Ash fell from the sky slowly. And he didn't remember how he had gotten there.
Enormous black vultures, with eyes too human, circled above the battlefield — as if something precious, hidden deep beneath the mud and blood, was waiting for them. Arms and legs torn from their bodies reddened the field. The dry earth choked on the spilled blood.
In the middle of the thick crimson pool, among the severed heads of terrible wolves, lay a teenage boy. His right hand — full of scratches and pale as ice — held a leather pouch embroidered with living symbols that blinked like fireflies. He gripped it tight… even though his body had long since stopped radiating warmth.
The blood no longer flowed. His lungs barely remembered how to breathe. This couldn't be real.
With one last breath—
Suddenly, his body contracted. His back arched and he shot upright.
A deep, guttural inhale — soaked in death — tore through his throat. It was as if he had fallen from above… and woken up on impact.
His eyes opened involuntarily. With his left hand he touched his chest; his heart felt like it was about to burst out. The cold bit into his bones. The sky spun as if he were submerged in water.
A few seconds passed.
He went still. He couldn't move a single muscle until his broken breathing and the confusion in his mind settled just a little.
Disoriented, he looked up. Everything was blurry… until the colors began to come into focus.
Strangely, his throat moved. The sound was more of a murmur than words.
"Where…? Where am I?"
In that moment, his body felt light, incomplete, fragile. He looked at his hands — small, like a child's. The thinness of them, almost skin over bone, made him go rigid.
Terrified, he tried to touch his face… but stopped.
One of his hands was gripping a leather pouch tightly.
"This… this person can't be me."
Just then, the pouch vibrated.
The embroidered symbols began to glow more intensely. Without thinking, he let it go. It hit the ground and five brilliantly colored spheres rolled out with a dry chime. They immediately seized his attention.
Each one was a different color. They seemed to hold galaxies inside them.
One blazed like fire.
Another was blue, deep as the sea.
A yellow one, with electric threads leaping through its core.
Another held a sand storm spinning without rest.
And the last one was green.
It didn't seem elemental like the others.
Inside it… a reptilian eye watched him.
The boy was transfixed. A chill ran slowly down his spine.
Then the eye blinked.
He threw himself backward on instinct. His hands sank into the thick, still-warm pool. The contact made him react.
He looked around… and went pale.
Beside him lay the severed heads of incredibly large wolves, scattered across the ground. He couldn't understand what kind of force could have achieved such a thing. Their bodies were nowhere to be found.
But what truly terrified him…
was that every single one of those heads had a third eye open in the center of its forehead.
Cautiously, he moved closer. He studied them for a moment.
They didn't match.
The wolves' eyes were not the same as the one in the sphere. And every one of the five wolves had its own third eye.
Suddenly, a screech exploded from the sky.
He looked up.
A group of monstrous vultures was spiraling down toward him.
He had no time to process anything else. Not the spheres. Not the wolves. Not his own body. His knees trembled and he collapsed again onto the ground. The mere sight of those creatures — nearly three meters across — made him want to wake up from that nightmare.
One of them climbed higher and higher into the air.
Just by watching the movement, he knew.
And he wasn't wrong.
At its highest point, the vulture stopped beating its wings. Its body curved… and it let itself drop.
Like a predator.
He went pale.
Fear made him react.
He lunged for the spheres, shoved them into the pouch, and ran. Gathering whatever little momentum he had left, he leapt over one of the wolf heads and sprinted toward the trees in the distance.
But his body was weak.
His steps were heavy.
The grass reached his knees. Every step weighed on him as if he were sinking with each stride. Every movement was like dragging dead weight — as if something invisible was pulling him from behind.
It was torture.
The vulture dropped without restraint.
When it was about to touch the ground, it snapped its wings open. The recoil shifted its trajectory straight toward him. The air shrieked.
In seconds, its talons were nearly within reach.
Ten steps.
Only ten steps to enter the forest.
For one instant… he believed he could make it.
Until the shadow fell over him.
Suddenly—
A golden thread cut through the air from the trees. Its whistle split the sky.
Shickkk. Shacck.
The vulture was cleaved into three. Blood fell like dark rain.
The boy stumbled and rolled out of control.
He looked up.
And saw her.
A white figure with golden hair and a knight's armor walked calmly toward the remains of the vulture. She crouched down. Picked up a black sphere. Inside it, something like living ink swirled — dense… contained.
She stood.
She looked at him.
She smiled.
"Hey, SEEKER. Find anything good?"