The evening air in the city was thick with the promise of a summer storm that never seemed to break. Inside the "Feng" Martial Arts dojo, the smell of worn leather, floor polish, and sweat was a familiar comfort to Lin Feng. He paced the polished wooden floor, his sharp eyes observing the dozen or so students going through their evening forms. They were young, energetic, their white uniforms a blur of motion under the fluorescent lights. For a man who had left the high-stakes world of the special forces, this was peace. A quiet, structured life. A way to forget the mission that had sent him home with a limp and a ghost in his heart.
He paused, correcting a teenager's stance with a gentle nudge. "Lower your center of gravity, Xiao Wei. Power comes from the earth."
It was then that the sky outside the dojo's large windows began to bleed.
What started as a flicker of red against the deepening twilight blossomed into a full-blown celestial event. Streaks of crimson light rained down from the heavens, a meteor shower unlike any recorded. It was silent, beautiful, and deeply unsettling. The students stopped, their faces pressed against the glass in awe. Lin Feng felt a primal instinct flicker in his gut—a warning bell his years in the field had honed to perfection. This wasn't natural.
The change began outside, in the alley beside the dojo. A stray, a gaunt creature of matted fur and jutting ribs that often fed on scraps from the nearby restaurant, was caught directly in the path of a falling red ember. It didn't burn. Instead, the light seemed to soak into its skin. The dog let out a pained whimper that twisted into a guttural snarl. Its frame began to contort. Muscle and bone audibly popped and stretched, its thin body swelling with grotesque speed. Its fur bristled like wire, and its eyes, once a dull brown, now glowed with the same malevolent crimson as the sky above.
With a roar that was no longer canine, the creature—now the size of a small wolf—slammed its body against the dojo's heavy wooden doors. The wood splintered.
"Get back!" Lin Feng's voice cut through the students' gasps of shock. The calm instructor was gone, replaced in an instant by the soldier. He shoved his students toward the back of the room, his body a shield between them and the splintering entrance.
The doors burst inward. The mutated dog stood there, drool thick and viscous dripping from its elongated snout, its red eyes locking onto the closest source of movement. It charged.
Lin Feng met it head-on. The creature's strength was unnatural, a brute force that sent him stumbling back despite his solid footing. Its claws, now thick and sharp as daggers, raked across his forearm, tearing through fabric and flesh. Pain, hot and sharp, flared up his arm, but he ignored it. He ducked under a savage bite that would have torn out his throat and drove his elbow into the creature's ribs. It felt like hitting a wall of solid muscle.
He was losing ground. The thing was too strong, too fast, its rage relentless. It pinned him against the wall, its hot, foul breath washing over his face as its jaws snapped inches from his eyes. He could hear the screams of his students behind him. He thought of the mission, of the teammate he couldn't save. Not again. Failure was not an option.
Desperation surged through him, a raw, primal need to protect. As the creature lunged for the final bite, something inside Lin Feng snapped. A strange, numbing tingle spread from his core, racing through his veins like wildfire. It felt like a thousand tiny needles prickling his nerves. He threw a punch, a last-ditch effort born of pure instinct.
A brilliant blue-white spark erupted from his knuckles on impact.
The crackle of static filled the air. The mutated dog yelped, a sound of genuine pain and shock, as the electric charge slammed into its skull. It was thrown back, convulsing on the floor as the smell of burnt fur filled the dojo. It scrambled to its feet, shook its massive head, and with one last hateful glare from its crimson eyes, it fled back into the night.
Silence descended, broken only by the ragged breaths of the terrified students.
Lin Feng stared at his hand. His knuckles were bruised and bloody, but a faint, almost invisible arc of electricity still danced between his fingers before fading into nothing. He clenched his fist, then opened it again, his mind reeling. What had just happened?
Hours later, the local police had come and gone. The official report was logged: a surprisingly vicious attack from an animal presumed to have a rare, aggressive strain of rabies. The broken door and Lin Feng's injuries were all noted down. But across the city, in a subterranean office filled with glowing monitors, an analyst flagged the incident. The energy signature, faint as it was, was unmistakable. The report was stamped in digital red ink and sent up the chain of command. The world was changing, and Lin Feng, whether he knew it or not, had just become a part of it.