Far below, stretching to the horizon, lay a city that seemed carved from light and dream. Even from this far up the mountain road, its marble towers rose in pale clusters, catching the setting sun until they gleamed like burnished gold. A massive arched bridge curved across the water, its silhouette sharp enough to see even at this distance.
The sea beyond the walls glimmered like spilled bronze. Ships slid across it, small as toys from where he stood, their rune-marked sails flickering like stray sparks in the dusk. Canals wound through the city in thin slivers of silver, just visible when the fading light struck them at the right angle. Crystal spires rose above the rooftops, scattering color through the air like distant shards of sunset.
From up here, the whole place looked less like stone and mortar and more like an old myth breathing under the last light.
Samuel stood silent, his earlier worries dissolving for a moment.
"That's Oriendal… your father's fief." The voice of Milo interrupted his thought.
Milo shifted nervously beside him, fingers tightening on the cart rail.
"You were out for a long time, even after we gave you the extremely rare Soul-regenerating potion. I… I wasn't sure you'd wake up."
Milo's words didn't even reach his brain.
Shit! Did he say my father's fief? Am I really a young master in this life?
The idea felt ridiculous, yet the view below pushed it forward. The architecture echoed the medieval world he had only seen in books. The long stone arches, the wide harbor, the shape of the sails drifting across the water… they felt closer to the ancient Roman world, or at least a distorted echo of it.
From this height, everything remained distant. No faces or voices, only the soft glow of a city that looked halfway familiar and halfway fantasy.
Suddenly his thoughts crashed to a halt.
The horses screamed. Then the carriage jolted so violently that Samuel's shoulder slammed against the wooden frame. The world outside fell into silence, too sudden, too sharp.
Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones, that quiet pressure before a storm.
Silvi and Milo leaped down. The soldiers followed, boots thudding against the earth in a nervous rhythm. Samuel hesitated only a moment before stepping out. The sunlight had turned pale, thin, as if afraid to touch the air.
Anne steadied herself beside him, one hand pressed to her side. "Stay close, young master. Fear keeps you alive. Panic gets you killed."
And then it appeared.
A wound hung above the plains, vast, circular, alive. It was a living scar in the sky, light bending inward like water down a drain.
"What the hell… is that?" The words fell from his mouth before his mind could name the awe curling in his gut.
"I—I don't know, young master," Milo breathed. His voice trembled. Even the wind felt like it was holding its breath.
The cavalry leader dismounted and removed his helmet. To Samuel, he looked carved from war itself—white hair wild, eyes forged by fire, armor scarred black and bone-white. A greatsword hung across his back, with another blade at his waist.
Milo leaned close. "That's Bai… Commander of your father's elite guard."
The air thickened. The portal rippled. Horns tore through first, black as obsidian. Then the snout emerged, scaled and ancient enough to make them tremble. The rest followed, a shape too vast for his mind to frame, twisting as if the air itself resisted it.
Even from the road, the clouds tremble with each breath. And when the wings unfurled, the sun simply… disappeared.
Samuel's mind refused to believe it. His pulse hammered. "Wh… What in the name of god is this colossus?"
Silvi's breath hitched. When she spoke, her voice came out thin and unsteady, nothing like the calm guardian he'd seen until now.
"Young master… th—that's a Behemoth. A Draconic Behemoth. Extinction-class. We… shouldn't ever see one here."
The creature turned. Its eyes, each the size of a house and glowed like molten gold. Then, it opened its mouth.
For a heartbeat, the world went quiet. Then it roared.
The horses fell screaming. Samuel's teeth rattled. The world blurred into light and thunder until Bai stepped before him, sword drawn, his figure set against the roaring blast.
When the sound faded, the soldiers shook where they stood. The horses foamed at the mouth. Silvi's eyes were thin slits of focus, her hand resting on her blade. Above the city, the Behemoth gathered light, black and red, swirling into a sphere that burned like a dying sun. The world dimmed as it formed.
Then it fired.
The beam struck something invisible above the city. He saw the impact flash against empty air. For one impossible instant, the light froze, then shattered through.
For a moment, Samuel heard nothing. Total silence swallowed everything. A breath later, the shockwave hit.
Samuel was airborne before he could scream. The wind howled past his ears, and he braced for stone, only to crash into warmth and flesh.
"Are you all right, young master?" Silvi asked, her voice tight with concern. She had caught both him and Milo.
