A high-pitched ring gnawed at Samuel's ears.
He stirred, though every muscle felt carved from stone. Shapes drifted at the edge of his vision, smudges of movement he couldn't name. A tug at his chest jolted him, small fingers fumbling with the fabric over his ribs.
His eyelids dragged open.
Milo crouched over him, face streaked with ash and sweat, eyes glassy with exhaustion but locked in fierce concentration. The boy slipped something into a pocket that hadn't been there before, then pulled back just enough to check Samuel's breath.
Samuel blinked slowly, his head heavy and thick. What… is he doing?
Then he noticed the clothes.
Not his own anymore, the young master's attire clung to his body, buttoned carefully, sleeves pulled straight despite the surrounding chaos.
A dry, feverish thought dragged across Samuel's mind. Excellent decision, kid. Take every treasure I have and run. I have already lived a life. No matter what, I cannot have a kid die for me.
A sharp voice cut through the haze.
"Milo! What are you doing? Are you trying to steal the young master's fortune?"
Anne's tone cracked. She pushed herself up on trembling elbows, her face pale beneath streaks of soot.
Milo flinched, but didn't let go of the box in his hands. He lifted his chin, voice breaking but unmistakably defiant.
"Mother, if I wanted to steal, why would I put his clothes on?"
Samuel felt the words slip into him like a clean blade, simple, logical, painfully honest.
Milo squared his small shoulders. "Even if we're not related by blood, Old Master treated me like a son. And the young master… he treated me like a brother. I'm three months older, so it's my duty as the elder brother to protect him."
His hands shook, but he held the box as if it weighed the world.
"This box… it's the reason they're chasing us."
Anne froze mid-breath, her expression breaking, tears cutting pale lines down her soot-streaked cheeks. Her lips parted and trembled.
Milo swallowed hard. "We don't have time. They'll catch us. You go with the young master. I'll draw them away. All of you protected him until now… how helpless do you think that made me feel as his older brother?"
Even through the ringing in his head, Milo's words slipped through, not perfectly, but enough to hit something raw inside him.
No one in his old world had ever said anything like that to him.
No one had ever stood by him like this.
The man he called brother was the one who drove a knife into his heart. But now…
Anne shook her head, her voice catching in her throat as she forced the words out. "No. If I go with him, especially now, my presence will only draw stronger beasts… especially the Night King."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then looked at the boy with a trembling, aching smile.
"But if we're together, it looks more real. And Falcon was born on those cliffs. He knows the path. He can carry the young master to your grandfather's house alone."
Her shoulders sagged with the weight of the decision.
"That's a risk we have to take."
Milo's jaw clenched, but he nodded, accepting the burden in silence.
Samuel's vision wavered again, but he caught the shape of Anne's tears, Milo's resolve, and the wordless bond between them, all laid bare in the chaos.
It tightened something deep in his chest.
They were willing to split up, to face different corners of death… all for him.
Samuel drifted in and out of the ringing dark. Somewhere in the blur, arms hooked beneath him. He was lifted, settled onto warm fur, a beast's flank pressed against his side, muscles shifting beneath him.
Falcon.
A low snort vibrated through the creature's chest, followed by the thump of hooves.
Milo's voice came close, low, fierce, shaking. "Falcon… the young master's safety is in your hands. Take him home."
The beast huffed once, then surged forward.
Samuel rocked with the gallop, his vision splitting into light and shadow. Every jolt felt distant, as if his body belonged to someone else.
The path bent sharply.
Ahead, through the smoke, a narrow stone bridge stretched across two cliffs, no wider than a cart's wheel. Moonlight spilled over its length, silvering the stone and turning the drop beneath into bottomless black.
For a moment, it looked like the bridge reached straight into the moon.
Falcon's hooves struck the stone, each step ringing through Samuel's chest. He slumped against the creature's neck, forcing his eyes open as the haze thinned.
Two shapes wavered at the far end of the bridge, one tall, one smaller at its side.
Relief stirred weakly in his chest.
Anne… Milo… they made it.
But the fog shifted.
The smaller figure jerked upward, yanked by an unseen force. Samuel's heart lurched. Milo's feet left the ground, his body lifted like a puppet caught on a hook.
The taller figure dissolved into smoke, not Anne at all, but someone else.
Milo hung in the air, impaled on a dark arm that thrust straight through his chest. His legs kicked once, then fell still. Blood dripped down his tunic. His head bowed forward as the killer's hand emerged from the other side of his body, clutching the box.
Even from a distance, with moonlight spilling across the cliff, the image burned into him—blood, a mask with a dragon pattern, and a hand missing one finger thrust through Milo's chest.
Falcon kept running.
