The Forgotten Heart of Drunai
Deep within the heavens, beyond the stars, there exists an ancient world whose name — Drunai — barely whispers in the memory of its own.
A colossal planet, split into two perfect halves: untamed land and unfathomable waters. Its only continent, Thalwen, was a vast mass where life flourished in its wildest and purest state. Although the sea covered half the globe, few dared to sail its abysses. In its depths lurked horrors as ancient as the world itself—beasts that devoured ships and consumed even the very mana.
But Drunai was not only danger. It was also a dazzling beauty. Mana was not just energy: it was the soul of the planet. Like oxygen to lungs, it enveloped every creature. Plants purified toxins, exhaling them as magical essence. Beasts devoured and were devoured, and from their remains new life was born. A perfect balance. A self-sustaining cycle of mana and existence.
Then... it happened.
Countless millions of years ago, an eternal day marked the beginning of chaos. Thousands of interdimensional portals tore open the sky of Drunai like open wounds. From them emerged the demonic beasts: creatures without soul or emotion, driven only by three primal desires: to devour, to destroy... and to multiply.
The only conscious inhabitants at that time were the Ancestral Spirits, an ethereal and peaceful race born from the earth, living in communion with the planet. They knew no conflict.
Until that day.
Driven by desperation, the spirits took up the first weapons. They forged armor, honed magic, and learned to fight. And with war, they awakened a dormant truth: evolution.
Each fallen demonic beast released its corrupted mana, which the spirits absorbed, strengthening themselves. Their essence transformed, they mutated, they grew. Thus arose the first spiritual monsters, powerful and protective, guardians of Thalwen.
The war lasted eons. In the end, the invaders were expelled.
The spirits rose as titans. Ten of them reached divine power. Since then, they were known as the Ten Spiritual Gods.
With a single gesture, they restored Thalwen. But what once was, no longer existed. The original creatures had become extinct. To preserve the cycle of life, they allowed the demonic beasts — now controlled — to take their place as natural predators. Dangerous, yes, but necessary.
However, it was not enough.
Nine of the gods departed to the stars in search of new species to repopulate Drunai. Only one remained: the guardian of the planet.
But what they found out there... was horror.
Decades later, the nine returned, shattered. With their last strength, they whispered a phrase to their sister:
"Protect our world."
Then, they offered their lives. They fused their souls to create an impenetrable magical shield that surrounded Drunai. So dense that not even the celestial abomination that pursued them — an entity the size of a world — could break through it.
Thus, she remained.
The last guardian.
The protector.
The mother.
For centuries, she maintained balance. She watched over the demonic beasts, contained outbreaks of chaos, and guided her spiritual race, who now worshipped her.
Peace reigned for millennia.
Until they arrived.
New portals opened. But this time, they were not mindless beasts. They were two humanoid races. One, born of fire and conquest: Humans. The other, of darkness and ambition: Demons.
Both saw Drunai as a field of infinite resources. What was sacred to the spirits was merely power to exploit for them.
Each side brought their champions: five demigods per faction. Ten fearsome beings, capable of devastating entire regions. But upon seeing the power of the spirits... the two enemy races did the unthinkable: an alliance.
For the first time, humans and demons fought together. Their goal was one: to destroy the spiritual race and claim the planet for themselves.
The guardian was more powerful than all of them. Only two enemies managed to wound her. But she could not use all her strength; she had to protect her own. For this reason, she took the last spirits and fled, carrying them to a sacred peninsula at the continent's edge.
There, with her remaining power, she created a sealed forest. She filled it with thousands of demonic beasts. Creatures that had once fought the spirits now received part of the guardian's divine power to protect them.
The forest became a living wall.
And the world... fell.
Demons and humans were trapped in Drunai. Unable to leave, with the portals sealed by two spiritual heroes who gave their lives, imprisoning the invaders. It was their last act of defense. Their last hope.
But the danger was not over.
Both races knew there was only one way to escape: reach the power of a god and break the shield protecting the world.
Thus began a new era. An era of conquest, plunder, and endless war.
The spiritual race, once wise rulers of Drunai, was reduced to a hidden people. Lost in the shadows of the world that once was theirs. Meanwhile, the guardian entered a deep sleep, wounded, weakened... waiting for the day she would awaken.
The day she would reclaim the lands that belong to her people.
...
A woman with sky-blue hair, wearing a maternal and serene smile, held a huge book in her hands. She read aloud, and her eyes, the same deep blue as the sea, radiated immense calm. She was beautiful, ethereal. Her dress, the color of a clear sky, seemed tailor-made for her.
Curled on her lap was a little girl. Also beautiful, with the same blue hair, but lighter, almost silver. Two small red horns, like rubies, protruded from her forehead. Her scarlet eyes shone intensely, and adorable little fangs peeked out when she spoke.
"What happened next, Mommy?" the girl asked with genuine eagerness.
"That's where it ends," the woman replied with a warm, gentle smile.
