The fires of the Yagurah compound burned until dawn.
Homes collapsed into ash. Training halls crackled with embers. Statues of ancestors toppled and melted. The entire clan—once feared across the continent—was wiped out in a single night.
Only two hearts still beat.
One belonged to a seven-year-old boy gripping a sword too heavy for him.
The other belonged to an old man crawling through the ruins with one arm missing, blood soaking his clothes, yet refusing to die.
His name was Eldran Yagurah—
the clan's oldest elder, once called:
> "Eldran the Iron Spine."
Age had bent his back but not his will. In his prime, he had crushed ogres with his bare hands and split boulders in half with a single strike. Even at seventy-six, he was a monster in human skin.
But even monsters bleed.
He had lost his right arm defending the eastern gate, where more than twenty Varkonn warriors charged him. He killed seventeen before someone struck his shoulder with a poisoned spear. The arm went numb… then dead… then gone.
He kept fighting until he collapsed.
When he woke, the village was silent.
Dead silent.
He staggered through the destroyed compound, leaning on a broken spear as a cane. Bodies everywhere—friends, students, children. People he trained. People he raised. People he loved.
"Damn it… damn it all…" he rasped, coughing blood. "Yagurah… wiped out… in one night…"
He felt something in his chest break.
Not bone—
something deeper.
Then he heard it.
A faint sound.
A voice not crying, but roaring.
A child's voice, trembling yet fierce.
Eldran followed the sound past collapsed walls and scorched ground—
until he saw him.
Aldrich stood in the middle of the destruction, flames curling around him like spirits. The firelight made his black hair shine with embers. His eyes—dark, red from crying blood—glared at the sky with a fury far too old for a child.
The sword was planted in the earth before him.
He held it with both hands like he was clinging to life itself.
Eldran felt the breath catch in his throat.
"…Taro's boy…"
He approached slowly, limping, his missing arm dripping blood. The heat was intense, but Aldrich did not flinch from it. He was shaking… yet unbroken.
"Aldrich…" Eldran whispered.
The boy turned. His cheeks were stained with drying blood. His voice came out hoarse.
"…Grand Elder…"
Eldran knelt beside him with difficulty.
"Come. We must leave this place."
Aldrich didn't move.
"I won't… I won't leave them…"
"You'll die if you stay."
"Then let me die."
The elder's remaining hand clenched.
He struck Aldrich lightly on the forehead with two fingers.
Not hard.
Just enough to snap the boy's haze.
"Listen, child," Eldran growled, voice cracking with grief and authority, "you carry their blood. You carry Taro's sword. If you die now, then everything ends here. There will be no vengeance. No justice. No Yagurah left in this world."
Aldrich swallowed, trembling.
"Do you want their killers to laugh? To believe they erased us?"
"…no."
"Then stand!" Eldran barked.
Aldrich's small fingers tightened around the sword.
Slowly… painfully… he stood.
Eldran nodded, relief softening his expression for the first time that night.
"That's Taro's son."
He lifted Aldrich with his one remaining arm.
The boy's weight was nothing.
The world's weight was everything.
And the elder carried him away as their home burned behind them.
They traveled for three days.
Eldran hid their tracks, avoiding the open roads, moving through wild terrain despite his injuries. The boy barely spoke. The elder barely slept.
On the fourth day, they reached it.
A valley covered in black trees, their branches twisting like claws.
The air smelled of moss and old magic.
The sound of distant roars echoed between the trunks.
Hollowdene.
A place where few humans entered willingly. Known for harboring creatures that stalked travelers:
ogres, manticores, griffins, crocotta packs that mimicked human voices, basilisks lurking beneath fallen logs.
And somewhere deeper, dragons slept curled beneath mountains of roots.
Eldran stepped onto the forest soil and exhaled.
"This place will hide us," he said. "And it will harden you."
Aldrich clutched his father's sword.
His voice was small but steady.
"I'm not afraid."
"You will be," Eldran replied bluntly. "Everyone is afraid in these woods. But you will learn to move with fear… not against it."
They walked deeper into the forest, past glowing-eyed beasts watching from the shadows. A crocotta's laugh echoed. A manticore's tail scraped rock. But nothing approached.
They sensed something in Aldrich.
Something wild and growing.
Or maybe…
they sensed Eldran's killing intent still clinging to him like a dying flame.
At the center of Hollowdene, they found a clearing.
A small pool of clear water.
Soft grass.
A perfect circle of quiet amid the chaos.
"We build here," Eldran said.
With one arm, wounded and weak, he still managed to lift fallen logs and construct walls. Aldrich gathered stones, stacked them, made a fire pit. Two days later, their home stood—rough, humble, but safe.
When they finished, Aldrich looked up.
"Grand Elder… will you teach me?"
Eldran glanced at him.
His eyes hardened, but his voice softened.
"Not teach you," he said.
"Forge you."
Aldrich swallowed.
"Forge me into what?"
Eldran stepped closer, his shadow falling over the boy.
"A sword," he answered.
"One sharp enough to end clans… break mountains… and carve your vengeance into the bones of this world."
Aldrich's fingers tightened around the blade's handle.
Eldran continued:
"From today onward, your life is discipline. Swordsmanship. Martial forms. Combat drills. You will learn to strike faster than a Saelari, stand stronger than a Varkonn, and kill cleaner than a Yagurah assassin."
He pointed toward the dark forest.
"And if you fail, Hollowdene will eat you."
Aldrich nodded once.
"…I won't fail."
Eldran smirked.
"Good. Because your training begins now."
The old warrior grabbed a stick, drew a line in the dirt, and stepped back.
"Aldrich. Cross this line…
and you leave behind the boy who cried in the ashes."
Aldrich stared at the line.
He remembered his mother's smile.
His father's laughter.
Their blood on the ground.
Their killers' mocking voices.
He stepped across.
Eldran placed his one hand on the boy's head.
"Welcome," he said quietly, "to the path of blood."