The world was nothing but a whisper of gray.
For Ash, light was an abstract idea—a word scribbled in dusty Empire manuscripts to describe a time long forgotten. Here, on the edge of the Dark Continent, the sky wasn't a dome; it was a slab of lead. The Great Barrier, invisible to the naked eye, acted like a colossal filter, devouring every ray of sunlight to feed itself. The result was an eternal dusk, a frozen twilight where people were born, lived, and died without ever seeing their own shadows.
Ash tightened the leather straps around his guard. The steel of his sword was cold, biting into his calloused palm. It wasn't a noble weapon. It was scavenged, chipped from countless "fishing trips"—the sarcastic name villagers gave to hunting the low-tier monsters that slipped through cracks in the Barrier.
"Stay focused, kid. If you dream, you're dead."
His father Kael's voice was as rough as the land around them. Kael was the chief of this nameless village, a man whose body was a map of scars, relics of his time as a low-ranking soldier in the Imperial legions before being "rewarded" with a pittance and a barren plot of land in the Wall's shadow.
"I'm not dreaming, Father," Ash replied, flatly. "I'm watching the rift."
His pale blue eyes, almost uncomfortably bright in this soot-choked world, fixed on a thicket of petrified brambles ten meters away. Where others saw only shifting shadows, Ash saw threads of light—thin, radiant webs slicing through the darkness. This was his Atom Sight. He had never named it; he'd assumed everyone could see the fragile points where reality itself began to fray.
He saw the tension in the neck of the creature readying to pounce.
There.
With a fluid, effortless motion, Ash lunged. He had no knightly aura, no mage's mana, but his muscles, honed by years of survival, moved with surgical precision. The creature—a Shadow Lurker, a gaunt wolf with tar-black skin—lunged from the bushes.
A normal warrior would have struck its chest. Ash pivoted his blade just enough to catch the golden "rift" at the base of the monster's skull.
The strike was silent. His chipped steel passed through stone-like flesh as though it were wet paper. The head flew in a perfect arc, releasing a jet of black, acrid blood that vanished instantly in the mana-saturated air.
"Clean," Kael muttered, sheathing his blade. "Too clean. You shouldn't be able to kill a Rampant with a blade like that, Ash."
"I got lucky," Ash lied—for the thousandth time. He couldn't explain that he saw exactly where the creature's atoms were coming apart.
They resumed their march toward the village. Normally, silence was their ally. Tonight, it felt different—thick, oppressive. The Barrier, the vast construction of divine mana separating humanity from the Dark Continent's horrors, usually emitted a low hum, a reassuring vibration that the world still held.
Tonight, it was dead silent.
The Cry of Reality
The gray sky shattered into white. A colossal surge of energy split the horizon, followed by a sound no ear should ever hear—the scream of space tearing itself apart.
"The Barrier…" Kael whispered, face pale.
Above them, miles up, a crack of electric violet slithered through the invisible dome. Fragments of divine mana rained down like burning crystal, incinerating the bramble forests below.
Then the smell hit—millennia-old rot, sulfur, and corrupted magic.
"Run, Ash! To the village! NOW!"
They didn't make it a hundred meters. A black mass, vast and terrifying, plummeted from the sky like a meteor. The impact slammed Ash into a rock wall, knocking the wind from his lungs. His ears rang. His vision blurred. And when he opened his eyes, the sight would be carved into his soul forever.
A Rank B Abomination.
A mountain of necrotic muscle, four meters tall, with six disproportionate limbs tipped with black crystal claws. Its head was a vertical slit of teeth, and dozens of eyes dotted its torso, fixed on the village with insatiable hunger.
"Father!" Ash screamed.
Kael was already on his feet. The veteran had drawn his sword, but against this horror, steel seemed trivial. The Abomination roared, rattling Ash's bones. With one swing, it flattened the first three houses, turning wood and stone to dust. The screams began—women, children, neighbors Ash had known all his life.