"The city…" a soldier gasped. "It's gone."
Samuel turned. His knees weakened.
For a moment, his brain simply stalled. An entire city, its towers, walls, history, erased as if someone had dragged a cosmic eraser across the land. Even from miles away, the massive scale of destruction punched through the numbness and left a hollow ache in his chest.
From the glowing wound in the sky, more shapes poured out, but much smaller. First a handful, then a swarm. Their wings caught the light in shifting flashes of red and gold, twisting the sky into a living mural of motion. The sun dimmed behind them until the horizon looked alive, writhing with creatures he couldn't name.
A low rumble rolled across the plains, thin but steady, almost like distant thunder. Samuel's head lifted at the sound. A strange light flickered across the ground beyond the ruined city, bright enough to catch his eye even from this height.
Massive silver lines were spreading across the earth, running in wide curves and sharp angles, forming a pattern he could only describe as an ancient rune. If he could see it from here, it had to be colossal.
A second tear in the world shimmered at the center of those lines, smaller than the one in the sky but unmistakably similar. A heartbeat later, dust erupted upward in thick pillars, thrown into the air as if something enormous had just appeared all at once. The dust didn't settle. It swelled and spread outward, then began drifting in a slow, deliberate advance away from the rune circle. He couldn't see anything clearly from this distance, but the moving dust front slipped forward in a steady, rhythmic pace that gave him a sense of a massive army on the march.
Then shapes emerged from the cloud of dust. Three enormous constructs stepped into view, each one human-shaped but moving with the weight and precision of carved stone brought to life. Their silhouettes were sharp even from miles away, too massive to mistake for anything natural. Above them, another creature glided out of the distortion. Not as titanic as the Behemoth, yet the fact that he could see it from here meant it dwarfed anything human.
A cold realization prickled down his neck. Another force was arriving. The plains were moments away from turning into a battlefield.
Anne's angry voice echoed across the line. "The Imperial Colossal Giant Construct… Of course the Crown Prince arrives now, precisely after the city is gone."
Her words cut through the stunned silence around them. Even from where he stood, Samuel could feel the frustration behind her voice, sharp enough to bite.
Samuel looked at Bai, but he was surprised to see Bai not looking at the battlefield but looking toward the forest behind. Then Bai suddenly turned toward him.
"Silvi! Get the young master back! We must escape quickly," Bai's command cut through the panic and frustration.
Silvi grabbed him and slung him over a shoulder. Samuel's head struck her shoulder, and his consciousness began to fade. He vaguely saw the ground racing beneath them, the cart growing larger with every jolting stride. He could taste dust in the air, dry and sharp. Before he lost his consciousness completely, he heard solders vague words.
"Incoming!"
***
"Wake up… wake up…"
The voice drifted through the black like sound underwater, distant, warped, stubbornly refusing to fade.
Samuel's eyelids twitched. Pain pulsed at the base of his skull. When he forced his eyes open, the world swayed around him. The cart rattled beneath his back, jarring every bruise.
A dirt-smudged face hovered above him, wide eyes, trembling lips.
He sucked in a breath, but something over the man's shoulder froze him completely.
Something was wrong. This wasn't what he remembered before blacking out.
His vision steadied just long enough to catch flames rising along the treeline. Trees burned in jagged rows, branches snapping, embers drifting upward like sparks shaken from a forge. Smoke curled across the road in dark sheets.
Riders flanked the cart on both sides, armor glinting in the firelight, blades drawn as their mounts thundered through the smoke.
Silvi sat at the back, chest heaving. Even through the blur, Samuel noticed how pale she'd become, steam curling weakly off her hands as she tried to summon another barrier.
Behind her, Anne lay motionless, hair splayed across the planks, her breathing shallow enough Samuel couldn't tell if it moved at all.
Samuel's throat tightened.
Then he saw Milo.
The boy sagged against the rail with an arrow buried in his shoulder. Blood soaked his sleeve, running down his arm in a slow, dark line. His jaw clenched, but his eyes stayed open, sharp, furious, refusing to dim.
"What… what's happening?" Samuel barely recognized his own voice, it scraped out raw, dragged across sandpaper.
The last thing he remembered was Silvi dragging him into the cart.
Silvi glanced back at him through the flicker of flames. A tired, self-mocking smile tugged at her lips.
