Raizen didn't hesitate. Seizing the braided rope, he climbed with the speed and strength forged in the brutal years of the Eternal Seed training camp. Muscles strained beneath his tattered suit, sweat pouring like rain. But as he neared the cliff's crest, the last Twistfang, driven by crazed tenacity, lashed out. Its razor claws grazed his ankle, shredding the remnants of his high-tech boot and carving a deep, burning gash. He clenched his teeth, pain searing from his foot to his thigh, but he didn't falter for a second—hauling himself over the edge with a final surge, collapsing beside Kaelric, who peered down anxiously. Below, the pack's furious howls echoed, their claws scraping futilely at the stone, leaving fresh gouges in the moss-slick surface—mute scars of their impotent rage.
Gasping, Raizen clutched the cut on his arm with one hand, the other pressing his bleeding ankle. His sharp gaze swept over the ragged survivors: Kaelric and the two remaining Aerith, their faces ashen with exhaustion and terror, trembling hands clinging to each other for warmth and solace in Noxvaria's bone-chilling cold; Selena, a few steps away, her gleaming steel sword steady in her grip, her dual eyes—icy blue like a frozen sea, fiery red like infernal flames—glaring down at the snarling Twistfangs with disdain laced with wary instinct.
Her snow-white hair fluttered in the frigid gusts atop the cliff, baring the thin scar along her neck—a mark of a blade that nearly claimed her life, now healed but stark against her ash-pale skin, a silent tale of battles survived. Her scarred leather armor hugged her frame, and the faint swallow emblem on her left shoulder hinted at an unspoken past she guarded fiercely. Yet her eyes and aura spoke volumes—a true warrior, born of sorrow and fueled by vengeance.
"They won't give up easily," she said, her voice low and sharp as the steel she held. "Twistfangs don't hunt just for hunger—they're Duskborn, creatures spawned from Zaratharion's ancient curse, the empire that once ruled nearly all of Avarith's continent thousands of years ago. Those claw marks on the cliff aren't random—they're relics of battles from that era, when Zaratharion wielded Duskborn as living weapons to conquer and destroy. I believe something greater, darker, drives them from the shadows. We're not their only enemies in Noxvaria."
Raizen turned to her, his cold gaze flickering with suspicion and unguarded curiosity. "You know a lot about them," he said, his voice steady but urgent, eyes locked on the enigmatic red glow in her right eye. "And about me—why save me twice? First in the forest, now here. What do you want from me?" He vividly recalled her bursting from the forest's darkness, her sword arcing to behead the second Twistfang in a flawless stroke, a swift, fateful cut through the night that snatched him from death's jaws. He remembered her gaze then—not pity, but the calculating scrutiny of a predator sizing up potential prey, stirring both awe for her skill and heightened caution.
Selena's brow furrowed, her crimson eye scanning him head to toe, as if reassessing this strange outsider with fresh scrutiny. She stepped closer, the tip of her sword grazing the mossy ash, her hand still tight on the hilt, ready to strike at any hint of betrayal.
"I'm Selena Kazehana," she replied, her voice cold yet tempered like cooled steel. "I hunt Duskborn—not out of kindness or justice, but because they stole everything I had: my family, my tribe, the peaceful village where I was born under the shadow of Avarith's southeastern mountains. I still hear my mother's screams echoing in the dark, see the flames devouring our wooden home, feel my father's cold hand as I tried to drag him from the burning ruins. I survived for one purpose: to slaughter every Duskborn, to avenge all I've lost. As for you…" She paused, her probing gaze piercing his. "…I haven't decided who you are. Your strange clothes, your unusual fighting style—you don't belong to Noxvaria, maybe not even to Asvaria. But if you can survive a pack of Twistfangs, you might be worth trusting—for now, until I uncover the truth about you."
She stopped, abruptly raising her sword to his chest, its lethal edge inches from his heart, her fiery eye flaring like a deadly warning. "Your turn, outsider. Name yourself. And don't lie—Noxvaria doesn't forgive deceivers, and neither do I."
Raizen stood tall, driving his spear into the ashen earth, his icy gaze meeting her dual-toned eyes without a flicker of fear before the blade at his chest. "I'm Raizen Valefor," he said, his voice deep and clear, resonating in the deathly silence atop the precarious cliff. "I come from a place far, far away—a catastrophic accident with a machine called Asvaria brought me here. I don't know what Noxvaria is, or much about this planet Asvaria, but one thing I'm certain of: I need to survive. And I need trustworthy allies to do it. If your goal is hunting Duskborn, we share an enemy. I can't promise to fulfill your vengeance, but I swear to use every skill I have—cunning, strength, anything—to help you survive these battles."
