The night was as silent as a tomb holding its breath.
In a narrow room in a corner of the city, a young man lay in the darkness—his face illuminated by the dim light of his cell phone, like a weary star hanging in the farthest sky.
His name was Bumantara, but no one called him that.
He lived like a shadow whose light never ceased to search.
Unemployed.
Lonely.
Trapped between wanting to live and never truly living.
In his chest was an inexplicable emptiness, like another world waiting to shatter.
And just as his eyelids closed from unbearable fatigue…
…something tore through the silence.
A voice.
Soft but haunting.
Like a whisper from beneath the sea or from behind a cracked sky:
"Bumantara… is back."
His body went cold.
His heart stopped for a split second.
The light in the room collapsed, flowing like water backward.
And then the world shattered—not exploding, but crumbling like sand that has lost its support.
As he fell, he felt himself torn from himself.
His old name remained in the original world like old clothes thrown on the side of the road.
He wasn't dead.
He wasn't alive either.
He was transported.
Into something he didn't yet understand.
Into someone he might not even be.
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CHAPTER 1 — The Nameless Land
When Bumantara opened his eyes, he didn't recognize the color of the sky.
It was… black.
Not the darkness of night he knew, but a black like ink that swallowed the light.
But there… floated tiny shards of light like the broken hearts of stars.
He lay in the dark red grass.
It felt like sleeping on the hair of a long-dead creature.
"Where am I…?" he murmured softly, his voice cracking like crumpled paper.
He stood. The wind blew—cold, yet carrying a whisper that made his bones tremble.
A forest lay in the distance.
But the trees had no leaves—only long branches like hands curled up to reach for the sky.
On the ground, footprints repeated.
Too deep, too large.
Like they belonged to something that shouldn't be there.
"Is this a dream?"
He hoped so.
But the wounds on the soles of his feet felt real. The vibrations in the air were palpable. The fear clinging to the back of his neck felt even more real.
Suddenly, the ground shook.
Softly, but enough to make his heart jump.
Then something sounded from behind the trees:
KREEEEE—KRAAAK—
As if bones were breaking.
As if flesh was being dragged.
Bumantara swallowed. "Who…?"
There was no answer.
Only breathing. Heavy. Intermittent. Like a creature searching for something lost.
Bumantara crouched back—and found something beside his feet.
A black mask, cracked on the right side, with strange carvings in the shape of swirling marks.
When he touched it…
the voice came again.
Closer.
Clearer.
"Return… to your new name."
Bumantara's chest ached.
It was as if someone had ripped the letters from his name.
He dropped the mask.
But it moved on its own—gliding toward his face.
"No! Take it off!"
But it was too late.
The mask clung to his face like a giant leech, and then…
The world lit up.
It lit up red.
It lit up white.
It lit up black.
He saw fragments of memories that weren't his own—ancient battles, creatures with broken wings, a sea full of corpses, and a tower soaring through the cracked sky.
And amidst it all…
a name appeared in his mind.
A name that wasn't the name of his world.
A name that felt like destiny resurrected.
"You are… ASTRYAN."
Bumantara gasped, thrown to the ground.
He gasped, his body trembling.
The mask vanished—or perhaps merged with him.
"Astryan… who is that?"
He whispered, but his own name sounded foreign now, as if he were calling someone else.
A voice from the forest answered:
"You."
Then from the darkness of the forest appeared a pair of eyes.
Not animal eyes.
And not human eyes.
Those eyes… recognized him