nothing followed from behind.
The earth no longer held its breath.
Two steps.
Three.
Four.
His knees protested, but in a human way.
In a way he could understand.
He stopped.
Something had been left behind.
Not protection.
Not safety.
But a space—
a room in his mind that hadn't finished closing.
Dio turned around.
◆
The forest was gone.
Not fading.
Not swallowed by fog.
Not rolled away by light.
Behind him, where hundreds of trees had loomed and great roots had sprawled, there was now only open ground. The same grassland as in front of him, just a bit duller in color.
Not a single tree stood.
No tall shadows.
No mist.
As if someone had redrawn the world overnight and decided that forest was no longer needed.
Dio froze.
His eyes searched for something—stump remains, broken roots, uneven patches of earth. He expected at least one sign that the place where he had almost died countless times had really existed.
Nothing.
Only one small difference: the strip of ground behind him looked too even. Not like logging or landslide remnants, but more like the edge of cloth torn in one straight pull. At that line, the grass had not yet grown as thick as elsewhere. The soil was slightly darker, slightly damper.
When the wind blew, he expected the smell of forest—
wet, moss, rot.
Nothing.
Only ordinary scents came: grass, dust, cold air.
Dio felt something tighten in his chest.
Not panic.
Not relief.
More like the realization that those 24 days might have only one witness: himself. The world kept no record.
He stared at the empty stretch for a long time, until his eyes burned.
Nothing changed.
No creature returned.
Whatever had lived in that forest had gone back to where he could no longer see.
He let out a short breath.
Then turned toward the city.
◆
The gate was closer now.
From this distance, he could see the faces of the two guards standing there: sharp lines along their jaws, helmets covering most of their heads, cloth padding beneath simple metal plates. Their eyes narrowed, assessing the figure approaching from the open field—alone, armed with sword and shield, covered in dust.
Dio realized how strange he must look to them.
How even he himself no longer knew how he looked now.
He kept walking.
Each step sounded clear in his head.
Heel pressing into earth.
Calf muscle pulling.
A small tightness in his breath.
There was nothing left to shield him from pain if he fell.
No more guarantee he would stand again if something shattered his bones.
But for the first time, he accepted that as part of living, not only as a threat.
A few meters from the gate, one guard raised a hand, signaling him to stop. Dio obeyed, halting at a safe distance. They held each other's gaze for a moment—human eyes judging a human.
Behind him, the world was quiet.
The forest that had swallowed him for 24 days was gone without a trace.
The protection that had guarded him for 24 days had vanished without a sound.
What remained was only the city ahead…
and a human body that could now truly die if it misstepped.
Dio drew a breath.
A breath heavy, but real.
The breath of someone who, for the first time in a long while, was truly alive again.
He tightened his hold on the shield's strap.
Whatever waited inside that city, at the very least…
he would face it not as a shadow guarded by the world,
but as himself.
And he stepped forward.
— VOLUME 1 — END —