The old world was gone.
Its cities, once crowned with steel and glass, had crumbled into dust. Its empires, once proud and unyielding, had drowned beneath waves of fire and plague. In the silence that followed, the earth itself seemed to breathe anew, reshaping the order of life.
Half of humanity perished in that collapse—lost to famine, disease, and wars that burned hotter than the sun. But the beasts of the world did not die.
They changed.
From the ashes of extinction rose something different, something more. Wolves walked upright, their eyes gleaming with intelligence. Lions spoke in guttural tongues. Birds grew wings vast enough to blot out the sky, their feathers shimmering with strange power.
They were no longer mere animals.
They were beastkin — creatures of flesh and instinct, now fused with thought, will, and evolution.
For the humans who remained, survival became terror. The beastkin were stronger, faster, and more cunning. They hunted with strategy, built with purpose, and whispered of a future where they would inherit the earth. Humanity, once the apex predator, now trembled at the thought of being prey.
Fear bred cruelty. In desperation, the humans did the unthinkable. They caged the beastkin, slaughtered them in droves, and tore families apart. They branded them as monsters, stripped them of dignity, and sought to erase their existence before it could eclipse their own. It was the most inhumane act of all—an attempt to murder evolution itself.
But evolution cannot be murdered. It waits. It endures. And in the shadows of this new age, the beastkin began to rise.