In a world smaller than ours, bound by stone walls and steel blades, fourteen kingdoms fought endlessly for the right to stand above the rest. For centuries their wars raged until two hundred years ago, when Blitz a nation in the west, rose to dominance with a military unlike any the world had ever seen.
By the year 1100, Blitz had crushed its rivals and stood as the largest and most advanced nation alive. Its rule brought peace, but not without unease. Whispers spread that Blitz's soldiers wielded unnatural power, strength not meant for mortal men. Power used to bend other nations into submission.
Yet peace was fragile. Villages began to vanish overnight, towns were found emptied of life, their people reduced to corpses or lost without a trace. Survivors spoke of monsters and demons moving through the dark. Others blamed rival kingdoms. No one knew the truth, only that war was coming.
Far from the capital, in the forgotten forests at Blitz's edge, lay a small village untouched by politics or power. There, two sixteen year old boys lived with a secret of their own. Unnatural strength. Monstrous strength. A power that should not exist.
And soon, their whole world was about to change.
Nox slammed his fist against a tree. The trunk cracked, and a branch splintered, crashing to the forest floor.
"See that?" He grinned, flexing his knuckles. "I think I'm getting stronger."
Nox was tall for his age, with rough black hair and a fierce face, all restless energy and muscle that hadn't yet settled. His grin fit him perfectly, loud, reckless and impossible to ignore.
Juro smirked, brushing his dark hair from his eyes. He was the opposite, black hair falling to his neck, leaner features, quieter, with a watchful gaze that rarely wavered.
"You mean dumber," Juro said. "Your'e doing too much, what if someone hears us?"
"They won't. We're too deep in the forest. No one's dumb enough to come out this far."
"You mean except us, right?" Juro shot back. They both laughed.
It wasn't for fun that they were here, felling trees with bare knuckles. Their strength was a secret, one their parents had insisted must stay hidden.
Nox remembered the look in his mother's eyes when she'd forbidden him from using his power. Not fear of him, but fear for him. Or maybe fear of what the other villagers would do if they found out.
They didn't know any other sixteen year olds with such monstrous abilities. But out here, in the woods, they could forget all that. Out here, they could just be themselves. Out here, they could go as wild as they pleased.
The sun was sinking low.
"We should head back," Juro said. "Before someone notices we're gone."
"You worry too much. We could just lie about where we were, you know." Nox smirked.
Juro brushed off his idea like he didn't even hear it and started walking toward the village.
"Hey, wait for me!" Nox yelled, traling after him.
They made their way from the thick forest. Just a while longer and their village would be in sight,but then they stopped.
The air smelled wrong. Acrid. Bitter, like scorched metal.
Nox felt the heat on his skin before he saw it.
The sunset glared too brightly, but not because of the sun.
Flames. Their village was burning.
They bolted straight toward the chaos.
Smoke, thick with the stench of charred flesh and molten metal, clawed at their throats.
Dark shapes writhed in the firelight,hulking, horned and terrifying. Claws glinted like wet knives. Fangs flashed, slick with blood. Their shadows twisted, monstrous and hungry, stretching across the blaze.
And there, in the heart of the chaos, stood a man. Red hair blazed like the flames around him, his face a mask of ice, expressionless, his eyes were as cold as frost.
His hand gripped Nox's mother by her silver hair, yanking her head back. Her face contorted in pain but defiant. She was alive, but barely.
"Mother!" A desperate scream tore from Nox's chest.
He charged, boots pounding dirt, the world a blur of fire and rage.
Juro faltered, his gaze snapping toward his own home, swallowed in flame, the roof caving in with a scream of collapsing timber.
His parents…
He staggered a step toward the ruin, heart pounding, hope snuffed out like a candle in a storm. The heat seared his face, the smoke stung his eyes, and the truth sank in like a blade, they were gone. No one could survive that.
Juro's knees nearly gave. Grief clawed his chest, a scream trapped behind clenched teeth. He wanted to collapse, to let the fire take him too.
But Nox. Nox was still alive.
Juro swallowed the ache, forced it down like bitter poison, and turned toward his friend. Nox needed him."I can't lose him too."
Nox plunged into the inferno, a roar in his throat. He crashed through the horned beasts, fists smashing bone and cartilage, blood spraying hot across his face.
A claw raked his arm, tearing his flesh. But even that didn't stop him. For a moment, he believed he could reach her, he could tear her from that red haired bastard's grip.
But the beasts were too many.
A beast slammed into him from the side, horns gouging his ribs.
Another shadow loomed, claws raised, Juro barreled into Nox, shoving him clear. The blow meant for Nox caught Juro instead, a claw slashing across his chest, blood soaking his shirt in a dark bloom.
They scrambled up, back to back, breath ragged, surrounded by a maelstrom of fire and death.
There were surely only four people alive in this village now. Nox, Juro, Nox's mother who lifelessly lay in the grip of red haired man, and the bastard himself.
Nox's fists dripped red,Juro's hands shook, slick with his own blood.
They fought harder than their bodies should've allowed.
But it wasn't enough.
The ground quaked, a low rumble beneath the screams and crackle of flame. More beasts closed in, a ring of horns, their eyes glinting like oil in the firelight.
The red haired man watched, unblinking, his grip on Nox's mother unrelenting, her silver hair tangled in his fist like a trophy.
And then,the sky shattered.
Thunder ripped the night, a deafening crack that shook the earth. Lightning slashed through the smoke, a white hot scar illuminating a figure descending from the storm.
A man,grey hair whipping in the wind, a blade in his hand that hummed with the fury of a storm. His form flickered in the glare, edges dissolving into the crackling air.
The beasts flinched, cowering under the weight of his presence.
Power rolled off him in suffocating waves, pressing Nox's chest like a vice, stealing his breath. His vision blured.
Nox's world went dark and Juro swayed beside him.