The shrill alarm pierced the morning air, its rapid, grating tone drilling into Azrael's nerves like a rusty nail. He shot up from his bed, instantly alert, and rushed to the window.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
Thick, unnatural fog had consumed the entire cityscape. Where familiar buildings and streets should have been visible, there was only an impenetrable gray wall that seemed to pulse with malevolent energy. Sounds that made his skin crawl came from within that suffocating blanket of mist—terrifying roars that belonged to no earthly creature. They echoed and reverberated like the death cries of nightmares made manifest.
The emergency broadcast blared from his TV, the same urgent message looping endlessly: "Secret Realm invasion detected. All civilians, evacuate to designated safe zones immediately. This is not a drill."
Outside his apartment, the hallways erupted with the thunder of footsteps. Azrael yanked open his door and found his neighbors streaming down the stairwell in organized chaos—frightened, but not panicking; moving with the practiced efficiency of people who had done this before.
"Azrael!" His elderly neighbor, Aunt Suzy, spotted him immediately. Her weathered hand clamped onto his arm with surprising strength. "Come on, boy! We need to get to the evacuation point now!"
He let her sweep him into the current of evacuees and observed how the residents moved with grim familiarity. This world had been dealing with secret realm invasions for decades. The initial terror that had once paralyzed entire populations had given way to resigned acceptance—a survival mechanism born of necessity.
The courtyard of the Happy Homes Complex buzzed with nervous energy as hundreds of residents gathered around the main gate. A massive loudspeaker crackled to life and began broadcasting the same reassuring message on repeat:
"Lore Cardians are en route to your location. Please remain calm and await rescue. Lore Cardians are en route to your location. Please remain calm and await rescue."
But the dark fog was already creeping closer, its tendrils reaching toward them like grasping fingers. The crowd pressed together instinctively. Everyone understood the unspoken rule: Stay in the light, stay together, and pray the monsters don't find you first.
Secret Realm creatures were immune to conventional weapons. Only cards created by skilled Lore Cardians could harm them—a harsh reality that rendered entire armies useless when the invasions first began. Most ordinary people could only craft basic, white, black iron-level cards, typically summoning creatures as mundane and helpless as chickens or rabbits.
Minutes ticked by like hours. Velkairos City sprawled across hundreds of square miles, and even the Cardian Master Association's resources were stretched thin during large-scale invasions. This particular breach came from the Demon's Nest, the most dangerous secret realm in the region—a place where nightmares took physical form and fed on human flesh.
A woman's scream shattered the tense silence.
"Monsters! They're coming through the fog!"
Scarlet eyes materialized in the mist like bloody stars—dozens of them—gleaming with predatory hunger. The crowd recoiled as one: parents clutching their children and the elderly leaning heavily on their walking sticks.
A young man near the perimeter gritted his teeth and stepped forward. "Demon Dog, come forth!" He thrust out a worn black card, and light flashed as his summon materialized—a German shepherd, sturdy but ordinary, trembling slightly as it sensed the supernatural threat ahead.
"Attack!" the young man commanded, his voice cracking with desperation.
The dog charged into the fog with a bark of false bravado. For a moment, fierce barking echoed from within the gray wall. Then the sounds changed—the confident barks became uncertain whimpers, then terrified yelps, and finally... silence.
The young man's face turned pale. His knees buckled.
That's when the crowd began to disperse.
"I want my mom!" a child wailed.
"Those bastard Lore Cardians are probably protecting the rich districts!" someone shouted bitterly. "They've abandoned us!"
We're all going to die here," an old man whispered, his voice hollow with despair.
Through the chaos and fog, seven grotesque figures shambled into view: They were ghouls, the most common inhabitants of the Demon's Nest and no less terrifying for their ubiquity. They were as tall as grown men, but they moved with an unnatural, jerky gait that was painful to watch. Their gray skin hung in tatters, revealing patches of rotting muscle beneath. Three of them had fresh gore splattered around their mouths, with chunks of meat still clinging to their razor-sharp teeth. The stench of decay rolled off them in waves.
Strangely, the sight of them made Azrael relax slightly. Ghouls were dangerous, yes, but they were known quantities. Any competent Black Iron-level Lore Cardian could handle a small group of them. He had been terrified of encountering something far worse, like the legendary Flesh King that ruled the deepest levels of the Demon's Nest.
Still, these people were defenseless.
Azrael stepped forward, but Aunt Suzy tightened her grip on his arm. "Don't be foolish, boy! You'll just get yourself killed!"
He gently pried her fingers loose and offered her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "It's okay, Aunt Suzy. I'm a Lore Cardian."
Her eyes widened in shock. She knew Azrael wanted to become a card maker, but she'd never heard that he'd succeeded. Before she could voice her doubts, he pushed through the crowd toward the front lines.
"What's that kid doing?"
"Someone stop him!"
"He's too young to die like this!"
