"Young master, we must hurry! My concealment spell won't last much longer we need to move, now!".
Under the cover of chaos, a young boy sprinted through the night, breath ragged and heart pounding. The snowstorm lashed against him, but he dared not slow down. Behind him, a lone Wintalfeld soldier fought desperately, buying every second he could for the boy's escape.
"Come on, you bastards!" Zen roared, conjuring a massive fireball and hurling it into a swarm of goblins in pursuit. Flames erupted in the night, briefly painting the snowy forest in hues of orange and crimson.
Zen was a 4th-circle mage, assigned to protect the heir of House Wintalfeld. Once an orphan, he had been taken in by the house after his potential was discovered. They gave him training, food, clothes and a sense of purpose. By twenty-four, he had risen to the elite ranks of the house.
In the Imperial Army, a 4th-circle mage was already an elite, often commanding battalions. But Zen chose loyalty over rank. When he was entrusted with the young master's life, it became the greatest honor of all.
"I won't fail the trust the house has given me! Die, you monsters!".
He channeled every ounce of mana into his core and unleashed a towering dome of inferno, hellfire roaring in a fiery explosion that consumed the forest in light and heat.
"I'll drag you all to hell if I must!".
From afar, Sol paused, glancing back.
The sky glowed. The flames reached toward the heavens like a second sun rising in the dead of night. Monsters screamed as they were consumed by the blaze. It was beautiful and terrifying.
But more terrifying was what it meant.
"Brother Zen… no."
Sol's heart sank. Zen had used the most eye-catching, mana-draining spell possible he wasn't just fighting. He was sacrificing himself. Drawing every monster in the area to give Sol a chance to escape.
Tears welled in Sol's eyes, but he ran. He ran until the dome of fire was a distant glow in the trees. But the forest stretched on endlessly, the darkness thick, the cold unforgiving. He had no idea where he was. He'd been moving in a single direction for minutes, maybe hours, stopping only when he heard the distant crunch of footsteps in the snow.
Each footstep sent terror crawling up his spine. His concealment spell was weak, barely enough to hide a child especially not from what roamed these mountains.
Sol was a 1st-circle mage, but a prodigy nonetheless. In the Empire, only his father and the legendary 9th-circle mage from the Golden Tower had ever reached this level at such a young age. He was destined for greatness is what the masses believe. That if he lived.
Pressing himself against the base of a pine tree, he whispered a concealment incantation, willing his mana to stretch just a little further. He peeked around the trunk and saw an ogre towering, hunched, and grotesque lumbering toward the direction of the inferno dome. It didn't notice him.
Then—
"What's a little kid like you doing out here?".
Sol froze. The voice was hollow, emotionless. He couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman its pitch shifted unnaturally, like wind whistling through a crypt. He spun around, but saw nothing only darkness, rustling trees, and shadows.
Then he understood. It wasn't a sound at all.
'A mental message.'
'No... A monster that can use magic... an apex monster.'
He swallowed hard and said back, heart hammering in his chest.
"I mean no harm, I'm lost. seeking only a way out."
*Silence.*
A cold sweat ran down his back. He could feel it death, just inches from him.
Then, from the shadows behind, a figure emerged. A tall silhouette, humanoid, but unmistakably wrong. A demon.
Its skin was pitch black, blending with the night, save for its gleaming white teeth—jagged and wolf-like. Four eyes glowed dimly, one of them blinking out of sync. A single curved horn crowned its head.
The demon stepped into the moonlight, grinning.
"A pity. I might have let you go… if not for that putrid smelling blood of yours. I smelled it from miles away. You're a Wintalfeld.".
Panic surged through Sol. Without hesitation, he channeled his dwindling mana into a basic moving spell called blink, and vanished.
A moment later, he reappeared several meters away, ducking behind another tree.
'Just my luck, he thought bitterly. A blood feud with a monster born of nightmares. I'm dead. I'm really gonna die.'
He used blinked again, pushing his magic to the limit, breath growing shallow.
'Concealment and blink… it's too much. I only have a few more casts left.'
"Do you really think you can escape me?" the voice echoed again.
Sol looked up and screamed.
The demon had melded back into the shadows, reappearing directly above him, its maw open in a grin, fangs gleaming in the dark
Sol used blinked in desperation, reappearing atop a tall pine tree just ahead. The moment he materialized, he glanced down at the crater where he'd stood mere seconds before a gaping, smoldering hole in the earth. The snow around it had evaporated from the heat of impact.
'If I was even a heartbeat slower. I'd be a meat paste.'
"Where are you looking, at boy?".
The monster's voice echoed unnervingly close.
Sol whipped his head around only to find empty air. The demon had vanished from the crater. Then—
"Behind you."
A chill ran through Sol's bones.
He blinked again, body reacting on instinct. In a flash, he reappeared on another tree branch, panting heavily, the cold air slicing through his lungs. He turned just in time to see the demon standing where he had just been, that grotesque grin carved across its face. It was enjoying this, the chase, the fear, the inevitability.
"I'm going to die," Sol thought, panic and hopelessness swirling in his chest. "No! I can't not like this!".
Frantically, his eyes scanned the forest.
Trees. Snow. Shadows.
More trees.
Nothing no hope, no cover, no help.
And then he saw it. A massive ravine loomed just ahead deep, wide, and jagged like the earth itself had been clawed open.
A dead end. Behind him, death from a monster. In front of him, death by fall.
His heart raced.
"If I'm going to die…" Sol clenched his fists, breathing ragged, "then I'll die on my own terms."
With the last flicker of mana in his veins, he cast blink one final time, teleporting just to the edge of the ravine.
The void yawned before him, swallowing moonlight in its depths.
"What now? Going to jump, kid?".
The voice came again now charming but soaked in mockery.
Sol didn't answer. He stepped forward and leapt.
Wind howled in his ears. His stomach lurched. He braced for the end.
But he didn't fall.
Instead, his body floated in mid-air suspended like a puppet on strings. And slowly, he was being pulled back, back toward the grinning nightmare waiting behind him.
"You really thought I'd let you die that easily?".
Sol's feet hovered inches above the snow as the demon pulled him in, a crooked smile stretched across its blackened face, those white fangs glowing faintly in the dark.
"You know, kid, let me tell you a story. Oh, don't look at me like that. What, you're not curious? That hurts me a little".
The demon paused, then its grin widened unnaturally.
"But when I say listen you LISTEN!"
Its fist flew at terrifying speed.
Sol barely had time to react. With the last bits of his mana, he conjured a weak shield a glimmering pane of mana. It shattered like glass the moment the blow connected.
The demon's punch smashed into his face with the force of a landslide.
Sol's world exploded in agony.
His vision blurred. Blood spewed from his mouth. Teeth shattered. Something cracked his jaw, maybe more. The entire left side of his face throbbed, twisted, and darkened. He couldn't see from his left eye. Couldn't hear from his left ear.
He gasped, choking on blood. Pain screamed through every nerve.
He dangled there, broken his body limp in the demon's grasp.
And the worst part was the voice that followed the whisper near his ruined ear.
"Now… where were we?".