In the sky above Bastion City, dark clouds rolled in, slowly pushing away the warmth of the blue glow while bringing the dead of the night.

Loud noise rose on the streets as vehicles of all shapes and sizes rolled past each other in a rush while those without enough money moved on foot with their heads lowered.

At the pedestrian side, a short boy carrying the face of a twenty-two-year-old walked past two elderly women walking sluggishly while pulling his blue hood off his head.

The elderly women watched the boy as he walked toward the side of the bridge and planted his palms on the metal bars, then exchanged confused glances.

"Look. Do you think he’s having suicidal intent in standing there?"

"Nah," the elderly woman in the blue gown shook her head as she shifted her gaze from her friend to the short boy. "I think he’s just looking at the sky."

The women walked past the boy with laughter but descended the bridge coughing.

’No birds?’ Lucas said in his head as he focused more on the dark clouds swallowing everything.

He pulled back his sleeve and checked his black watch. 6:59:00.

"Damn." He rolled the sleeve back and released his grip on the bar, then set out into running.

Curses were hurled at Lucas as he shoved some of the pedestrians aside and kept running as if he didn’t see them standing or walking.

When he reached the Black Wall Estates of Bastion City he slowed down when he saw a name carved into a wall he was nearing.

He walked toward the wall, lifted his head and read the name inwardly. ’Storm.’

The mansions behind the iron bars were the kind of buildings Lucas dreamed of living in when he was selected to take part in the Alchemania special program to train strong men.

"Leon Storm?" Lucas mentioned the name while his face wrinkled. "No. That can’t be the Leon I knew. How did he become this fucking rich in just five years?"

His pocket vibrated while he tried figuring it out by himself.

’It’s been months since I got a call. So whoever is calling should have something important to say.’ He said in his head while pulling out his V6 smartphone, then pressed it to his left ear.

Before a word could come out of his mouth, a deep voice blasted his eardrum.

"LUCAS, why are you not at the junction?"

His stomach dropped as the voice rattled deep in his bones when he realized he had wasted time for someone he had no sympathy for.

"I’m sorry, Dad. I’m on my way. Please don’t go yet, I’m on my way." He said in a low tone and set off running without pressing the red button to end the call while the smartphone remained on his ear.

Curses and complaints rose from the phone as Lucas rushed from one junction to the other.

"This is the last time we would pick up your nephew, you hear?" 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

"The boss is going to be pissed when he finds out we were late because of that boy."

Lucas hit ten kilometers in seconds. When he reached the junction with the sign reading "Way To Hell," he spotted the tipper truck filled with black diamond at its back without hesitation.

He stopped by the passenger door and felt the cold off the metal before he even touched it.

A man with one eye covered peeked out with a frown and screamed at him. "Get the fuck inside before we start moving."

Lucas hesitated for a second then threw his bag into the trunk before climbing into the slowly moving car.

Men with wet black substances dressing their faces kept their eyes forward while their hands rested on their laps as they entered into the road of no return.

Lucas on the other hand pressed his back into the seat and watched the city lights disappear one after another behind him until none were there to see.

The tipper truck ventured into a junction filled with giant tall trees and began speeding on the free, dead road, where even birds opted not to fly.

Elongated shadows stretched from the trees painted the brown road into a thick darkness wherever the vehicle passed.

A howling sound tore through the air so loud it scared the shit out of Lucas and made his whole body lock up before the vehicle swallowed the sound and vanished into the darkest part of the road.

...

At the same time, Leon leaned against the giant wall gasping heavily as he watched the corpses of the remaining two butterflies he had just killed transform into endless tree roots and spread outward like old stones.

"Damn." He cursed and squeezed his face as he wiped the blood from his black dagger. "So, is this how I would have turned if I got killed by them?"

More illusions began forming in his head of how his body would have convulsed before roots blasted outward from him. Leon stopped and forced it out before it could even finish.

Before he could fully process his stance, stones began falling from the top of the mountain wall and began slamming the ground like axes cutting ancient trees.

Leon pushed himself off the wall, dodged them one after another without missing a single one he saw and stepped aside, breathing harshly.

Just as a pointed rock pierced through the air like a bolt of lightning and flew across Leon’s face when he thought they had stopped, and splattered in perfect half after hitting the ground.

Bright fiery light gleamed from afar after Leon managed to pull out his right leg, which two stones had held captive after slamming on him at diagonal angles after he had focused more on the pointed stone.

When he set foot onto the pathway the wall had created, everything went dead silent to the extent that the flow of the blood in his veins sounded like a thunderclap in his ears.

"This," he said low but the echo blasted him backward as if his own voice was trying to kill him.

’So, if words from my mouth are high enough to kill me, then why did that creature not die when it turned back after smiling at me and roared?’ Leon’s thoughts doubled as if other people were there with him on the same track.

He shut his mouth and kept moving, whispering in his head whenever he saw something odd.

When the distant fiery light began to dim, Leon rushed forward, doubling his steps.

’No. No. No.’ He screamed in his head when he felt being watched at every pointed rock that rested on the side of the walls.

As soon as the light thinned, the walls began to close, grinding inward with a speed that made Leon question his existence as he fled for the light.

His lungs burned as his boots hit the ground in a rhythm that served as the only thing standing between him and being crushed.

The light vanished completely the second Leon shot out from between the walls and stopped abruptly at the edge of a cliff made of pure gold.

Behind him, the walls sealed shut and hurled a tornado-like air forward.

When Leon turned, his eyes bulged while his mouth opened wide as he saw the air moving toward him. It hit him before his scream could leave his throat and hurled him off the edge into a red sea flowing down the cliff like a mini-ocean.

Everything went dark as the red sea closed over Leon and pushed his unconscious body onto a shore filled with the Syr.

Dark beings with two sharp horns on their heads, bovine legs, and seven-fingered human arms gripping burning metal axes that were already gleaming as they got raised.

A nine-foot infant Syr crouched down and looked at Leon like a child looking at something it had never seen before and does not know if it wants to keep it yet.