[A few years earlier, at the time when Lucifer was still training with Aeshma]

In Arcadia

The continent stretched under a steel-blue sky, an untamed land where civilization was only a distant and foreign concept. In this fragmented world, the law of the strongest did not merely reign; it was the only absolute truth. Since the Third World War, the very structure of humanity had been altered by profound genetic mutations. These changes, although brutal, had allowed certain individuals to strengthen their metabolism, but at the cost of a progressive loss of their humanity. Their bodies, boosted by a primitive internal energy source, evolved to draw closer to the beast, sacrificing their appearance for raw power.

In the heart of a particularly dense forest, where the canopy was so thick that sunlight only reached the ground in the form of fine golden needles, a child was sleeping. He was no more than five years old. His frail body lay on a carpet of damp moss and decomposing dead leaves. Suddenly, his eyelids fluttered. A slight spasm crossed his childlike face before he fully woke up, his gaze blurred by a heavy, dreamless sleep.

The boy rose slowly, his small hands sinking into the humus. He turned his head, observing his surroundings with silent confusion. Around him, the forest seemed to breathe, vibrant with the sounds of insects and the cracking of branches, but no human presence was visible. The child was a visual anomaly in this verdant setting: he had long hair of pure silver that cascaded over his frail shoulders. Even more striking were his eyes; his sclerae were ink-black, at the center of which shone silver pupils.

He remembered nothing. Neither his name, nor his parents, nor the reason why he was alone in this green hell. A total emptiness filled his mind. Only the sensation of thirst, burning and imperative, managed to pull him out of his torpor.

He got up on his trembling legs, his body marked by fatigue and deprivation. His bare feet trod the uneven ground as he began to walk aimlessly, guided by the distant and crystalline sound of flowing water. After several minutes of laborious progress through protruding roots, he emerged onto a small spring of clear water gushing from between two mossy rocks. Without hesitation, the child rushed toward the natural basin, plunged his head first into the cool water and began to drink greedily, ignoring the cold that seized his face.

Once his thirst was quenched, the boy’s stomach cried out its hunger. He set off again, his silver eyes scanning the surrounding bushes. Luck seemed to smile on him when he discovered some wild berries and fruits that had fallen from a nearby tree. He devoured them without caring about their taste or possible toxicity, survival being his only compass.

It was at that moment that the silence of the forest was broken. A group of half-beasts emerged from the shadows, encircling the child in an instant. They had human features, but their pointed ears covered in fur and their silky tails betrayed their belonging to the Kitsune tribe. Their gazes were filled with sovereign contempt, that of predators for an insignificant prey.

One of them, a male with an athletic build and piercing eyes, stepped forward before spitting on the ground.

"What is a filthy human doing on our lands?" he said quickly with undisguised disgust.

For the inhabitants of Arcadia, humans were nothing more than an inferior race, worthless biological waste. Unlike the half-beasts who enjoyed colossal physical strength, or the elves capable of manipulating the elemental forces of nature, the humans of this era possessed nothing. Incapable of controlling aura or storing mana, they were perceived as evolutionary errors, good only for slavery.

The child, petrified, observed the Kitsune with his black and silver eyes, unable to understand the hatred that emanated from them. He took a step back, his back meeting the rough bark of a centuries-old tree.

"Kill him," said another Kitsune in a monotone voice, as if it were a matter of getting rid of a bothersome insect.

The first warrior began to extend his claws, his aura quivering slightly around his fingers. But before he could deliver the fatal blow, the atmosphere of the forest changed abruptly.

Suddenly, a powerful gray mass slammed into the circle of Kitsune. The sworn enemies of the foxes had just made their entrance: the Lycans. These wolf-men were colossi of muscle and fur, driven by a centuries-old warrior fury. Without any warning, they attacked with devastating violence.

The Kitsune who was about to strike the child did not even have time to realize what was happening.

"Wh..." he began to stammer.

His sentence was lost in a gurgle of blood. A massive Lycan, whose silhouette far exceeded that of his kin, had just closed his powerful jaws on the throat. With a brutal shake of his head, he tore out the vocal cords and trachea of the Kitsune, projecting a spray of purple blood onto the face of the motionless child. The fox’s body collapsed, its limbs shaken by nervous spasms before becoming still in a pool of steaming gore.

The Lycan leader stood up, wiping the blood from his muzzle with a swipe of his clawed paw. He exuded a radically different presence from the others, and a distinctive pattern was engraved on his skin: a crescent moon sat proudly in the middle of his forehead. His eyes swept over the remaining Kitsune.

He stared for a moment at the silver-haired boy, his wolf pupils probing the strange black gaze of the human. There was a second of silence.

"Kill them all," the crescent-moon Lycan finally ordered in a voice that resembled a distant thunder growl.

"Yes, chief," replied the other Lycans in unison, their voices tinged with wild excitement.

Without wasting any time, the other Lycans attacked the Kitsune, who were bewildered by the situation. The child, huddled against his tree, was the mute witness to this demonstration of pure barbarity.