Silvi wiped the blood from her lip, voice barely holding steady. "Everything lined up too neatly… your poisoning, the assassin attack, the behemoth striking, Bai separating from us… and then us funneled into a path Anne and I thought only we knew."
Her eyes flicked toward the burning treeline. "From the beginning, the crown prince faction was playing three moves ahead. And if we die here, everything gets pinned on the demons."
Demons? I must have been unconscious for a long time. And I seem to be on the losing end of the struggle for the throne.
Silvi's words had barely faded when something cold locked around Samuel's heart.
His instincts roared one word through the haze.
Danger.
A thunderous crack split the air.
Samuel's head snapped up. Through the smoke behind them, four colossal spears hurtled into view, their outlines blurred by heat.
Samuel froze. His breath snagged in his throat. Are those spears or pointed pillars? Is a giant chasing us?
That's it… I'm definitely dead this time.
Instinct dragged his arm up anyway, as if his frail hand could hold back the end.
Light burst in front of him before he even understood what he was seeing. The air folded, for a moment sound vanished.
Between his spread fingers, he caught it, something invisible seizing the spears mid-flight. Their bodies shuddered and then shattered, splintering into storms of fire and glass that burned out before they hit the ground.
Every muscle in Samuel's body screamed to run, but the cart offered nowhere to go. Hooves pounded. Wheels rattled. There was only forward.
"Don't worry, young master," Anne's voice drifted from behind him, hoarse yet firm. "Silvi may fight like she's all aggression, but her greatest strength has always been defense. Her Air Barrier will hold… at least for now." She looked toward the path ahead, letting a spark of hope into her voice. "Once we reach Moonfall Bridge, they won't dare set foot in Night King territory."
Air Barrier? Don't tell me it's the girl Silvi who blocked those massive pillars. Do humans in this world have superpowers?
I must survive this to know more. He looked at the woman, Anne. At least one of them must survive so that I can know the details about this world.
"Don't talk. Just rest," Samuel said, his voice rough with worry.
Since waking up in this world and analyzing what little he had been able to hear, he could reach one conclusion. These people were with him. More than that, they treated his life as more important than their own.
The way they treat me, the way they call me young master…This world seems to follow some kind of feudal system.So they should be my father's loyal subjects.It's rare to have such loyal subjects. I can't lose them.
But what could he do? He was a powerless child now. Dammit. I haven't felt this helpless in a long time.
Anne let her head fall back against the wooden frame. Her eyes slipped closed, breath rasping in and out as the cart jolted on.
A laugh cut through the firelight, low, cold, and far too certain.
"Hehehe!… None of you are leaving here alive."
Samuel stiffened. His eyes snapped toward the rear of the pursuit.
A tall woman rode in the center of the chasing host, her posture relaxed as if the battle didn't concern her at all. The beast beneath her thundered forward, hooves cracking the earth, a jagged horn jutting from its skull like a blade. A white mask covered her face, etched with the faint outline of a coiled dragon that gleamed whenever the flames caught it.
Behind her, men in black masks and fitted garb swept forward in a disciplined line, too organized to be bandits, too silent to be simple mercenaries. Samuel's pulse crept up his throat.
Something about their silence, the way they moved in perfect formation, hit him with an old-world memory: assassins from movies.
Her voice carried easily across the burning path.
"A branch family hoarding treasure it doesn't deserve? All this… for a trash young master?"
Samuel froze. Treasure? What is she talking about? Isn't this supposed to be a political struggle?
The rider raised one arm, fingers curling.
"Flame Serpent."
The air twisted.
Fire bled into shape along her forearm, first a line, then a coil, then a living thing. In the span of a heartbeat, a thirty-foot serpent of fire roared into existence, its body thick as a tree trunk, its scales writhing like molten metal.
Heat crashed across the cart. Samuel's skin tightened, the air seared his lungs. This time he saw it clearly. A human summoning, a massive fiery snake. It felt straight out of the animes from his old world.
Holy shit! What kind of fundamental laws does this world operate under?Calm down. Even this has to obey logic. I need to understand the fundamentals first.
The rider thrust her arm forward. The serpent lunged, jaws opening wide enough to swallow the cart whole.
Samuel felt a pulse in the air behind him. He turned back toward Anne.
Anne was standing.
Glowing runes crawled across her skin, her arms, her neck, even her face, each line burning brighter than the fire rushing toward them.
Silvi's breath hitched in panic. "Stop! You'll lose all your cultivation!"