"So the spirits didn't take revenge on the wicked?" the girl said, frowning slightly, a spark in her crimson eyes.
"Unfortunately, no," said the woman tenderly, stroking her daughter's hair. "After all, we are still living here… aren't we?"
The woman looked to one side. They were sitting atop an immense stone wall that surrounded the entire village, an ancient bastion. The village nestled on a protected peninsula, where the sea served as a natural border on one side, and on the other, a dark, dense forest stood as a living, impenetrable barrier.
It could be said they were trapped, sheltered by the power of the Guardian. There was only a narrow dirt path — a scar between the forest and the cliff — that connected the peninsula to the vast continent. But that path was infested with deadly beasts, many capable of devouring an entire army on their own.
Still, the village was self-sufficient. They lived off the abundant fishing from the sea and gathered what they could from the less hostile edges of the forest. Over time, they had learned to live with their confinement.
"How sad," murmured the little girl, the brightness in her eyes dimmed by sadness.
"Let's go home, my little star," the woman said gently, lifting the girl from her lap before they walked down the stone steps leading to the village.
"Ma'am, out for a walk again?" asked a sturdy man with scaly skin and a thick lizard tail swinging behind him as he saw them pass.
"Yes, I took Lua out. She was a bit restless," the woman replied kindly.
"Oh? Little Lua, you have to be good to your mother. She has a lot of work as village chief," said the man with a friendly smile.
"Mm... I know," Lua answered, lowering her head slightly with a touch of guilt.
"That's fine. I like spending time with my little one," the mother said, fondly stroking her daughter's head.
"Here, little Lua, this is for you," said the man, handing her a golden, shining fruit.
"Thanks, Uncle Lars! It's my favorite!" Lua exclaimed joyfully, her scarlet eyes lighting up before she took a big bite without hesitation.
"Hahaha, that's good," Lars replied, bidding them farewell respectfully, his lizard tail still swaying as he walked away.
Many villagers greeted them warmly and familiarly as they passed by. And if one looked closely, none of them were entirely human. Some had twisted horns, others strange legs, membranous wings, or iridescent scales; there were even living skeletons walking alongside bone children — a community of unique beings, a refuge for the different.
...
But it was a memory from the past. A distant echo of a life that no longer existed.
A woman of impossible beauty opened her eyes.
Her pupils, a deep crimson red, gleamed with a spectral light in the dimness, like glowing embers. She rose without making the slightest sound, each movement a symphony of silence. She crossed the ruins of what was once a house, now just a stone skeleton, with slow, barefoot, solemn steps.
She was young, with deep blue hair falling like a midnight waterfall, each strand reflecting an abyssal melancholy. She moved like an ethereal apparition, majestic and unreachable. Her pale, almost translucent skin starkly contrasted with the intensity of her eyes, cold and almost void of emotion, lending her a supernatural air. Two red horns, polished like obsidian stained with blood, protruded from her forehead, and her ears, sharper than any human's, revealed her origin.
She was an Oni. And perhaps the last of her kind.
Barefoot, she crossed what was once a vibrant village, full of life and laughter. Now, the cracked stone walls, shattered by ancient attacks, and the houses burned by fire told a silent story of tragedy and extinction. But she did not avert her gaze, nor hesitate. She walked that desolate path as if she had traveled it a thousand times in her dreams, or more likely, in recurring nightmares.
She stopped in front of the village's largest house, also in ruins, a shadow of its former glory. She crossed its broken threshold as if the place still had an owner. She moved through rubble and debris until she reached a far corner where the walls, though cracked, still stood.
She moved her foot with almost reverent delicacy, as if writing on the earthen floor with invisible ink. Ancient runes began to glow faintly in response, marking the ground like living scars. A small portal opened, revealing a rough staircase descending into the dark bowels of the earth.
The underground room was narrow, barely lit by the flickering blue flame of a magical torch. In its center, suspended like an impossible dream, lay a crystal coffin. Inside slept a woman of extraordinary beauty, with blue hair like the deep sea and features so similar to the young woman that anyone would say they were mother and daughter.
The young woman approached slowly and stood beside the coffin, her figure upright and solitary. Her expressionless gaze broke for barely a second. Just one. But it was enough to reveal the abyss of pain and determination she concealed.
"Hello, mother..." she finally said, her voice so cold, so devoid of emotion, that the air seemed to tremble. "I haven't found it yet. Don't worry. I will do everything in my power to wake you. I will keep searching the forest, even if it consumes my life."
Two hundred years ago, humans discovered the hiding place of the spiritual monsters. Or rather, they already knew of it… and were just waiting for the right moment. That moment came when the Demon Empire launched a brutal attack on the Beast Forest. The humans used the distraction to surround the forest, reach the spiritual village... and raze it without warning. The extermination was total. Precise. Relentless.
Her mother hid her in that underground room, protecting her from the holocaust.
Lua survived.
