It all Started in the small town of Rensha, life was calm during the day. The land was rich, the sea was generous, and people lived like nothing could ever go wrong but at night, it became a place of feasts for beasts.
For years, giant wolves had been terrorizing the town, harming people.
They were not just animals, they were like living glitches in reality, with fur that looked static and eyes that glowed like twin stars
They were faster, stronger, and no matter how many times people tried to fight them, they never truly disappeared
The wolves would retreat and then they would return stronger and hungrier
Even now, years later, that feeling had never truly left him
Fear had simply learned to sit quietly inside him
During the day, that fear took a different shape
Giko was a boy who grew up with that fear. As a child, he would curl into the corner of his room, hands clamped over his ears as the howls echoed through the night. Those sounds were not natural. They did not belong to any living thing. They carried something deeper, something that made his chest tighten and his breath catch
To everyone else in Rensha, Giko was just the clumsy boy who could not tie a fishing knot to save his life
At school, Giko was a joke
Kia and his gang made sure of that
It started small. A shove in the hallway. A snide comment. A laugh that lingered just a little too long
Then it became routine
That afternoon, it was his bag
A careless kick sent it tumbling into the dirt, spilling its contents across the ground. Papers scattered. Pencils rolled away. His drawings, the ones he kept hidden from everyone, were exposed for all to see
Laughter followed instantly
"Look at this," one of them mocked, picking up a page. "You really think you're some kind of hero?"
Giko dropped to his knees, his hands moving quickly, almost desperately, gathering the pages before they could be ruined
His face burned
For a moment, something rose inside him
Anger that sharp sudden
He could feel it in his fists, in the tension of his arms, in the way his body wanted to move
But he stopped
Like always
He lowered his head, hiding his expression, letting the anger sink back down into something quiet
At home, things were not much different. His father wanted him to become a fisherman and live a simple life by the sea. But Giko's mind was somewhere else. He did not want to be like his father, he wanted to be like the comic heroes he read about but he wasn't one of them not even close
He will lock in his room spending his time reading stories of heroes who stood their ground, who fought back, who saved people
He wanted that
More than anything
The problem was that he was nothing compared to them
So he did the only thing he could he trained when the house fell silent and no one was watching, he moved the furniture aside and stepped into the center of his room
His breathing slowed
His focus sharpened
Footwork step, pivot, turn again strikes precise controlled again movement flowing, adjusting, learning again and again and again until his muscles burned and his legs trembled until sweat dripped from his chin and his breath came in sharp, uneven bursts
Night fell again. The howls came again, louder than usual, closer
The town fell into chaos again, sound didn't just echo through the air. It pressed down on the town, like an invisible weight settling over everything
The reaction was instant, door slammed shut, voices rose in panic
Footsteps pounded against the ground as people rushed to hide
Fear spread like wildfire
He heard his father bolt the heavy oak door
"Giko, stay away from the windows!" his father shouted, his voice thick with a fear he usually hid
Giko ignored the warning and pressed his face to the glass. In the town square, the shadows came alive. Three massive creatures, each as tall as a house, stepped out of the treeline. Their fur flickered with violet energy, and their paws left glowing prints on the cobblestones. They did not growl, they emitted a sound like a thousand humming bees
Panic erupted. A merchant's cart was flipped over like a toy
Giko's heart hammered against his ribs as he saw a little girl frozen in the center of the square from his window
One of the creatures stalked toward her, its glowing veins pulsing faster as it prepared to strike
He rushed into his room and opened a hidden space Inside was something his father had warned him about his whole life not to cross the line
He grabbed his grandfather's sword
Old, silent, dangerous
He hesitated, staring at the gold blade, to him, this was the dumbest thing he could ever do but the urge to save the little girl took over
While he was still deciding, he heard another scream
"That was enough"
He grabbed the sword, tied a black scarf over his face so his father would not recognize him, vaulted out the window of his room, landing in the dirt with a heavy thud
The Beast-Wolf turned its massive head, its golden eyes locking onto the small masked figure
It let out a sound like a thousand bees humming at once and lunged, a blur of violet light
"Hey!" Giko roared, swinging the heavy sword with both hands
The blade hit the beast's shoulder with a resonant clang
A shockwave of silver energy burst from the impact, sending the creature flying across the square
It crashed into a vegetable cart, scattering wood and cabbages everywhere
The little girl stared up at him, her eyes wide through her tears
Giko did not look back, he kept his focus on the other two beasts, placing himself between them and the child
"Get inside, run to the nearest door!"
She scrambled to her feet and vanished into an alley, leaving Giko alone against the pack
A cold sweat ran down his back as his hands tightened around the sword, his body trembling with a mix of terror and determination
Beast-Wolves began to circle him, their paws tapping rhythmically against the cobblestones
They looked furious, as if insulted that anyone would dare challenge them
One lunged forward, violet fur crackling with energy, claws slicing through the air, teeth bared, eyes blazing
The second followed immediately, moving faster than Giko could track, their combined force driving him back step by step
Then the Alpha paused and stared at Giko for a long, heavy moment
It did not growl, its gaze carried an eerie, human-like intelligence as if it were reading the history of his sword
The beast did not strike but Instead, it let out a, sharp howl sound and turned its back, and leaped over the town wall in a single graceful bound
The others followed, vanishing into the forest like ghosts
Giko collapsed to his knees, his lungs burning as he pulled the scarf down
He looked at his grandfather's sword, still humming with a faint silver light
Then he looked toward the forest where the wolf-beasts had disappeared
"This cannot be… how did I do this?" he questioned himself, knowing deep down that something had changed