The wind had changed.
Raiga felt it first—an unease, like invisible eyes brushing against his soul. Zapero, ever perceptive, clenched his fists as they walked through the old city ruins. The air tasted different. Electric. As if the world had inhaled and held its breath.
They had come to this forgotten place in search of an ancient training ground spoken of in old soldier songs. Instead, they found dust, silence... and something else. Something hidden beneath the cracks of stone and shadow.
"What do you feel?" Zapero asked.
Raiga didn't answer at first. His eyes shimmered gold, faintly, like coals awakening.
"…Tension," he muttered. "Like we're on a thread being pulled."
Meanwhile, from high above, perched on a crooked balcony like specters in the dusk, Kamau, Josh, and Acro observed. The three shadows of brilliance, bound not by loyalty, but curiosity.
"They're raw," Kamau mused, spinning a silver coin between his fingers. "Untamed. But there's… something in Raiga's aura. Something old."
Josh remained still. His eyes narrowed.
Acro exhaled softly, almost disappointed. "They don't even realize the paths that lie beneath their feet."
"The Tower?" Kamau asked.
"Both," Acro replied. "Heaven and Hell are watching them."
Suddenly, the ground trembled.
From the cracked earth below the ruins, a stone seal shattered with a boom that echoed through mountains.
A seal—forgotten by men, placed by ancient guardians—was now broken.
Dark mist poured upward, a thick, velvet fog. And from it, something moved.
Raiga and Zapero stood back-to-back, instincts flaring.
A monstrous creature emerged—part flesh, part nightmare, with eyes like black suns and a body stitched with runes. It wasn't alive, not in the normal sense. It had been waiting. Guarding.
"Do we run?" Zapero asked, flexing his arms.
Raiga's eyes burned brighter. "No."
From the rooftops, Acro's expression sharpened.
"That's a test," he said. "A guardian of the lower realm."
Kamau grinned. "Oh? One of the outer locks to the Demonic Ascend, huh? What's it doing here?"
Josh said nothing—but he was already gone, descending into shadow.
Raiga stepped forward. He didn't understand what this beast was, or why it had risen—but something inside him stirred. A pressure. A hunger. The will to conquer.
The beast roared.
Raiga met it with a glare of golden fire.