A boy could be seen laying in a ash like forest.
Ash-colored grass cradled the boy's body, soft as dust and cold as death. It coated the forest floor like a shroud, stretching out in every direction beneath pale white trees that rose like bones into the stagnant air. Their leaves—withered, stiff, and eerily still—hung crimson-pink, as if they'd once bled and been left to dry in silence. The whole forest pulsed with unnatural stillness, like a forgotten photograph of the end of the world.
And in the center of it all, a boy lay motionless.
His breathing was shallow. His body limp. Dressed in white—an assassin's garb, frayed and scorched at the edges—he looked like a fallen ghost, a remnant of something no longer whole.
Beside him, nestled in the ash-like grass, a strange object pulsed with violent light.
A deck of cards.
Not ordinary cards—these were alive with color, each surface shimmering with hues that bent and twisted like light caught in oil. Blues bled into violets. Gold flared and vanished. Crimson sparked and danced. The cards vibrated softly, as though humming with suppressed power.
Then one rose.
A single card, gold-edged and impossibly radiant, slipped free from the deck and hovered silently above the ground. Light poured from its runes—ancient symbols that shimmered like fireflies.
It turned, watching the boy with something close to concern. And then, it spoke.
"Young master… wake up. Please. We don't know if it's safe here."
Its voice was warm, formal, almost parental, like an echo carved from magic.
For a moment, nothing.
Then—
Fingers twitched.
A shallow inhale.
Kealix stirred.
His hand flexed against the grass, gathering flakes of grey ash in his palm. He let out a ragged breath as his body slowly remembered itself, as pain and cold and confusion returned like old friends.
One eye opened.
Just one.
The other… gone.
Kealix blinked up at the blood-tinted canopy above, disoriented, breath catching in his throat. The sky was wrong. The trees were wrong. His own heartbeat felt foreign, distant, like it belonged to someone else.
Then the voice came again, closer this time.
"Young master… are you hurt? You must stay alert. This place may not welcome you."
Kealix turned his head slowly toward the golden card, his single eye narrowing. His mind was foggy, but the voice stirred recognition. Like he should know it.
"...What are you?" His voice came out dry, cracked.
The card pulsed gently, warm like the last breath of a dying fire.
"Do you truly not remember me, young master?" it asked, a faint note of mock hurt in its voice. "I must say… I'm a little wounded."
Kealix's breath caught in his throat. His lone eye widened—recognition flaring bright.
"Hero?" he gasped. "You're—god, I'm glad you're here!" A surge of emotion rose in his chest. Relief. Familiarity. A lifeline in the aftermath of the fracture. "That thing—it pulled me in, swallowed me whole, and then I was just…"
He paused, the reality of his surroundings sinking in like cold water.
"…here. Wherever here is."
Hero hovered slightly closer, his voice as calm and measured as ever. "I don't know either, young master. All I'm certain of is that once our connection was reestablished, we were drawn to you—here, in this… place."
Kealix exhaled slowly and pushed himself upright. Pain flared through his limbs. His muscles screamed, and his bones ached like they'd been frozen in time. One trembling hand reached up to his face. Scarred skin. A hollow socket. He traced it slowly—his missing eye—trying not to flinch at the unfamiliar shape of himself.
The silence thickened between them before he asked, voice rough, almost pleading, "What do you mean reestablished? Did the connection break? How… how did that happen?"
His voice cracked at the edges, trembling from the weight of the passage through the fracture—the memory of being torn away.
Hero hesitated. "I'm not entirely certain," he said at last. "But… my theory is this: when an enemy of overwhelming power approaches—one that vastly outmatches your strength—our system shuts down. Not to abandon you, but to conceal you. To render you less of a threat."
He paused, a flicker of guilt beneath the steadiness in his voice.
"But… that's only a theory. It could be something entirely different."
Kealix turned his gaze toward the deck lying beside him. A few dozen cards shimmered faintly within, but none stirred. Unlike Hero, the rest hadn't responded. They simply watched—if they could still watch—quiet and unmoving, as if caught in sleep.
Dormant.
"What happened to the rest of the cards?" he asked, stronger now, though weariness clung to the edges of his voice. "Are they… out of energy?"
Hero's glow dimmed slightly, as though he were bowing his head in apology.
"Most of us were heavily drained during the crossing," he explained. "Even with your energy harmonizing ours, the fracture… it wasn't compatible. Its nature was the opposite of ours—chaotic, destructive. Violent."
His voice softened. "It pulled everything from us just to survive the transit. The others need time. They're resting. Healing."
Kealix stared at the deck again, something tight clenching in his chest.
So many of them—silent now, powerless.
And yet he was still here.
He didn't know if that made him lucky… or cursed.
Kealix scanned the forest, his lone eye narrowing against the strange, colorless light. The trees—ashen white—rose like skeletal remains of a forgotten world. But this place hadn't been burned. No fire had ravaged it. No smoke lingered. This forest hadn't been destroyed—it had been transformed.
Twisted.
The bark wasn't charred but pale, drained of life, as though something had rewritten their essence. Their leaves, stained a dull reddish-pink, fluttered in silence like dried blood. The air was still, unnaturally so.
Kealix turned, a chill crawling down his spine.
And then he saw it.
His breath caught. His pulse spiked.
"Hero—grant me your power. Now," he said, voice low, urgent.
No hesitation. The card flashed forward and shot into his chest, a golden blur. A rush of light burst from within him as Hero merged into his core. The transformation was immediate.
Golden strands wove themselves into his jet-black hair, shimmering like threads of sunlight piercing through stormclouds. His assassin's garb shifted—the frost-kissed patterns across the fabric gleamed as if turned to gold leaf. The wolf insignia on his chest—once quiet and silvery—now howled in radiant gold, animated with power. Each metallic segment of his armor pulsed with renewed energy, clean and polished, like ceremonial regalia made for war.