The ghouls were close enough that Azrael could see the details of their corruption: the way their claws clicked against the pavement, the intelligence lurking behind their predatory gazes, and the thick saliva dripping from their maws that hissed when it hit the ground.
Azrael reached into his mind, feeling for the card that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat.
Light exploded around him, and Jiguo Yoriichi materialized between the crowd and the monsters.
The effect was immediate and electric. The panicked voices died away as hundreds of eyes fixed on the figure before them. Yoriichi stood with perfect poise, his hand resting lightly on his sword's hilt, breathing calmly and steadily. Everything about him radiated deadly competence.
"Is he really a Lore Cardian?" someone whispered.
"We're saved!" another voice called out, hope creeping back into the crowd's collective consciousness.
"But he's so young. Can he really handle this?"
Azrael blocked out the chatter, focusing entirely on his summon. "It's up to you, Yoriichi."
The legendary swordsman nodded once, a gesture so slight it was barely perceptible. His blade whispered from its sheath, the steel singing a note of perfect clarity. As he drew breath, the metal began to glow, shifting from silver to cherry red as if heated in a forge.
Then he vanished.
One moment, he was standing motionless before the crowd. The next, he had crossed twenty feet of open ground faster than the eye could follow and appeared directly among the pack of ghouls. The nearest monster's head tumbled from its shoulders before it could register the threat.
The remaining six ghouls shrieked in unison—a sound like grinding metal mixed with human screams. They launched themselves at Yoriichi from all directions, claws extended and mouths gaping wide to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth.
Yoriichi crouched slightly, shifting his grip on his sword's handle. He took one deep, controlled breath.
The blade moved in a perfect circle, leaving a trail of bright, fiery light in the air. For an instant, time seemed suspended—the ghouls were frozen mid-leap, their expressions locked in savage hunger. Then, reality reasserted itself with brutal finality.
All six creatures crashed to the ground in pieces, cleanly bisected by that single, impossible cut.
The crowd erupted in cheers and gasps of amazement. Even Azrael felt his jaw drop slightly. He knew purple-quality cards were powerful, but this level of dominance was staggering. According to official documentation, a typical Black Iron Lore Cardian with Blue-Quality cards could handle maybe five ghouls, if they were lucky and skilled. Yoriichi had just eliminated seven without breaking a sweat.
Shaking off his amazement, Azrael approached the fallen monsters. He wrapped his mental energy around their corpses and concentrated on the extraction process he had practiced many times before. With a sharp mental twist, seven shimmering cards materialized in his palm.
Summoning Material: [Ghoul] (Green) × 7
He couldn't suppress a small smile. Green-grade materials sold for over twenty thousand Empire treasure notes each on the open market. In less than thirty seconds, he had just earned nearly one hundred and fifty thousand—more money than most people saw in a year.
No wonder successful Lore Cardians lived like royalty.
But his moment of triumph was cut short when Yoriichi suddenly shifted position and raised his still-glowing blade in a defensive stance. The swordsman's eyes were fixed on something in the fog that the crowd couldn't yet see.
A massive shadow moved within the gray veil, far larger than any ghoul. Azrael's stomach dropped. Whatever was coming, it dwarfed everything they had faced so far.
"I hope you can handle this, too, Yoriichi," he muttered, uncertainty creeping into his voice for the first time.
The shadow grew larger and more defined. The crowd behind him began to murmur nervously, some taking unconscious steps backward. Then, cutting through the tension like a blade, an unexpected sound came from within the fog: a cheerful male voice calling out.
"Sorry, sorry! Ran into a Gluttonous Beast on the way over here, which held me up a bit. I'm not too late, am I?"
A massive figure emerged from the mist and revealed itself to be an enormous silver wolf standing nearly two stories tall. Its fur gleamed like polished metal, and its ice-blue eyes surveyed the scene with intelligence. But instead of menace, those eyes held something almost amused.
The wolf's gaze settled on Azrael, and when it spoke, its voice was surprisingly gentle. "Well, looks like you handled those ghouls just fine without me. Not bad at all, kid."
Before Azrael could process the fact that the giant wolf was talking to him, a new voice spoke up right beside his ear—so close that it made him jump.
"Pretty impressive work there, classmate."
Azrael spun around and found a young man standing casually next to him, as if he had been there all along. The newcomer was probably in his early twenties with sun-bleached hair and an easy smile. His outfit was completely at odds with the crisis unfolding around them: a loud Hawaiian shirt covered in palm trees and flamingos, baggy beach shorts, and flip-flops better suited to a vacation than a monster invasion.
The man gestured toward the massive wolf with obvious affection. "All right, Delila, stop trying to intimidate everyone. You're scaring the civilians."
The enormous creature—apparently named Delilah—lowered her great head and nuzzled the man's outstretched hand. She made soft whuffling sounds, like an oversized puppy seeking attention.
"I'm Michael," the man said, extending his hand to Azrael with a grin. "Third-year card-making student at Velkairos University. Judging by that technique, you've got some serious potential yourself."