Time was a fickle concept when you spent most of it inside a box.
Deep beneath the crust of the world, under layers of bedrock, soil, and the tangled roots of ancient trees, the air in the stone chamber was stale. It hadn't moved in three thousand years. Dust motes hung suspended in the silence, frozen in a stillness that felt more like a tomb than a room.
In the center of the chamber lay a sarcophagus carved from a single block of Obsidian Jade. It had no seams, no hinges, and no lock. It was sealed by something far stronger than mechanics, It's called Blood Qi.
Click.
The sound was microscopic, the sound of a molecule shifting, but in the absolute silence, it sounded like a gunshot.
A hairline fracture appeared on the lid. Then another. Then, with a heavy, grinding groan that vibrated through the earth itself, the massive stone slab slid to the side.
A man sat up.
He didn't burst out with a roar. He didn't shatter the ceiling with divine energy. He simply sat up, his spine popping with a series of sickening cracks as vertebrae realigned after three millennia of inactivity.
"Ow," he croaked. His voice was dry, sounding like sandpaper scraping against stone. "I really need to invest in a memory foam mattress next time."
Draven, formerly Noah, an orphan from a blue planet called Earth, reborn again as the son of the Vampire Progenitor. He rubbed his eyes blinking, his irises adjusting from the pitch black of the coffin to the slightly less pitch black of the room. His eyes were not human. They were pools of crimson liquid, swirling with a lethargic but terrifying power.
He climbed out of the coffin, his bare feet touching the cold stone floor. He wore only loose black trousers made of a silk that hadn't existed in this world for an age.
He walked to the heavy stone door of his sanctuary and pushed it open.
Sunlight hit him. It wasn't the burning, deadly sunlight of vampire lore, he was a Daywalker, a Progenitor, but it was bright enough to make him sneeze.
"I wonder how much time has passed," he muttered, shielding his eyes as he looked out at his front yard. "Let's see how the garden is doing."
He stepped out onto the patio of what was once a majestic gothic villa, now a crumbled ruin reclaimed by nature. He looked down at his flower beds.
His expression dropped.
"You have got to be kidding me."
The Midnight Moon Orchids he had planted before his nap, delicate, rare flowers that bloomed only in the presence of high-density spiritual energy, were gone. Or rather, they were buried.
Massive, chaotic weeds, thick as pythons and covered in thorns, had choked the life out of his garden. Vines strangled his stone gargoyles. Ugly, parasitic moss covered his walkway.
Draven felt a surge of genuine annoyance. He was a man who shows few emotions on his face. He liked sleeping, he liked blood wine, and he liked his gardening. It made him not remember his past memories.
"Weeds," he hissed.
Unconsciously, simply because he was grumpy and groggy, he let his aura slip.
It wasn't a spell. He didn't cast anything. He simply allowed the restraint on his soul to loosen by a fraction of a percent.
A ripple of Primordial Fear expanded from his body. It was invisible, colorless, and silent. It passed through the trees, through the rocks, and through the air. It was a command, written in the language of biology, An Apex Predator is awake. Run.
Draven didn't notice. He just walked over to a particularly ugly thorn bush, grabbed it with his bare hand, and ripped it out of the earth, roots and all.
"Die, you photosynthesizing parasites," he muttered.
Two Hundred Miles South - The Aethelgard Empire The Northern Bulwark: Fortress Iron-Hold
The Aethelgard Empire was the zenith of human civilization. Unlike the savage races that relied on brute strength or raw magic, humanity had survived through Structure and Technique.
On the training grounds of Fortress Iron-Hold, Princess Kaelith was demonstrating this perfection.
"Again!" she barked.
She stood in the center of a mud circle, surrounded by ten Royal Guards. Kaelith was twenty-two, her golden hair tied in a severe warrior's braid, her body encased in standard-issue silver plate.
A guard lunged at her with a heavy spear.
Kaelith didn't move her feet. She breathed in, cycling the Aether from the air into her skin.
