Location: Narn - Year: 6999 NY
A thousand years had passed since the final scream of Amaia and the last charge of Lord Abel.
A thousand years of silence.
Of conquest.
Of control.
The land had not healed — it had hardened. Where once rolling meadows hummed with birdsong and wind, now great black fortresses scarred the hills like jagged teeth. Iron had replaced forest. Ash had replaced field. And above all things, order ruled — the kind that smothered instead of soothed.
High upon the cliffs of western Narn, where the clouds hung lowest and the sun dared least to shine, a massive stronghold rose like a blister in the earth. Its stone walls were ancient — or perhaps only carved to appear so — but they radiated menace like heat from a furnace. Everything about the place spoke of endurance, of immovable will. Spikes jutted from the battlements like fangs. Dark banners snapped in the wind, stitched with runes that no longer meant words — only domination.
Inside, the walls were no warmer. Long halls of black stone stretched into gloom, torches flickering in the silence, as if afraid to burn too loudly. The air was thick, not with smoke or blood — but with expectation. The kind of pressure that made one walk faster, speak softer, breathe shallower.
And in the heart of it all sat him.
He did not wear a crown, though no one in the fortress doubted his authority. He did not bark commands, for fear was more effective when whispered.
His name was spoken rarely, and only in private — Razik.
And even then, only when one was sure he wasn't listening.
He sat now in his throne — though it was no ornate thing. Just a block of onyx carved with brutal efficiency, elevated on a platform of red-veined marble. The room around him was wide and cold, its domed ceiling lost in shadows. Figures lined the perimeter, but none dared speak. The air seemed to bend toward Razik, as if the very room obeyed his gravity.
His body was obscured in a dark green cloak of heavy fabric, embroidered in patterns that shimmered faintly, like veins of fire beneath coal. Only his hands were visible — sharp, clawed, twitching with a slow, restless rhythm against the stone armrest. The only light in the chamber came from a ring of torches along the outer wall — and even these seemed dimmer in his presence.
At the foot of the dais, a Tracient knelt — a Hyena.
The creature's fur was ragged, patched in places with scar tissue. He trembled visibly, as if each breath might be his last. The silence stretched like a taut string.
Then, finally, Razik spoke.
"Report."
His voice was low — too low for a whisper, too clear to ignore. It did not rise or fall. It cut.
The Hyena licked his dry lips and bowed even lower.
"S-Sir," he began, "we believe what we saw was… was a wolf Tracient."
The moment the words left his mouth, silence slammed into the room like a blade. No one moved. No one dared breathe.
Razik did not reply.
He only stood.
And that, in itself, was a kind of apocalypse.
He rose slowly, deliberately, the heavy fabric of his cloak dragging behind him like a stormcloud. The light in the room seemed to shift, shrinking away from him. His face remained cloaked in shadow — but his eyes… his eyes glowed.
Not with warmth. Not with life.
But with intention.
Sickly yellow irises flared within the darkness of his hood, like candles lit in the tomb of something long dead. The Hyena looked up — a mistake — and the moment his gaze met Razik's, he was flung backward, hard, by a force that did not touch but commanded. He hit the wall with a sickening crack, and slid to the floor, unmoving.
Razik's voice followed, calm as ever.
"You do realize what would happen," he said, "if this information is false?"
No one replied. No one dared.
"Of all the mistakes my enemies have made," he went on, pacing slowly, the embers of torchlight brushing his silhouette, "the one they love most is hope. Like weeds, it finds its way into cracks — and then grows. But weeds," he stopped, exhaling through his nose, "must be burned."
A single silver case clicked open in his hand.
He pulled a thin black cigarette from it and placed it between his lips. The moment he inhaled, the tip ignited on its own — a soft, burning glow that bathed the sharp lines of his jaw in red-orange light.
The smoke curled up into the rafters and vanished like a sigh.
"However," Razik said, after a long drag, "I find myself… curious."
The word fell like poison into a glass of wine.
He stepped down from the dais, the sound of his bare paws on stone as soft as a heartbeat, as final as a grave being closed.
"If what you say is true — if a wolf Tracient yet lives — then it seems I must go see this for myself."
As he passed, the guards at the doors stood rigid, their faces empty, their minds trained not to think in his presence. Shadows gathered around him not as absence, but as followers — as if even darkness had sworn fealty to him.
The doors opened before he touched them.
And Razik, Lord of the Dominion, walked into the night.
The smoke from his cigarette left a trail behind him — a single glowing thread — like a fuse.
____________________________________
The scene opened on a place the world had nearly forgotten.
The Fords of Beruna — once sacred ground, now hushed and lonely beneath a pale, cloud-blanketed sky.
Snow fell gently, soundless as a secret. It dusted the broken stones at the river's edge, clung to the tangled reeds, softened the jagged banks. Beneath a thin film of frost, the waters of the ford lay frozen still — not yet dead, but silent, caught in time. The kind of stillness that does not welcome footsteps.
It was a place where echoes lingered. Not sounds, but memories.
And as Adam stepped across the icy ground, he felt it — not just in his ears, but in his bones. That quiet press of something else. A tension not born of fear, but of reverence. The kind of tension that belongs in a cathedral or a battlefield — or a place where the two had once become the same.
