Chapter One:
The sky cracked at exactly 12:07 p.m.
Kael Veyron noticed because the sunlight changed.
It didn't disappear. It didn't darken like an eclipse either. Instead, it took on a sickly red hue, as though the sun itself had been filtered through layers of blood-soaked glass. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, twisting at impossible angles, and the air grew heavy thick enough that breathing felt like pulling oxygen through syrup.
At first, no one screamed.
People only scream when they understand fear.
Kael sat by the café window on the third floor of a half-empty building, a chipped mug of bitter coffee cooling between his hands. Outside, the city moved as it always did cars honked, pedestrians argued, vendors shouted prices that no one listened to. Life went on, ignorant of the fact that it was already over.
Then the cracks widened.
They weren't lightning. They didn't move or flicker. They simply opened silent, vast fractures stretching across the sky like wounds torn into reality itself. The blue firmament split apart, revealing something beneath it, something wrong. A deep crimson glow seeped through, pulsing slowly, rhythmically, like a colossal heart beating behind the heavens.
Someone laughed.
Kael turned his head just in time to see a man pointing upward, phone raised.
"Is this some kind of promotion?" the man said loudly. "Looks sick as hell."
That was when it started raining.
Not water.
Blood.
Thick, warm droplets fell from the sky, splattering against concrete and metal with wet, heavy sounds. A drop struck the café window inches from Kael's face, sliding down slowly, leaving behind a dark red smear.
The smell hit a second later iron, rot, and something older, something that made his stomach churn.
Screams erupted.
People ran.
Cars crashed into each other as drivers panicked, some abandoning their vehicles entirely. The crimson rain grew heavier, pounding the city in a deafening downpour. Where it touched living flesh, it burned.
Kael watched as a woman across the street collapsed, clawing at her face as red veins bulged beneath her skin, crawling like worms. Her scream cut short as her throat caved inward, flesh folding as though crushed by an invisible fist.
Something fell out of her shadow.
It was small at first boneless, shapeless, a mass of twitching limbs that shouldn't have been able to support its own weight. Then it stood upright, letting out a sound that scraped against Kael's mind, a scream without a mouth.
The bus driver was the second to die.
His vehicle slammed into a traffic pole, the metal bending inward with a shriek. The driver staggered out, clutching his chest, eyes bulging as black veins spread across his neck. He took three steps before his body imploded, collapsing into a heap of torn flesh and broken bone.
From the darkness beneath the bus, something crawled free.
That was when Kael's phone buzzed.
Not just his.
Every phone. Every screen. Every digital display in the city flickered at once.
The café television, muted moments ago, flashed violently before stabilizing on a single message written in stark crimson letters.
[CRIMSON DESCENT HAS BEGUN]
[SURVIVAL IS EVOLUTION]
The words weren't just seen.
They were felt.
Kael staggered back as the message echoed inside his head, each syllable carving itself into his thoughts like a blade. Around him, people screamed and dropped their devices as if burned. Some clutched their ears. Others fell to their knees, foaming at the mouth.
Outside, chaos reigned.
A stray dog lunged at its owner, jaws stretching unnaturally wide before tearing out the man's throat in a spray of blood. A tree along the sidewalk twisted violently, bark peeling away to reveal a pulsing red core beneath, roots ripping free from the ground like grasping fingers.
The city was dying.No it was evolving.
Kael backed away from the window, heart hammering against his ribs. He wanted to run. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, to hide, to survive.
But he didn't move.
Because beneath the fear, beneath the horror, a colder realization settled into his mind.
This wasn't random.
This wasn't an accident.
This was a test.
The ground trembled violently, sending cups and chairs crashing to the floor. Kael barely managed to keep his balance as a pressure slammed down on him, invisible yet crushing, as though the world itself had decided to press its full weight onto his existence.
Pain exploded behind his eyes.
