The sun was a warm, golden hand resting on the back of Rudra's neck. In the village of Drita, the afternoon air usually smelled of blooming jasmine and the sweet, heavy scent of drying grain.
It was the heart of the Land of Life, a realm where the grass was forever green and the shadows were kept short by the grace of the creator, Eternus.
"Rudra, pay attention! You're drifting again," Elara giggled, poking him in the ribs with a bundle of dried lavender she had been braiding.
Rudra blinked, shaking his dark hair out of his eyes. He was twelve years old, his biggest worry being the chores awaiting him at his father's smithy.
Beside him, his best friend Kael was busy trying to balance a wooden practice sword on the tip of his nose, his face scrunched in comical concentration.
In the centre of the square, sitting on the edge of the communal well, was Grandmother Veda. Her face was a map of a thousand wrinkles, and her voice was like the rustle of dry parchment.
"Before the steel, before the walls, there was the Great Divide," Veda whispered, her eyes milky but intense.
"The Land of Life was ours. But across the invisible veil lay the Land of Death—the home of the Asuras." She froze for a moment.
"Creatures of obsidian skin and horns that pierced the clouds. They didn't breathe air; they breathed the essence of the end. They coveted our warmth, and they poured across the borders like a black tide."
Kael dropped his wooden sword. "But Eternus saved us, Nana. Everyone knows the story."
"He did," Veda nodded slowly. "He cast them into the Endless Void and locked the sky. He became our God. But listen closely, children: a lock is only as strong as the door it holds. And sometimes, the door wants to break."
As if the universe were answering her, the wind died. The birds went silent. A jagged, black fissure tore across the blue sky, bleeding a thick, crimson mist that blotted out the sun.
Then came the shriek—a sound of metal
grinding on bone.
From the red mist, the nightmares fell.
Rudra watched, paralysed, as an Asura landed in the square. It was seven feet of charcoal-colored muscle and hatred.
With one casual swing of a bone-blade, Kael was cleaved in two, his wooden sword snapping in the dirt.
Elara's scream was cut short by a sickening crunch as a second creature crushed her throat.
Rudra felt a roar building in his chest, a cold, violet light flickering in his vision—and then a massive hand slammed into his skull, plunging him into the abyss.
Rudra's eyes snapped open, his pupils dilated in the dim light of the barracks.
He didn't scream; he had long since run out of breath for screaming. He lunged upward, his fingers clawing at the air for a blade that wasn't there.
His chest heaved, and the cold sweat on his forehead felt like ice.
"Just a dream," he whispered, his voice a dry rasp. "Just the past."
He sat on the edge of his spartan cot for a long moment, waiting for the dizziness to subside. This was the "Soul-Strain"—the price of a mind that refused to let go of its trauma.
He was nineteen now, but the twelve-year-old boy from Drita still lived in the hollow spaces of his heart.
He closed his eyes and focused on the centre of his chest, searching for his Abha.
In the Fortress of Viram, the instructors taught that Abha was a gift from Eternus—a golden, warm energy that empowered the soul.
But as Rudra summoned his power, it didn't feel like a gift. It felt like a cold, violet ember. It was jagged and hungry, pulsing with a frequency that felt less like "Life" and more like the very "Death" he was supposed to be fighting.
He stood up, his muscles rippling with a lean, corded strength. He strapped on his leather armour with practised, mechanical movements.
Finally, he reached for his weapon. It wasn't the elegant, glowing sabre of a high-ranking knight.
It was a massive slab of blackened iron, blunt and heavy, etched with runes to help channel his unstable energy.
The Wall of Lament,
The heavy iron doors of the meditation wing groaned open, revealing the torch-lit corridors of the fortress.
"You're late, Rudra. Even for a man who talks to ghosts."
Rudra didn't turn. He knew the voice of Vane, his unit mate. Vane was everything Rudra wasn't: charismatic, talented, and possessed of a golden Abha that shone like a miniature sun.
"The dream was longer today," Rudra grunted, his heavy boots thudding against the stone.
"It's always the dream," Vane sighed, falling into step beside him. "The instructors say you have the highest Abha output in the Vanguard, but you waste half of it fighting your own head. You need to look to the light of the Rakshkas, Rudra. They are the legends for a reason. They don't look back."
"The Rakshkas weren't in Drita," Rudra snapped, his gaze flickering with a violet spark that made Vane flinch. "They were in the Holy City, drinking wine while my world turned to ash. Don't talk to me about legends."
Before Vane could respond, the Great Bell of Valerium began to toll.
Clang.Clang.Clang.
The sound was a jolt of pure adrenaline. Both men sprinted toward the spiral staircase. As they climbed the five hundred feet of stone toward the battlements, the temperature plummeted.
The air here was thin and carried the "Void Pressure"—a heavy, suffocating weight that made the lungs ache.
When they burst onto the top of the wall, the world was a nightmare.
The horizon was jagged with "Fractures"—massive tears in the sky that leaked red smoke. Below the wall, thousands of Asuras were moving through the treeline, their horns glinting in the twilight like a forest of thorns.
"The Eastern Pass has fallen!" a commander roared. "Archers, loose!"
Rudra stepped up to the edge of the wall. Five hundred feet below, the Asuras were screaming—a sound that echoed the nightmares in his head.
He gripped his black iron sword, and for the first time that day, the dizziness vanished.
In its place was a crystalline, murderous clarity.
His Abha core began to pulse, sending ripples of violet energy down his arms. It wasn't the warmth of a God. It was the chill of the grave.
"For my friends," he whispered.
Without waiting for the order, Rudra stepped off the edge of the world.
He didn't fall like a man; he fell like a star, his violet light cutting through the crimson mist as he descended toward the horde.
The boy from Drita was dead. The Warrior had arrived.