But Samuel didn't feel the wind. Or the hooves. Or the cold.
All he saw was Milo's small body hanging in the air, limp, the box clutched in a monster's hand.
Something tore inside him, sharp, violent, the kind of pain that made sound before thought.
"No…"
His voice cracked.
"No… no… NO!"
Falcon jolted beneath him at the sudden roar, its muscles bunching, but it did not slow.
"Go back!" Samuel slammed a fist weakly against the beast's neck. "Go back! DO YOU HEAR ME?! GO BACK!"
Falcon's body tensed, a low, distressed grunt rumbling in its chest, but its stride only lengthened.
"LET ME GO BACK!" Samuel's voice shredded itself raw. "I'LL KILL THEM! I'LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE! TURN AROUND!"
His body fought to rise, to twist, to throw itself off the beast's back, but pain dragged him down every time. His vision spun. His limbs trembled.
Falcon's ears pinned back at each scream, but the beast ran harder, head low, breath harsh, following the path Milo had pointed it toward with a desperation only a loyal creature could show.
Samuel clawed at the fur on its neck, trying to pull himself upright again. "TURN AROUND! FALCON—TURN AROUND!"
The beast gave a strained, almost pleading whine, the kind that came from effort, not thought, then pushed itself into an even faster gallop.
"TURN—AROU—"
The words broke apart.
His breath hitched, then stuttered. The world tilted.
The ringing in his ears swelled until it drowned everything out.
His vision folded inward, collapsing to a pinprick.
And Samuel finally went still, his body dropping forward against Falcon's neck as consciousness tore loose and vanished.
***
Samuel woke again to the hard jolting stop of Falcon and the sharp, distressed neigh that tore from the beast's throat.
His eyes snapped open.
Cold air slapped his face. The world swayed around him in fragments, dark trunks, scorched earth, smoke drifting in thin spirals beneath a swollen moon.
Falcon stood rigid beneath him, sides heaving, its neck stretched forward as it let out another panicked whine. Something had blocked its path.
Falcon stumbled back a step.
Samuel forced himself upright, gripping the beast's mane as his head spun. His vision pulsed, clear, then blurry, then clear again.
Voices drifted through the haze.
"See? Didn't I tell you, boss?" the higher voice laughed sharply. "Humans will sell their own for a handful of treasure."
A rough voice answered with a pleased grunt. "Heh… everything fell into place, just like you planned."
The higher voice crackled with excitement. "Hahaha! And now the cursed heir of the Suryavanshi bloodline is yours to kill."
Boots scraped over scorched leaves.
"Are you sure he's the one?" the rough voice asked, tone sharpening.
"Positive," the higher voice replied instantly. "The Oracle said a lone horse would carry the bloodline to the place where the Moon falls. Look at him. He's here. Exactly as foretold." He clicked his tongue smugly. "Even if you don't believe me, you should believe the Oracle."
"With this kill… I'll finally qualify to join the Asura Clan," the rough voice murmured.
Samuel heard something in the man's voice, a tight edge that reminded him of someone starving for a victory.
Moonlight broke through a patch of thinning smoke, and Samuel finally saw them clearly.
The first was a two meter tall demonic being with obsidian wings and ember-lit veins, standing amid falling ash, its crimson glow bleeding through blackened armor. Curved horns framed a calm, lethal expression, while molten patterns crawl across his skin like living fire. Power radiated from him, controlled and deliberate, as if nothing around him could resist. Samuel's pulse kicked. The demonic one looked dangerous, but the other presence clearly held authority.
The other was a young man, human at a glance, except for the pair of black wings folded neatly behind him. Moonlight slid across the feathers, making them glisten like blades. His eyes were calm, unnervingly calm, glinting with a stillness that made Samuel's skin crawl.
Samuel's breath caught.
The winged man lifted a hand. At his fingertip, energy gathered, red and black swirling together, pulsing like a living vein.
Samuel had seen something like it only once, during the behemoth's attack back in the valley. But this one was smaller. More concentrated. More deliberate.
The fingertip pointed directly toward him.
"Farewell… Heir of Suryavanshi. Your death will be the offering that secures my rise within the Demon Clan."
Samuel exhaled a thin, quiet sigh. The aura rolling off the winged figure was suffocating, heavier, darker, more menacing than the Hellhound's had ever been.
His throat was raw from screaming earlier, but the sound slipped out anyway.
"So this is how it ends…"
And beneath that thought came another, bitter, sharp, impossible to swallow:
All their sacrifices… for nothing.
Samuel pushed himself upright. He already knew he wouldn't dodge this one. His breath rasped, ribs burning, the cold certainty of death settling in his gut.
That was when something flickered at the edge of his vision.
A figure stood behind the demon leader.
