In the beginning, magic was myth.
A forgotten relic buried beneath the weight of steel, science, and circuitry. Humanity had moved on, crafting cities that were tall and machines that moved faster. In this world a modern Earth of logic and data, the miraculous had no place. Magic was a fairytale, fit only for books and bedtime stories.
Until it wasn't.
Until the incident known as The Mana Explosion occurred.
No one knows exactly when it began. Some say it started with a quake beneath the Pacific Ocean. Others whisper of deities coming back, a crack in the firmament, or an ancient curse finally breaking. But the day the Mana Veins awakened, the world changed forever.
Mana, the name of a long-forgotten era, flooded back into existence. It surged through the earth like wildfire, awakening ancient places, blooming with strange flora, and breaking reality in unstable bursts. With it came Dungeons, living, breathing fractures in the world where monsters long banished to myth clawed their way back into reality.
At first, governments and scientists tried to contain it. They sent in soldiers. They built quarantine zones. But soon, mana-touched individuals, later called Awakened, began to appear. Healers, mages, knights, and summoners. Fantasy became reality.
And among them... one stood alone.
He had no grand name, no noble title. People only ever called him theSaint.
He did not arrive in fanfare or flame. He walked into the world's attention by healing a poisoned child on live television with only a hand and a whisper. From there, his legend grew.
Wherever monsters struck, he followed. Where curses lingered, he lifted them. Where limbs were lost, he restored them. He refused money. He demanded no allegiance. His sword, Sanctus, was said to be forged from sunlight itself, and his magic so pure it made even the most corrupted dungeons tremble became a beacon of hope.
He adopted orphans. Taught healing magic to anyone willing to learn. Fought on the frontlines when other heroes fell. But he also carried the weight of it all alone.
Years passed, and many people became accustomed to slaying monsters in dungeons. They earned money by selling the monsters' fur, teeth, and mana cores. As a result, the world began to evolve and adapt to this new reality, marking the beginning of the "Mana Era," where monster hunting became an everyday occurrence.
Then, in the Year 34 of the Mana Era.
A dungeon opened in Siberia. Unlike any before it, this one didn't stop expanding. The skies blackened. The ground died. Magic itself seemed to warp in its presence. Creatures unlike anything seen before emerged: The Eternal Night Horde, void-born beasts immune to conventional magic and weapons.
Cities fell. Magic faltered. Even the strongest Awakened were swallowed whole.
When the last bastion, Jericho Citadel, stood on the edge of annihilation, the Saint came.
He did not speak. He simply walked into the night. Alone.
What followed was the closest thing the world had seen to close divinity. The battle lasted for seven days and seven nights. Witnesses saw beams of gold tear through the dark sky. Prayers answered in bursts of light. Multiple Mana circles appeared in the sky, and holy beams closed into a circle like a basket. Demons fleeing before his blade. It is said his final act was a spell not seen since the Age of Gods, one that said to reverse corruption at the cost of his very soul.
And then he vanished.
Not a single body was ever found. No trace of Sanctus. Only a single crater, glowing faintly with residual of dark mana, where the Eternal Horde once stood.
The world mourned him. Shrines were built. Songs were sung. The mana-surge stabilized. Dungeons became manageable. He had given the world a chance to rebuild.
But no one ever knew what became of The Last Great Saint.
Not until he opened his eyes again in a world that was not his.
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The first thing Griffin felt was the dull ache behind his eyes. Not pain exactly, just pressure, like the weight of something ancient being peeled off his soul. The next thing he felt was… air. Cold, dusty, and stale.
He blinked.
A cracked ceiling stared back. Faint water damage curled at the edges like paper burned too slowly. The lights above him flickered with a hum, old bulbs that should've been retired years ago. A ceiling fan spun in slow, lazy circles, doing nothing against the dry heat pressing down on him.
"What…?"
His voice was hoarse, like he hadn't spoken in days. Or years.
Griffin sat up, and the world shifted. Not just his vision, but everything. He touched his chest, his arms, his face. He looked down and saw… himself. But not quite. His skin was smoother. His body younger. His long battle-worn scars had vanished. Even the calluses on his palms, earned from years of wielding Sanctus, were gone.
He pulled his legs over the side of what could only loosely be called a bed. The frame creaked. His bare feet touched the cold floor, cracked tile, faded with time and neglect.
