[Year 2010]
That was the year the word "peace" was violently erased from humanity's dictionary.
Kurogawa was once a tranquil city, a place where life flowed quietly beneath the brilliant hues of dusk. But on that fateful day, the sunset canvas was torn apart—literally.
The sky ruptured.
A massive, abyssal vortex spiraled open in the heavens, warping space itself. From the center of that hellish gate, the gentle azure sky was devoured by a sickly, radiant crimson that shrouded the entire city.
And then, the black rain fell.
Thousands of grotesque creatures poured out of the dark abyss, plummeting into Kurogawa like a shower of wicked meteorites. Casting a horrifying shadow over the onslaught were two true Titans, towering at a staggering 50 meters. They breathed in unison like twins born from the underworld, sporting a forced, nightmarish hybrid of human and reptilian anatomy. Their entire bodies were clad in a glossy black armor, reflecting the apocalyptic red light of the torn sky.
The earth violently quaked as the Titans made landfall. From beneath their colossal feet, smaller monsters—roughly two meters in size—began to swarm out like a plague of ravenous locusts.
It was an absolute massacre. Blood and flesh painted the streets. Desperate screams were choked out by deafening, savage roars. The beasts possessed claws like scythes, easily tearing through the steel chassis of cars like wet paper, crushing innocent civilians who couldn't find an escape route.
The military mobilized immediately. The grinding tracks of tanks crushed the asphalt, while heavy artillery fired relentlessly. Up in the air, squadrons of fighter jets tore through the wind, unleashing a torrential rain of missiles into the heart of the monster swarm. Deafening explosions chained together, shaking the very foundations of the city. Fire and thick dust billowed, completely obscuring the battlefield.
But as the black smoke cleared, the fleeting hope instantly froze on the faces of the soldiers.
It was completely useless. The obsidian shell protecting the monsters—the damned biological Kelyte armor—didn't bear a single scratch from humanity's heavy ordnance.
The two 50-meter Titans tilted their heads toward the sky. Simultaneously, they unleashed a sonic roar. A devastating sound wave swept through the city blocks with the destructive force of a Category 12 hurricane. Every glass skyscraper in the vicinity cracked and shattered, raining down a lethal storm of razor-sharp shards.
Amidst the unprecedented chaos, Arata—a sixteen-year-old boy—was running for his life.
His legs felt like lead, his ragged breath burning in his chest. All around him, a stampeding crowd shoved and trampled one another, desperate to reach the evacuation bunkers. The teenager's face was deathly pale, his eyes wide with absolute, frantic madness.
SKREEE!
A bloodcurdling screech echoed right above him. Arata looked up. A two-meter monster had locked its sights on him. It pounced from the roof of an overturned car, baring a terrifying maw of blood-stained, jagged teeth, ready to rip the boy to shreds.
But in that split second of impending death, another whistling sound tore through the air. A homing missile from a fighter jet above slammed directly into the monster's back.
BOOM!
The shockwave from the explosion vaporized everything in its immediate radius. Arata's scrawny body was violently thrown into the air like a ragdoll, slamming hard against a ruined brick wall. His vision spun out of control. His ears rang with a deafening, thick ringing sound.
Arata struggled to look down. His pupils shrank into tiny dots.
His legs... from the knees down, they were gone. Vaporized by the cruel proximity of survival. Fresh blood poured profusely from the twin stumps, staining the rubble a morbid red. Arata slumped down into a puddle of his own blood.
His strength rapidly drained away. His vision began to narrow, slowly swallowed by encroaching darkness.
"No... I don't want to die..."
Arata wheezed, his voice broken and incredibly weak. Around him, the screams of humans were fading, giving way to the cold, wet tearing sounds of the feasting beasts.
Right at that moment, amidst the crushed rocks and debris right next to him, something was weakly squirming.
It was a mini Kaiju. It was barely the size of a stray cat, but it possessed a bizarre, twisted form. Its body was littered with deep, gaping wounds, leaking a viscous green blood—as if it had just lost a brutal fight to the death with its own kind. It painfully dragged itself forward, stopping right beside Arata's bleeding thigh.
The strange creature looked up, locking its gaze directly into the dying boy's eyes.
Suddenly, a raspy, echoing voice pierced straight into Arata's mind, bypassing his physical hearing entirely:
"I... will take revenge..."
Before Arata could process what was happening, the creature violently transformed. Its solid mass dissolved, morphing into a sludge-like, pitch-black liquid. With an irresistible force, the dark substance lunged forward, forcing Arata's jaw open and slithering straight down the boy's throat.
The assimilation was absolute. Arata's eyes bulged, thick red veins spider-webbing across his sclera. He convulsed violently in a pool of his own blood, his hands clawing desperately at his throat before the sheer agony overloaded his brain. Everything sank into a pitch-black abyss. He completely passed out.
Darkness consumed him.
A long time later, flickering beams from flashlights began to cut across the pitch-black night. Accompanied by the static of radios and the sound of heavy boots crunching on debris.
"Three o'clock! We have a survivor! Bring the stretcher over here, now!" A rescue worker's urgent voice echoed.
Arata slowly opened his eyes. His blurry vision gradually sharpened. He realized he was lying on his back in the cargo bed of an armored military transport truck. Surrounded by a few other battered survivors who were groaning in pain.
Arata's breathing hitched. The memories of the missile explosion, the flesh-tearing agony, and the pitch-black sludge forcing its way into his throat rushed back like a tsunami. The boy jolted upright, his eyes snapping down to his lower body.
His pant legs were torn to shreds, soaked in large patches of dried, dark blood. However... beneath that ruined fabric was not a pair of mutilated stumps.
They were a pair of completely intact legs.
Not a single scratch. Not a single scar. Every muscle fiber on those legs was impossibly toned, pulsing with a vigorous life force, as if they had never suffered any trauma at all.
Arata brought both hands up to grip his head, his face contorting into an extreme expression that blended absolute confusion with profound, primal terror. Amidst the chaotic background noise of sirens and wails, his enhanced hearing suddenly picked up a strange, rhythmic sound.
It was coming from his own chest.
Right beside the familiar, steady beat of a human heart, a second heartbeat... heavy, feral, and utterly alien... was thudding away.
Thump... Thump...