But there were no gauntlets this time.
Why not? he wondered briefly. Perhaps they only manifested when he wore the assassin's lighter version—unarmored. Or maybe now that Frost had become part of him as well, the armor and the power had... fused, taking new form. A single, unified defense. An evolution.
The thought vanished as he summoned a golden spear, gripped it tight, and pointed it ahead.
Roughly a hundred and fifty meters away—between the warped, bleached trees—something stirred.
A wolf.
But not like any natural beast. It was mutated—its frame wrong in subtle ways, too many joints, bony ridges pressing against patchy, taut flesh. It looked eerily similar to the twisted creatures from Frost's memories.
Yet…
The wolf wasn't moving.
Its body stood frozen in place, half-concealed behind warped branches. Its head was bowed low, neck craned down at an unnatural angle. It wasn't snarling. It wasn't growling. Its eyes—glasslike and unblinking—stared straight at the earth.
Kealix held his breath, every nerve in his body taut.
What is it doing…?
Was it alive? Dead? Or something in between?
A soft hum built in his armor—the golden wolf on his chest began to glow, its light intensifying. Then, Hero's voice rang out from the shining sigil, calm and composed, yet filled with purpose.
"Young master," Hero said, "we should see if the creature is still alive. It may yet serve a purpose—if we can capture it."
The suggestion lingered in the heavy air.
Kealix didn't flinch at Hero's sudden voice—he was used to it by now—but his grip on the spear tightened. His feet remained still. For a moment, he hesitated.
The wolf… it didn't feel like prey. Something about the way it bowed, unmoving, unnatural—it unsettled him. This wasn't just some mindless beast. There was intention in that posture. Or a trap.
But Hero's voice reminded him: information was power. And this world—the ashen forest, the fracture, whatever had twisted reality here—it held too many questions. Answers might hide in a creature like this.
Kealix exhaled, steadying himself.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's see what this thing is."
He stepped forward, golden light trailing in his wake, the forest watching with breathless silence.
Kealix crept closer, golden spear held steady, never once lowering his guard. His breath came slow, measured, each step deliberate. He knew better than to relax. In a place like this, letting down your guard—even for a second—was an invitation to death.
The distance between him and the creature shrank: twenty meters… fifteen…
Ten.
Then he saw it.
Not just saw—understood.
The wolf wasn't alive.
Its body, still and bowed, wasn't posturing. It wasn't waiting or hiding or planning an attack. It was already dead. What had kept it upright was the tree behind it. Thick, pale-white roots had pierced the beast's spine and ribcage, threading through its organs like parasitic veins. The tree was feeding off it—draining what little was left of the creature's essence.
Kealix recoiled a step, bile rising in his throat. A cold, greasy sweat crawled down his spine, soaking the small of his back beneath the golden armor. Horror clenched his gut, not because of the beast—but because of the forest.
These trees… they didn't just witness death. They used it.
His gaze lifted to the canopy—those reddish-pink leaves rustled faintly, unnaturally, as if in approval. It wasn't color for show. It was saturation. They were crimson because they had fed.
Fed on blood.
On flesh.
On lives like the one he'd nearly lost.
He forced himself to breathe—slow, deep. In. Out. In again. It took minutes for the tremor in his fingers to settle, for his racing thoughts to slow. When he finally looked back at the wolf, there was no fear left in his eye.
Only sorrow.
It had been a killer, no doubt. A twisted, mutated beast. He could feel that in its still aura, in the remnants of violence clinging to its bones. But whatever it had been, it didn't deserve this. No creature did.
Used. Consumed. Discarded.
Reduced to nothing but fuel for something far more ancient and cruel.
Kealix's fingers tightened around his spear as the pity hollowed in his chest.
Hero's voice echoed softly from within his armor. "Don't feel bad, young master. We would've had to kill it either way."
The words were calm. Logical. But they didn't land.
Kealix let out a slow, weary sigh. He didn't respond. Not right away.
Instead, he stepped forward and gently reached for the creature's body. The roots resisted at first, clinging like tendrils of possession, but he summoned a flicker of golden energy through his hand and burned them away. The corpse slumped to the ground with a heavy thud, its weight real and grim.
He dragged it behind him without looking back.
"We need to find shelter," he muttered, more to himself than Hero. "Before nightfall."
His voice was low. Tired. A whisper carried on nerves stretched thin.
Because deep down, something in him knew—when the sun set in this place, something worse would come out. And whatever it was, it wouldn't be as merciful as the trees.
Kealix looked up as they moved through the forest. The sun… it looked normal at first glance, but something about it felt wrong. Off. As if it too had been touched by the same corruption that had twisted the forest. Its light filtered through the reddish-pink leaves above, tinged not with warmth, but with a dull, sterile glow that clung to everything like dust.
It wasn't natural sunlight. It didn't feel alive.
More like a memory of the sun—something trying to mimic what light should be.
His gaze shifted to the trees surrounding them. They towered above like skeletal giants, easily fifty meters tall, their trunks pale as bone and unnaturally smooth. There were no low-hanging branches, no signs of birds or nests—just vertical spires climbing endlessly into the canopy above.
We might have to hide in one of those if nothing else works, Kealix thought, eyes scanning their height with both calculation and unease. The idea of climbing them wasn't comforting—it was survival laced with desperation.
Still, he kept moving, silent footsteps barely disturbing the ash-like grass beneath him. Every step felt like it echoed in a world that had forgotten sound. His grip on the spear remained tight, golden light still faintly pulsing in his veins.
He didn't let his guard drop—not for a second.
Because in this forest, silence wasn't peace.
It was a warning.