He screamed as something unseen tore into him, not flesh, but soul. It felt like molten metal being poured directly into his veins, like needles carving symbols deep within his bones.
Around him, others screamed too.
A man collapsed, roaring as glowing black markings burned across his arms. A woman laughed hysterically as flames erupted around her body, not consuming her but bending to her will. A teenage boy cried as his shadow peeled away from the ground, rising behind him like a living thing, whispering words Kael couldn't hear.
The air filled with light symbols, marks, sigils floating above people's bodies before sinking into their skin.
Power.
Kael fell to his knees, gasping, his vision blurring. Sweat soaked his clothes as he waited, teeth clenched, for whatever was carving into him to finish its work.
Seconds stretched into eternity.
Then
The pain stopped.
Abruptly. Completely.
Kael froze.
The pressure lifted, leaving behind only an eerie silence. His body trembled as he waited for the message. The mark. The proof that he had been chosen like the others.
Nothing happened.
No glowing symbol appeared.
No power surged through his veins.
The café fell silent, broken only by distant screams echoing through shattered streets.
Kael's phone vibrated once.
Slowly, dread crawling up his spine, he looked down.
The screen displayed a single word.
[REJECTED]
His breath hitched.
Rejected?
Around him, people were changing.
The man with black markings laughed madly as his muscles swelled, bones cracking as he grew larger, stronger. The woman wreathed in flames stepped forward, eyes burning with cruel delight as fire bent to her command. Even the boy with the living shadow stood taller now, fear replaced by awe as the darkness whispered obediently at his side.
Kael felt nothing.
No strength.
No warmth.
No power.
Just a hollow emptiness where something should have been.
His hands clenched into fists so tightly his nails bit into his palms.
Rejected… by the world itself.
A bitter laugh bubbled up in his throat, half-hysterical, half-desperate. He had survived the descent. Endured the pain. And yet
"Hey!"
A voice snapped him back to reality.
The man with black markings turned toward Kael, eyes glowing faintly. There was hunger in his gaze now. Predatory intent.
"Did you get one?" the man asked, stepping closer. "A Law? A gift?"
Kael didn't answer.
The man's smile widened slowly.
"Oh," he said softly. "You didn't."
Fear surged through Kael like ice water.
He backed away instinctively, but before the man could advance further, a scream echoed from outside sharp, wet, and abruptly cut short. The marked man hesitated, attention drawn away.
That hesitation saved Kael's life.
He bolted.
Down the stairs. Through shattered glass. Out into a world that no longer resembled the one he had known.
The streets were unrecognizable.
Buildings burned. Creatures roamed freely—twisted animals with too many eyes, humanoid figures stitched together from shadow and flesh, plants that lunged at passersby with thorned tendrils.
People fought.
People died.
And some some thrived.
Kael ducked into an alley, chest heaving, mind racing. Rejected meant weak. Weak meant prey. In this new world, mercy had already gone extinct.
He pressed his back against the wall, forcing himself to breathe.
That was when he felt it.
A faint tug.
Cold.
Sharp.
Like a splinter lodged deep within his mind.
Kael froze.
The sensation pulsed again, subtle yet undeniable. It didn't come from the sky. It didn't come from within him either.
It was nearby.
His gaze dropped to the ground.
There, in the blood-soaked shadow of a collapsed corpse, something shimmered faintly broken, incomplete, flickering like a dying ember.
A fragment.
Not offered.
Not granted.
Abandoned.
Kael swallowed hard.
No voice spoke to him. No system message appeared. There was no promise of power, no guarantee of survival.
Only instinct.
And choice.
Slowly, deliberately, Kael reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the fragment, agony tore through him—sharper than before, but focused, controlled. Information flooded his mind in broken shards, incomplete rules and half-formed concepts.
This was no blessing.
This was stolen potential.
Kael gritted his teeth and held on.
Outside the alley, something roared.
The world had begun to devour the weak.
And Kael Veyron chose to devour it first.