The flood was not the end. It was the new beginning.

Fifteen years ago, the world drowned. Entire nations vanished beneath the sea. Those who survived did so aboard colossal lifeboats known as ARCs, each carrying fragments of lost civilizations, scattered beliefs, and forgotten bloodlines.

From the wreckage rose two orphaned cousins — Malious and Kalious — raised aboard ARC 7, forged in salt, steel, and silence. They were not soldiers. Not kings. Not chosen by prophecy. Just boys born in ruin… who never broke their bond.

Now, as land returns and fractured kingdoms claw for dominance, the world finds itself on the brink of a second collapse. Ancient relics stir beneath sacred soil. Shadow-born creatures hunt in the night. And whispers spread of a forgotten war that predates the flood itself.

But the sons of ARC do not kneel to fate.
They fight for it.

Armed with evolving weapons, sacred artifacts, and unshakable brotherhood, Malious and Kalious set out across a world trying to remember itself — not to rule it, but to survive it.

And in doing so, they may awaken the very force that drowned it all.

Kalious felt it first, the shift in the wind, the absence of birdsong, the way the fire flattened and guttered without explanation. He sat upright, eyes scanning the tree line as Malious stood slowly, hand drifting to the rusted hilt at his back.


The beast erupted from the underbrush like a living wound, black as pitch, low to the ground, its limbs unnaturally long and backward-bending. Its mouth opened wrong, a split maw lined with rows of twitching teeth. Eyes like polished stone glinted red in the gloom.


He leapt forward, blade in hand, and met the thing head-on. The force of impact knocked both aside, rolling across the ground in a blur of muscle and steel. Kalious sprinted to the relic fragment, but the second shadow beast burst from the brush before he could reach it.


He pivoted, dodging the swipe of a claw longer than his forearm. He rolled low, grabbed a burning log from the fire, and jammed it into the creature's side. The beast screeched, flailing, smoke hissing from its skin.


"I see it!" Malious drove his blade into the chest of the first creature, pinning it to a tree. The beast thrashed once, then fell still. Its flesh melted into a puddle of black sludge.


The second beast lunged again. Kalious ducked, but this time, his hand found the relic.


He could see the beast's trajectory, the twitch of its shoulders, the path of its claws. His body moved before thought. He slid past the attack, brought the relic up like a blade, and struck across its neck.


A flash of white fire surged from the relic.


The creature's head tore free, dissolving before it even hit the ground.


Kalious stood frozen, the fragment humming in his palm.


Malious approached slowly. "You activated it."


Kalious nodded, breath still shallow. "I didn't mean to."


They stood in the aftermath, surrounded by the fading scent of burnt shadow. As the first rays of light crept over the ridge, Kalious turned toward the distant peaks marked on their map.


Chapter 8 - BEASTS IN THE BRUSH