Then came the real shock.
He moved his hand to his chest and breathed in and out, instinctively searching for the flow of mana. The roots that are below the earth. The pulse of the world.
Nothing.
Griffin froze. Reached again. Deeper.
Still nothing.
No mana.
No leyline connection. No roots from the planet. Not even the weak flicker of a dampened flow. It was like trying to drink from a well that had gone dry a long time ago.
"...No," he whispered. "No, no, no…"
He stood too fast. His legs nearly gave out, and he staggered into a peeling wall. He breathed in slowly and panicked. Sweat beaded at his brow. Not because of pain, but because of absence.
There was no mana. Not even the idea of mana.
What kind of world was this? It had to be some kind of joke. Earth has to have mana; there was a lot of it in the air and below. How could there be none?
A piece of paper sat taped to a cabinet door, barely holding on. He squinted at it. The handwriting was… Sloppy, rushed.
"Zenith – You owe rent in two weeks. Also, fix the damn sink. – Jin"
Zenith? Who the hell was—
A cracked mirror across the room caught his reflection. And there he was. His hair was different; it was no longer all black but now with white hair in the mix. Sleep-deprived amber eyes. A mess of blankets draped over what looked like secondhand pajamas and… was that his clinic?
He turned. Looked around. The shelves were stocked with dusty bottles of off-brand disinfectant, a few rolls of bandages, and mismatched jars labeled with ingredients like Sunroot, Grimmbane, and Hunter's Burn Cream. A cheap stool stood beside a table that might've once been an operating bench. Everything looked… cobbled together. Functional, but poor.
And the final nail in his sanity's coffin?
A battered city map on the wall, half-covered by childish crayon drawing,s clearly labeled the surrounding region as:
"Mistral – Central District (Upper levels)"
Mistral?
He frowned. That wasn't any city he'd ever healed in. Not even close.
No mana. No Sanctus. No orphans calling for him. No familiar landmarks. Nothing.
Just a name he didn't recognize, a body that didn't quite feel like his, and a world that felt wrong in the deepest, most silent parts of his soul.
Griffin Nyros, The Last Great Saint, sat back on the creaking bed, buried his face in his hands, and exhaled
"…What fresh hell did I wake up in?" he asked himself.
Griffin stayed like that, motionless, head in his hands, for what felt like hours but was likely only minutes. Slowly, the panic dulled, replaced by a cold, methodical focus.
He'd been through worse. Warzones, plagues, dying people. He could handle waking up in a broken dimension with no mana.
Probably.
He looked up.
The room, if he could even call it that, had clearly been converted into a clinic. Poorly. His eyes scanned the corners. No holy runes. No mana crystals. Just patchwork furniture and the faint scent of alcohol and herbs. The overhead fan creaked with every rotation, like it was as tired as he was.
Then he saw it, a bookshelf tucked into the corner beside the cracked window, almost hidden behind a dusty curtain. It was leaning at an angle, one of the legs propped up by an old boot, and the top shelf sagged under the weight of overstuffed books.
Griffin approached, fingers trailing over the covers as he read the titles aloud under his breath:
Grimm Ecologically and Behaviorally"
"Dust: The Lifeblood of Progress"
"The Four Kingdoms: A History"
"Faunus Rights and the Menagerie Accord"
"Hunters and Huntresses: Protectors of Humanity
He narrowed his eyes.
"Grimm…? As in grim?" he murmured, pulling the first book free. It was heavy, thick, and worn by countless hands. Inside, illustrations of black, monstrous creatures, red-eyed, bone-masked beasts, glared back at him. His brow furrowed.
"Emotion-feeding monsters born of darkness," he read aloud, flipping through quickly. "Weak to 'Aura'… hunted by warriors called Huntsmen… no known origin…" He frowned. "They sound like Abyssals. But dumber."
The next few books didn't do much to settle his nerves. Dust seemed to be this world's equivalent of elemental catalysts, though crude and clearly not magical in the way he understood. The "Four Kingdoms" were massive, vaguely independent nations with wildly different governance and values. The Faunus were an entire race being mistreated in a deeply systemic way, and the "Hunters and Huntresses" were essentially government-sanctioned mercenaries trained to kill monsters and sometimes each other.
Griffin's eyes narrowed at that last one.