Atop a treetop, perfectly still against the full moon behind him. A hood. A long coat.
A silhouette carved out of midnight.
Samuel blinked hard, but the shape didn't blur. It stayed impossibly steady, as if the world moved and he didn't.
Before Samuel could even gasp, the stranger dissolved. His entire body broke into drifting black motes and folded into the shadows.
In the next instant, he stood in front of the demon leader. There was no sound. No wind. It felt like the world skipped a frame.
The stranger's hand clamped around the demon leader's wrist and forced it upward.
The orb fired.
A pillar of red-black light tore through the sky and burst high above the forest, turning the night into a blinding imitation of sunrise. The world went paper-white. Heat slapped Samuel's face. Shadows burned into the ground.
Through that impossible flare, one detail stabbed through the brightness.
A weapon was strapped to the stranger's back.
Samuel's breath caught. His mind stuttered.
A sniper rifle?
Except… warped. Altered. The barrel stretched like a blade, metal sharpened along both sides. A scope near the hilt. A trigger beside the grip of what was unmistakably a sword.
Then, a deeper sound rolled through the air. A low, heavy hum. Samuel dragged his gaze to the stranger's other arm.
Metal plates. Segmented joints. A full mechanical limb gleaming in the fading flash. Three cores pulsed along the forearm, elbow, and wrist. Each glow deepened. Each vibration sharpened the air.
The familiarity struck Samuel harder than the explosion. Precision firearms tech. Cybernetic engineering. Two pieces of a world that should have died with him.
Thoughts raced through him in a blur. Recognition. Confusion. Hunger for the truth. All of it lived inside a single heartbeat.
Then the cores flared. He saw the man punch with the mechanical hand. The punch landed.
A single strike, driven straight into the demon leader's gut, hit with such overwhelming force that the space behind him split open for an instant, a thin crack flashing through the air as if the blow had torn through the body and into the world itself. There was no blood spray. No scream. The demon's entire torso simply vanished, vaporized in an instant. The head dropped first. The waist and legs collapsed a moment later. Only the arm remained, because the stranger never released the wrist he had seized. He stood there holding the limb with the ease of someone lifting a stick.
Then he threw it aside, turned, and crushed the fallen head beneath his heel. Bone shattered. Flesh flattened. The night swallowed the sound.
Behind them, the other monster snapped out of shock and bolted into the trees. It took three full strides before its body split. Lines carved themselves across its hide, invisible and absolute. Flesh parted cleanly, sliding apart like sliced fruit.
More cuts than Samuel could track flashed across its hide. The beast fell in a rain of clean, impossible slices. The remains hit the ground as a scatter of neatly cut pieces.
Samuel froze. He searched the stranger's hands, the air, the ground, anything that might explain what he had just seen.
Nothing had moved. Nothing at all.
The man slowly approached Samuel.
Samuel's vision blurred at the edges, but he caught one detail on the stranger's face: a single vertical scar cut down across the left eye, the rest of the face lost in shadow.
Before Samuel could look closer, the man walked past him, calm as though the battlefield meant nothing. Falcon carried Samuel in the opposite direction, hooves striking the dirt with a heavy rhythm.
Samuel forced his mouth to form words. He wanted to ask the obvious question: Who are you? But the gun-like weapon, the mechanical hand, and the strange pull from somewhere deep inside twisted the sentence on his tongue.
Instead, he heard himself ask, "Where are you from?"
The man halted. He didn't turn. The stranger exhaled softly, a tired, almost pitying sound that made Samuel feel as if the man saw nothing in him worth explaining.
"It does not matter to someone as weak as you."
The dismissal struck harder than the exploding orb. Samuel felt it like a stone dropped into his chest. Weakness wrapped around him, and he hated how true it felt. He hated the idea that someone this powerful saw nothing worth answering in him.
But the gun. The hand. Samuel needed answers more than he needed pride.
"I know… I'm weak," he said quietly, forcing his cracked voice forward. "But if I live… I won't stay weak. I will grow strong… strong enough to stand where you stand. Even if it sounds arrogant now."
The stranger didn't move at first. Then his shoulders rose and fell in a soft sigh.
"Then grow strong and find me again. You have only 40 years."
The stranger stepped forward, and his body flickered—shifting between solid and transparent, reality and mirage. Every few steps, pieces of him dissolved into a curtain of dark particles before reforming again, as if the world was already struggling to hold him.
Samuel's headache flared violently. Darkness pushed at his vision. He was slipping, seconds away from collapsing, but he forced his voice out one last time.
"Tell me… where are you from?"
The man paused mid-fade. "It's not where… it's when."
Samuel's breath caught. His mind froze. And the darkness finally claimed him.