Anne didn't respond. Her fingers rose slowly, steady despite the blood dripping from her nose.
A flicker of heat rolled off the rider, her aura tightening as if she finally sensed the killing intent aimed at her. The reaction was tiny, but real.
"Sand Prison!"
The earth answered.
Chains erupted from the ground, dozens of them, latching onto the Flame Serpent's coils. The creature thrashed, heat tearing through sand links one after another, but every broken chain slowed it, even if only by a fraction.
It wasn't enough to stop it. But it forced it to struggle.
Anne drew another breath, trembling, pained, and lifted her hand higher. More runes flared, cutting lines of red across her skin.
"Sand Burial!"
Spikes of sand materialized above the serpent, ten-foot stone-hard pillars, suspended in a line from head to tail.
They dropped in unison.
The first smashed into the serpent's skull, halting the open maw inches from the cart. The rest crashed down its length, pinning each coil to the earth.
Through the shaking cart, Samuel saw the serpent's flames thrash and shrink under the falling pillars, like the fire was being smothered alive.
Flames burst into dust. The pillars dissolved with them.
A sharp crack split the air. Anne's knees gave out.
Blood streamed from her eyes, from her arms, even from the edges of the runes themselves. Thin cuts tore open across her skin as if the power had carved straight through her flesh.
She collapsed forward.
"MOTHER!"
Despite the arrow buried in his shoulder, Milo lunged and caught her, his small hands trembling as he lowered her to the floor.
The cart kept rattling, but Samuel felt a strange stillness settle over him. The burning treeline blurred as he stared at the woman who had nearly burned her life away to save them.
The moment snapped almost instantly.
A snarl ripped through the smoke, so sharp Samuel felt it jolt down his spine.
"I've had enough of this chase! All of you, go to hell!"
"Meteor Fall!"
The masked rider's shout yanked Samuel back into the moment.
Samuel's head jerked up just as the sky split open above them.
Giant stones, burning and swollen, streaking fire, plummeted toward the cart like falling stars dragged from orbit. Their fiery tails flared across Samuel's vision, turning everything into molten orange.
What on earth… A massive monster, something like a behemoth tearing through a city, was one thing. But humans summoning meteors? That broke the framework of logic he had been applying to this world.
He glanced down at Silvi, praying she had something left.
Instead of confidence, he saw her lips tremble. Her breath stuttered. Her eyes flicked across the burning forest with the fear of someone at the edge of their limits.
Samuel's heart kicked painfully in his chest.
He turned toward Milo and Anne, the boy clutching his mother's limp body, the same fear mirrored in both their faces.
Then Silvi looked at Samuel.
The bravado she had carried since the moment he met her flickered like a dying flame…
Panic tightened in Samuel's chest. She had shielded him again and again. He didn't want to watch another person burn themselves away for him. Not again.
"Well… young master," she whispered. "This is farewell, I suppose."
Light began to leak from her skin, faintly at first, until it flared so brightly Samuel had to shield his eyes. Even then, brilliance forced its way through his fingers.
Her body unraveled into gold.
She threw her head back and roared:
"Barrier of the Heavenly Gate!"
The meteor slammed into a wall of radiance.
Fire slammed into her barrier, a shock so violent Samuel felt the sky itself shudder. The blast drowned out every sound, even the horses, even the crack of the burning forest. Samuel felt the force punch through the cart, lifting it off the ground as if reality had lost its grip.
He went weightless. The world spun in streaks of orange and white. The burning treeline blurred and twisted beneath him.
His stomach lurched as his body tumbled through open air, with no sense of up or down, only impact waiting somewhere below.
For a heartbeat, one fragile, impossible moment, he saw Silvi or at least what was left of her.
She was little more than drifting fragments now, golden strips peeling away from her form, dissolving into the blaze she had unleashed. Yet even as her body vanished, her smile stayed intact, steady, calm, almost peaceful.
Something in Samuel twisted hard.
Silvi had died for him.
Anne was breaking herself for him.
Milo was still standing despite the pain that should have dropped him.
He didn't know if Bai was even alive anymore, only that he had stayed behind so he could escape.
All he could do was watch, watch people burn themselves out for his sake. Something inside him tore. He had never felt this powerless, not even in his old life.
That truth landed an instant before the ground rose to meet him.
His vision shattered into white pain. Darkness rushed in, swallowing the last of his awareness.