Kon stood beside him, arms folded, eyes scanning the horizon.
"It's believed," he said softly, "that once, back in the old days, a Tracient could peer into other worlds from this ford. That the veil between realms was thin here."
Adam turned toward him, brows raised. "Other worlds?"
Kon nodded, his voice distant. "The river was said to reflect more than your own face. If your heart was still enough, you'd see what lies beyond. Some say the Great Lion passed through here once, long ago. Others say it was here He last spoke to the world."
He fell silent.
And for a moment, the only sound was the wind curling through the crumbling stone arches, moaning like the last breath of a hymn.
Adam's eyes swept the river again. Even beneath the layers of frost and ruin, something about this place felt… known. Not familiar, exactly — but remembered, as if he had walked through it once in a dream half-forgotten.
He shivered, but not from the cold.
Kon watched him carefully.
This boy, he thought, is unlike any I've ever seen.
Not just in strength. In… presence. He doesn't carry himself like the others. He carries something deeper. Like a song that hasn't been sung yet.
Could he really be…?
But the thought shattered.
Because at that very moment, it arrived.
The world did not cry out. It tightened — as if it had suddenly remembered to be afraid.
WHHHHIIIIIIZZZZ!!!!!!
A surge of mana — compressed, malicious, foreign — screamed across the open land like a thunderclap, moving at Light Speed. Kon's body moved before thought could catch up. Instinct roared through him like fire. He turned—
Too late.
A flash of violet light split the sky.
And then — BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The explosion tore through the stillness with a violence that felt personal. Ice shattered in a cascade of white shards, the river erupting in a plume of water, snow, and flame. The ground beneath their feet buckled. Air cracked open, rippling with the shockwave. Stone crumbled.
Kon's arms rose to shield, but it was useless.
Adam, however — moved.
He did not know how he moved. Only that he did. A whisper of warning had tickled the back of his mind miliseconds before the blast hit. His body twisted with impossible precision, leaping clear of the worst of the collision.
The smoke rolled in thick and white.
Kon coughed, blinking through the haze.
And from the gloom — he came.
Razik.
He did not walk. He emerged.
His figure was lean, long, draped in a dark green coat that fluttered despite the windless air. His eyes — bright, cold, inhuman — locked immediately onto Adam with predatory delight.
"I am impressed," he said, voice smooth, like oil poured over glass. "Not many can dodge my Plasma Beads."
He smiled — not from amusement, but from hunger.
Kon rose slowly, teeth bared. Rage pulsed through his jaw like fire.
"Razik…"
The name left his lips like venom. Loathing wrapped in breath.
Razik's grin widened. "It's been a while, cub."
His tone made it sound like an old reunion — like old friends recalling a sparring match. But Kon remembered too well the screams, the graves, the endless smoke that followed Razik wherever he went.
There was no friendship in him.
Only conquest.
And then — the Hyenas came.
They spilled from the smoke like ghosts. Dozens of them. Muscle, claw, fangs. Tracients twisted and bent into loyal monsters. Eyes lifeless. Obedience etched into every step.
"Adam!" Kon barked, already moving.
A stone — heavy, slick with frost — flew from his hand and cracked against the first wave. Several Hyenas stumbled, snarling, crashing into each other. It was enough.
"Run."
They did.
For a few heartbeats, they moved like shadows fleeing fire — weaving through ancient stones, vaulting over broken walls that surrounded the ford. But then—
It hit.
CRACK!!!
A crushing force slammed into Kon's back like a mountain had fallen.
He went down hard, face-first into the snow, the wind knocked from his lungs. Something unseen — a field, a pressure, an invisible cage — pressed into him from all sides. He strained, claws scraping the ground, muscles screaming.
But it was like trying to push back the sky. Like trying to lift five mountains with one hand.
Razik strolled forward, unhurried.
"You were always a pain," he said, voice almost fond.
"Let him go!!!" Adam's voice broke through the chaos — and this time, it held no fear.
Only desperation.
Only fire.
Razik turned toward him. He cocked his head, curious.
"Oh, I will," he said, deceptively kind. "But you're coming with me. And you'll tell me everything."
Adam's fists clenched.
His chest heaved.
And something… shifted.
A pulse.
A spark.
His body felt wrong, as if something far larger were trying to wake inside him — something ancient, coiled in his bones like a forgotten name. His vision blurred, then sharpened. And when he opened his eyes again, they glowed. A crystaline blue hue that was gone as soon as it came.
Not with rage. Not with fear.
With awakening.
"Fine," Adam said.
His voice was calm. Steady.
"I'll come with you. Let him go."
Razik paused.
Then smiled.
Victory gleamed in his eyes. He flicked his wrist.
The gravity field vanished.
Kon gasped as the pressure lifted. But his limbs wouldn't obey. His body trembled from the strain, his vision dimming. Everything swayed. The world tilted.
But before darkness claimed him, something glimmered.
On the ground — half-buried in snow — a ring.
Small. Old.
Faintly glowing.
Yellow light curled around its edge like a memory made real.
Kon reached.
Fingers outstretched.
Touching it.
And then — everything went black.