Humans have four stages of cultivation, They can strengthen themselves further with time and progress in gathering Aether into their bodies forcefully.
Vessel Tempering: Refining the skin and muscle to endure impact.
Spirit Awakening: Channeling Aether to enhance speed and reaction time.
Core Fusion : The mark of a true warrior. Compressing Aether into a solid state to generate explosive power.
Astral Manifestation: Projecting the soul outside the body as an construct.
Domain Sovereign: Controlling the laws of physics within a certain radius.
Celestial Ascendant: Shedding the mortal form, or so they believe.
It's like unlocking different kinds of powers, when you move onto the Spirit Awakening realm from the Vessel Tempering realm, the ability to refine the skin and muscle gets amplified, making the cultivators more and more powerful with progression.
The spear tip struck her shoulder pauldron. It didn't clang, it thudded, as if hitting a wall of dense rubber. Kaelith's skin had been tempered in alchemical baths since she was five. She barely felt it.
"Too slow," she said.
She shifted her stance. The Aether moved deeper, into her meridians the spiritual highways of the body.
She moved. To the guards, she was a silver blur. She slapped the spear aside with the back of her hand and stepped into the guard's space.
"Now," she whispered. "The strike."
She placed her palm on the guard's chestplate. She didn't push. She focused the energy into a single point in her lower abdomen, her Dantian, and compressed it.
"Break."
A pulse of blue light erupted from her palm.
Boom!
The guard was launched backward, tumbling twenty feet into the mud. He gasped for air, the wind knocked out of him, but his armor was undented. It was a controlled burst.
"Excellent control, Your Highness," a voice rasped from the sidelines.
It was Grand General Marcus. He was an old man, his face a map of scars, wearing the golden cape of the Imperial High Command. He was one of the few humans to reach the Astral Manifestation stage, where his soul could project outside his body as a giant avatar of war.
"Control is not enough, General," Kaelith said, wiping sweat from her brow. "The Draconian border skirmishes are increasing. Their Internal Furnace cultivation makes their skin harder than steel. My burst barely scratches them."
"Humans are not born strong, Princess," Marcus said, pouring her a cup of water. "Dragons have their fire. Elves have their nature. We have our Techne. We build our power, layer by layer. Your External Projection is nearly perfect. You will-"
He stopped.
The water in the cup rippled.
It wasn't the wind.
Suddenly, the horses in the stable screamed. It was a sound of primal terror.
Then, the sky darkened. Not with clouds, but with birds. Thousands of flocks, crows, hawks, even the giant Wyverns that usually preyed on humans, were screeching across the sky, flying south. Flying away from the Eternal Forest.
"General?" Kaelith asked, her hand instinctively going to her sword.
General Marcus's face went pale. He dropped the cup.
"Do you feel that, Kaelith?" he whispered.
"Feel what?"
"The air. It's... heavy."
Kaelith concentrated. She activated her Spirit Perception. And then she felt it. A wave of dread washed over her. It wasn't magical pressure. It felt like being a rabbit when a wolf steps on a twig nearby. A deep, genetic urge to run.
"The alarms!" Marcus roared, his Astral voice booming across the fortress. "Sound the calamity alarms! Man the walls!"
"What is attacking us?" Kaelith shouted, running to the ramparts.
"Nothing is attacking us!" Marcus yelled back, pointing North. "They are running through us!"
Kaelith reached the wall and looked out. Her blood ran cold.
The horizon was moving.
A tide of beasts. Millions of them. Shadow Wolves, Iron-Hide Bears, Razor-Boars, natural enemies that usually killed each other on sight, were running shoulder-to-shoulder in a panicked stampede.
And they were heading straight for the Fortress.
"Shield Wall!" Kaelith commanded. "Core Fusion battalion to the front! Vessel Tempering squads, brace the gates!"