He turned to Kaelric, the elder struggling to rise, clutching his bleeding shoulder, his face contorted in pain but his weathered eyes still glinting with faint resolve. "And you—Kaelric Duskwind, elder of the Aerith tribe, right? You spoke of your people's plight. If you truly want to survive, tell me everything you know—about the Duskborn, the Shadowfangs you mentioned, this cursed land. I need to understand my enemies and this place to fight, to protect what little you have left."
Kaelric looked up, his eyes flashing with a strange mix of shame and astonishment, as if he couldn't believe an oddly dressed outsider could face a Twistfang pack and remain so chillingly calm in such dire straits. "You… you saved us from those beasts," he rasped, his voice trembling with exhaustion and pain but striving for clarity. "You stand on Noxvaria—a vast deadland in Avarith's southeast, part of the planet Asvaria, far grander than you can fathom. This place is cursed, abandoned by Zaratharion, the ancient empire that ruled Avarith millennia ago, then vanished mysteriously, leaving us only darkness, death, and unbreakable curses. The Duskborn, like those Twistfangs, are part of that nightmare—born from this dead earth. Some are wild, savage like the pack you fought; others are tamed by the Shadowfangs in the North as war beasts. The Shadowfangs… they were once human like us, but warped by hunger, despair, and brutality, they'll kill anyone, even kin, to survive another day in the Blackspire Valley's darkness. My Aerith tribe is fading—too few warriors to fight them, too little food to endure the coming winter. I've watched starving children die in their mothers' arms, our bravest warriors fall hopelessly under Twistfang claws…" He pointed to the hazy dead forest, where smoke from ash pits rose like trapped souls, his eyes dimming with indelible grief. "I'll take you to our last outpost—but we must move now, before the Shadowfangs smell the blood and come like those Twistfangs."
BOOM!
Before Raizen could respond, a deafening explosion—not natural thunder—erupted from the dead forest nearby, shaking the cliff like a small quake. A massive, gleaming metal object, engulfed in flames and pulsing with strange red light, plummeted from the gray sky at terrifying speed, its screeching crash of buckling, shattering metal piercing the air—a man-made machine, clearly destroyed. The shockwave sent ash swirling across a wide swath, molten metal fragments raining down like a deadly shower, clanging sharply against stone. The eerie red glow from the debris lit the sky like lost meteors in daylight.
The acrid stench of burning metal and synthetic polymers flooded the air, a smell so familiar it pierced Raizen's heart, dragging him back to Thiên Long Tower's lab—where, moments ago, he'd stood with Kael and Seiryu, watching Asvaria hum under Valen Kabe's cold command before it unraveled into hell. He recalled Valen's steady, confident voice: "This is the future, Raizen—a machine to transcend time and space." But he also saw Valen's frenzied, ambitious eyes as he flipped the final switch, ignoring all warnings. Raizen froze, his heart pounding as a fierce premonition surged—Asvaria, the force that hurled him into this abyss, had somehow resurfaced, and it might have brought those he called comrades, his family.
"What the hell is happening now?" Selena growled, her sword raised across her chest, her dual eyes scanning the blast site with utmost vigilance, her white hair whipping in the explosion's gusts—a warrior poised for any threat, no matter how sudden.
Raizen didn't answer immediately. He rushed to the cliff's edge, peering through the thick black smoke billowing from a corner of the forest. Crackling sparks, like shorted circuits, echoed relentlessly, the burning reek of metal and plastic growing stronger, mingling with the hiss of molten steel under intense heat.
Then, from the dense smoke, two achingly familiar figures stumbled out, their modern Saigon 2050 attire tattered and scorched: Kael Iscariot, his technician's uniform smeared with grease and ash, clutching a warped metal slab from the wreckage, his usually bright blue eyes now clouded with panic and helpless dread; and beside him, Seiryu Alvis, her once-pristine white coat blackened and torn, her long black hair disheveled, half-veiling her stoic face, a small scalpel gripped tightly from the medical kit still slung at her hip, her deep black eyes flashing with raw worry as they locked onto Raizen atop the cliff.