"Ash, listen to me!" Kael shouted, blocking a claw that should have crushed him instantly. His weak aura burned dark red as he poured every ounce of will into resisting the monster's presence. "You must leave! Take the mountain pass! Go to the Empire!"
"No! I can help! I see the rifts!"
Ash leapt forward, eyes blazing. Atom Sight went wild. The monster was chaos incarnate, lines of force twisting too fast to follow—a book with pages flipping at supersonic speed.
The Abomination ignored him, focusing on the pest that dared resist. In a blur, a second claw struck Kael. His aura shield shattered like glass.
Ash saw it all in slow motion. The rift on the creature's side. The opportunity. He dove, blade aimed at the black heart. But the monster was clever, rotating its massive body. Ash's sword smashed against an unyielding bone plate.
The backlash sent him rolling. When he lifted his head, he saw his father impaled by one of the creature's lower limbs.
"FATHER!"
Kael spat blood, looked at his son one last time. No fear. Only fierce determination.
"SURVIVE!"
The Abomination tore him apart.
The Abyss of Despair
Ash felt nothing—no pain, no fear. Something inside him shattered, and the residual demonic mana saturating the Borderlands surged into his mind.
The naive boy who had listened to hero stories died with his father.
He rose, broken sword in hand. Pale eyes glazed, Atom Sight stabilizing. The world fell silent. Village flames, dying screams—gone. Only he and the Abomination remained.
He saw the rift. A tiny golden line under the monster's throat, where mana powered its muscles.
Ash charged—not like a hero, but a wounded animal. The Abomination laughed, a metallic screech, and raised a claw to crush him.
Ash slid under it, ignoring claws tearing his shoulder. He jumped, using its torso as a springboard, driving the broken iron into the golden line.
Black mana spewed. The monster screamed, shocked a "mosquito" could hurt it. But the wound was shallow. Ash's iron shattered. He was unarmed in midair.
The Abomination grabbed his throat, slamming him down. The weight crushed him. His ribs cracked. Its gaping maw neared his face.
Is this the end? Ash thought. Die in darkness, never seeing the sun?
The Descent of the Steel God
Suddenly, the weight vanished.
No—it multiplied.
Gravitational force so intense the ground collapsed in a ten-meter radius. The Abomination, several tons, was crushed, limbs snapping like dry branches under invisible pressure.
Ash, protected by a residual force dome, looked up.
A man had fallen from the sky like a cannonball, leaving only a crater. Matte black plate armor, massive, forged from a mountain's heart. A gray wolf-fur cloak floated behind him, windless.
Duke Korth, House Ironbound.
He didn't glance at the Abomination struggling to rise. He walked to Ash, each step shaking the ground.
"A Rank B passed the Barrier…" Korth's voice rolled like distant thunder. "The world is unraveling."
The Abomination roared. Korth sighed, raised a gloved hand, and gestured down.
CRACK.
The monster was flattened in an instant. Ash's heart skipped a beat. This was a Duke's strength? The gap wasn't a chasm—it was a universe.
Korth turned to Ash. He saw the village in ashes, Kael's remains, and a pale boy clutching a broken sword.
"You're still alive, kid?"
Ash didn't answer. He looked at his father's body, then the monster. His innocence was gone, replaced by a cold, black rage, like demon blood.
"Give me a reason to live," he said, voice broken but fearless.
Korth smirked predatorily, tossing a heavy iron coin stamped with an anvil and chain at Ash's feet.
"You hurt that monster without aura or mana. You have a gift for finding weaknesses—or luck fit for hanging. The Borderlands have nothing left for you. Go to Aethelis Academy. Present this coin. Survive the journey, survive the trials, and maybe next time your sword won't break."
Korth turned, his gravity aura fading, leaving Ash alone in the smoking ruins of his life.
Ash picked up the coin. Heavy. Heavier than his sword. He looked at the leaden sky. Through the Barrier's fissure, a distant, cruel golden light glimmered.
The sun.
Ugly. Blinding. And Ash swore, if he had to burn the world to avenge this silence, he would.