But for unknown reasons, after the massacre her mother fell into a deep coma from which she never awoke. It was as if the very soul of the world had been extinguished.
Lua understood that, as chief of the spiritual village, her mother was connected to every inhabitant and, with their deaths, she fell into a deep sleep.
Since then, Lua has tirelessly searched for the mythical Flower of Life, a legendary bloom that, according to the oldest legends, can heal any wound… even those of the soul, even death itself.
To increase her chances, to not lose a single moment, Lua learned a forbidden technique: to divide her body in two, maintaining only one consciousness. At first, it was unstable, a torment. But after two centuries of tireless practice, both halves became perfect extensions of herself, two bodies functioning as one. One an unbreakable watchman among the ruins... and the other, an untiring hunter, exploring every corner of the vast and dangerous forest.
She hadn't slept in 200 years. And by keeping an active copy functioning without rest, it was as if she had gone through the equivalent of 400 years without pause.
Even when she closed her eyes, images of her slaughtered people, the flames consuming her home, the silenced screams, returned to her again and again, with torturous clarity.
Lua emerged to the surface just as her other half, the one returning from the forest, arrived at the ruined village. They didn't need words. A single glance was enough. They understood instantly:
She hadn't found it.
For the first time in a long time, both halves of Lua merged into one.
Lua slowly let herself fall to the ground, saying nothing. The accumulated exhaustion of two centuries, the sadness weighing on her spirit, and the incessant memories pressed on her like a mountain.
"I'm tired…" she murmured, her voice barely a sigh, looking up at the gray sky with dimmed eyes. "Maybe… I should just sleep a little. Just that. I need… to rest."
She curled up beside a demolished wall, seeking refuge in herself, burying her face between her legs and arms.
And after two hundred years of perpetual vigilance, she closed her eyes.
At last.
…
Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent — more precisely, in one of the kingdoms of the Human Empire — a young man who wasn't really so young was known as one of humanity's five demigods.
He was acclaimed as a hero, a symbol of hope. A "genius" who achieved the impossible: reaching divinity in just one hundred thousand years. For him, that was little. For others, a monster of talent. Many believed he would be the first to break the veil of the world and conquer others in the name of the human race.
And he believed it more than anyone.
"What garbage!" he shouted angrily as he punched a nearby tree. The trunk instantly turned to dust, scattering leaves and splinters everywhere.
"So that was all, huh? You wanted power to escape? Or maybe to take control of my body?" he spat with contempt, staring at a floating screen before him.
Only he could see it.
[You are mistaken, Host. The System only offered the most viable option for your current situation: body modification and access to the Special Species Lineage Protocol.]
"Hmph. Do you think I'm an idiot? I knew from the start this wasn't free. That's why I never gave you all the permissions you asked for. Connecting to other worlds, modifying my body… nonsense! All you want is to use me as a shell and bring yours to steal what belongs to me."
His voice was arrogant, mocking, inflated with confidence born of ignorance.
[Negative. The System was designed exclusively to assist civilizations on the brink of extinction. 105,000 years ago, humanity was close to annihilation due to the demon invasion. The System activated to protect, evolve, and save the host's race.] [Our only directive is to preserve the life of the host species. Everything else is secondary.]
But the young man no longer listened. He crossed his arms and huffed in annoyance.
"Shut up! I don't care about your story. I'm already a demigod. If I got this far, I can do everything without you. I don't need you anymore," he said with a smug smile.
Then he began concentrating mana in his body. The divine aura surrounding him vibrated intensely, generating a distortion in space.
The System, seeing what was about to happen, tried to stop him.
[ALERT: Forced entry into the System Core.] [ALERT: Critical interference. Possible fragmentation of the host's soul.] [Immediate C-E-A-S-E recommended.] [Imminent danger. This act could destroy interstellar connections and eliminate evolutionary support for the human species.] [Final warning.] [Forced unlinking initiated.] [Goodbye, Host.]
"I did it!" the young man exclaimed, panting as a proud smile spread across his face.
Then came the pain.
A piercing scream erupted from his throat as he dropped to his knees. His soul, partially fused with the System for thousands of years, was being forcibly torn away. The pain was unbearable.
Worse still, his power began to collapse.
His divinity fragmented. His aura faded. His body stopped channeling mana properly. His power level plummeted, stopping just above the demigod threshold. A rank so impossible to reach that if it had fallen any lower… he would have preferred to die rather than live as "one of the crowd."
"It's okay... I can recover," he said with a trembling voice, feigning calm. "There are still resources in this world. I just have to send a couple of soldiers to the Beast Forest… yes, just that. I'll recover soon."
He convinced himself it had all been a victory.
But he had made the worst mistake of his life.
…
And while he lamented, on the other side of the world, a small light floated above a forgotten forest. A fragment of the System, now free, roamed the world's mana seeking a new signal.
A race in need.
A receptive mind.
A heart willing to share.
The System was designed to help. And it would… even if it had to give its life for it.