Five hundred soldiers rushed to the gate. They linked their shields. A synchronized hum filled the air as they activated their External Projection, forming a massive, glowing blue barrier. This was the strength of the Empire: unity. Individually weak, but together, a fortress.
CRASH!
The beast tide hit the shield. The impact shook the stone walls.
"Hold!" Kaelith screamed, pouring her own golden Aether into the barrier.
She saw a massive Dire-Bear, a creature equivalent to a Spirit Awakening cultivator, clawing at the barrier. Its eyes were white with foam. It wasn't trying to eat them. It was trying to get past them.
What could scare a Dire-Bear this much? Kaelith thought, straining against the impact. What is in the North?
"General Marcus!" Kaelith yelled over the roar. "We can't hold this forever! There are too many!"
Marcus stood atop the tower. His eyes were closed. A giant, translucent golden avatar of a knight appeared behind him, Astral Manifestation. The avatar swung a massive spectral sword, cleaving a path through the beasts to relieve pressure on the gate.
"I have sent a carrier pigeon to the Emperor!" Marcus shouted down. "But this is not a local incursion. The Scouts report the same movement along the Elven border and the Dragon peaks!"
"The Elves?" Kaelith gasped. "And the Dragons?"
"The entire ecosystem of the Forbidden Zone has been evicted!" Marcus lowered his avatar, his face grim. "Princess, whatever woke up in that forest... it has terrified the entire border."
In The Imperial Capital, The Throne Room of Aethelgard
Three hours later.
The Emperor sat on the Sun-Steel Throne. He was a man of politics, not war, but he understood the language of power.
Before him stood a holographic projection of General Marcus and Princess Kaelith from the front lines.
"Report," the Emperor said. "Is it an invasion?"
"No, Father," Kaelith's voice crackled through the crystal. She looked exhausted, her armor dented. "It is a stampede. We have diverted the flow around the fortress, but the farmlands are ruined. The peasantry is fleeing."
"The cause?"
"Unknown," General Marcus replied. "But the beast are running away from the center of the Eternal Forest... the mages say that they could sense fear from the beast's intents. could it be an Ascendant. But this feels... wrong."
The Emperor rubbed his temples. "We cannot fight a war against the Unknown. We need intelligence."
"We cannot enter the forest alone," Kaelith interrupted. "The Aether density there has spiked. Our soldiers faint if they get within ten miles. Even I feel the weight on my soul."
"And you propose?"
"We need the Elves," Kaelith said firmly. "Their Symbiotic Resonance allows them to filter high-density Aether. And we need the Dragons. Their Internal Furnace bodies can withstand the physical pressure."
The court gasped. "Alliance? With the lizards and the tree-huggers?" a noble sneered. "Preposterous!"
"Necessary!" Kaelith snapped. "If we do not stop whatever is in that forest, the next wave won't be beasts. It will be the shockwave of that entity's power. We are looking at an extinction-level event."
The Emperor looked at his daughter. He saw the fear in her eyes, a fear he had never seen in the 'Iron Princess'.
"Send the envoys," the Emperor commanded. "Summon the Council of Nations. If the Dragons and Elves are feeling this fear, they will listen."
Back in the Garden
Draven wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, There isn't even a drop of sweat. He was just doing it on purpose. He had successfully cleared about four square feet of weeds,
"Hard work," he muttered, admiring his progress. "I really should get a golem or something to do this."
He sat down on the clean patch of grass and pulled a small flask from his pocket. It contained Sanguine Nectar, a wine made from fermented blood-fruit thousands of years ago, He took a sip.
"Ah," he sighed. "Peace and quiet."
He looked up at the sky. He saw a few frantic Wyverns flying south at breakneck speed.
"Migration season, I guess," Draven shrugged. "Nature is beautiful."
He laid back on the grass, closing his eyes for a quick nap, completely unaware that the "migration" he was admiring had just triggered a geopolitical crisis that would force three warring empires to unite for the first time in history.
All because he wanted his flowers to get some sunlight.