"This place is insane," Griffin said to himself while reading the book, disgusted.
He shut the book with a loud thump and set it back on the shelf. He exhaled deeply, then turned his attention inward.
If the world had no mana… then what about him?
Griffin drew a long breath and focused not outward toward the leylines, but inward. Into the very core of his mana core. A technique he'd used many times while meditating in the silence of post-battle nights or even training his mana core.
And there it was.
Warmth. Pressure. Flow.
Not the roaring surge of the world's mana network. Not the soothing parts of the leyroots beneath his old home.
But something else.
His mana, his personal reserves, was still there. Coiled and dormant, like a sleeping dragon in his chest. Smaller than he remembered, but intact. Familiar. Holy. It pulsed once, slowly, and the air around his fingers shimmered faintly.
Relief washed over him like a wave, and he nearly dropped to his knees.
"Still here," he muttered. "Still me."
But that only raised more questions.
If his internal mana remained untouched, then either this world's rules didn't apply to his body… or he wasn't truly part of this world.
"A soul out of sync," Griffin whispered. "Translocated. Not reincarnated."
He wasn't born here. He'd been moved. Shifted. Dropped here like a stone through the veil of reality. Why? By whom?
And why this body?
This world had no ley lines, no ambient energy he could draw from. And yet, his core still worked.
But that meant one thing.
He was alone.
Utterly, cosmically alone.
No other Saint. No other healer. No magic-born kin. No mana-born life.
Just him.
Griffin clenched his fist, cutting off the glow. It flickered out with a soft pulse, like a heartbeat fading back into silence.
"…Right," he muttered, standing to his full height. His knees cracked. His back popped. He groaned. "Back to square one. Again."
He wandered toward the window and shoved aside the faded curtain. Mistral's early morning fog had rolled in, cloaking the alleyways in a silver haze. The buildings around him stood tall, layered with rusted vents, clotheslines, and hanging signs in languages that he fully recognized. Neon flickered in the distance.
It felt nothing like home. And yet…
Something prickled at the edge of his awareness.
He narrowed his eyes.
Far beyond the city limits, just past the tree line of the mountainous wilds, something was watching.
It wasn't a presence like before. Not a beast with bloodlust. Not some corrupted entity crawling from a Dungeon.
It was... hunger. Cold. Primal.
Instinct.
Griffin's gaze locked onto the morning horizon. His mana coiled again inside him, stirring at the sense of danger like a hound catching a scent. He reached out gently, not physically, but with the spiritual sense all Saints were trained to hone.
And then, through the dense fog of this mana-starved world, something responded.
Not in words. Not in thought.
But in recoil.
--------------------------------
In the wild outskirts, just beyond the borders of Mistral…
A Beowolf stood at the edge of the treeline, silent and still. The creature's bones jutted from blackened flesh, its white mask glinting faintly beneath the morning horizon that was coming. It growled low, sniffing the air. The Grimm sensed fear, pain, and humanity, a potent blend of negative emotions.
But then...
It froze.
Something touched it. No, brushed against it.
Warmth.
Light.
A whisper of golden light pressed into its dark consciousness, like a sunbeam cutting through fog.
The Beowolf snarled and stepped back. Its red eyes flickered in panic.
Another step. Then another. Until it turned and ran, bolting into the dark forest like prey before a predator. Gone.
And behind it, in the deeper dark, other Grimm watched. Silent. Cautious.
They didn't understand what had awakened in the kingdom.
But instinct told them:
Do not approach.
-----------------------------
Griffin slowly opened his eyes. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, tired and amused.
"…So. Even here, monsters know to keep their distance."
He leaned against the window frame, staring into the thick mist with a sharpness that hadn't dulled, despite the years. Despite death.
"Fine. If I can't find mana, I'll make do. If I can't go home, I'll build a new one. And if the monsters of this world want to come for me..."
He cracked his knuckles, light flickering along his wrist.
"...Tell them the Saint is still breathing," Griffin said with a smile as one of his eyes began to glow yellow.
The flickering ceiling fan above him groaned once more.
Somewhere in the alleyway of Mistral, a faunus child who was using a newspaper as a blanket coughed in their sleep. But the Kingdom of Mistral went on, unaware that a myth from another world had just taken its first breath in it.
And beyond the walls?
The Grimm stayed away.
For now.