The sky was on fire, but not because of the sun.

  It was bleeding.

  Crimson clouds rolled in thick waves over Urbanatra, casting the city in a rust-colored dusk. Alarms howled, distant and hopeless, like the cries of wounded animals. But even they were nothing compared to the shriek that split the heavens—a sound so unnatural it seemed to pierce the soul.

  And then it appeared.

  A Rhupenshron, massive, lumbering, grotesquely elegant, surged through the city’s outer barrier as if it were glass. Its body was a blend of gleaming obsidian armor and sinewy, shifting tissue, pulsing with dim cerulean veins. It resembled some monstrous, corrupted canine, with too many joints and a maw that unhinged vertically to reveal rows of flickering, translucent teeth that shimmered like crystal.

  It moved as if gliding, though every step cratered the earth. And behind it came others: a hulking bull-shaped beast with a spiraling horn that climbed into the sky, a serpentine one with writhing wing-like fins of bone, and a ravenlike flier that sliced through buildings as it passed.

  The city had no chance.

  Flames bloomed. Towers folded. Screams became background noise.

  Eight-year-old Alyssa Veyr ran barefoot through the chaos, her chest heaving, her soles bleeding from broken glass. Smoke burned her throat. The ground trembled with each monstrous step. Somewhere her home still stood. Somewhere her family was waiting.

  She turned the corner.

  Gone.

  Nothing remained but ash and fragments. Charred scraps of a wall she once traced with crayon. A melted doorway. Her brother’s toy blade, cracked in half. A soft blue scarf fluttered in the heat, caught on a splintered beam.

  She dropped to her knees and clutched it with trembling hands.

  “Mom…?” Her voice broke.

  No answer. No one left. Just the soft, wet patter of falling ash.

  The canine Rhupenshron roared in the distance. For a moment it turned its glowing eyes toward her, head tilting slightly. Then it moved on.

  Alyssa did not scream. She did not cry. She sat, clutching the scarf, eyes wide, silent.

  The smoke thinned eventually. When it did, all that remained was a girl standing in ruin, orphaned, scorched by grief.

  And then the Rhupenshron came back for her. It limped from a prior wound but still towered like a god. Its glowing eyes fixed on her. The ground quaked with each step. Alyssa did not move.

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  A click and whir split the air. A blast of pressure and gears.

  A figure launched above her, trailing a steel cable. The line anchored to a crumbling ledge with a metallic snap. Midair, the figure redirected with practiced precision and slammed into the beast’s flank, blade-first. Sparks flew as steel scraped across armor. The warrior twisted, planted a boot against the shoulder, and vaulted away just before a crystalline spine pierced the air.

  An Ashguard.

  The warrior wore reinforced plates and leather, breathing hard through a soot-stained mask. A manual-retracting grapple rig spooled cables from shoulder and hip. One hand gripped an old-world grappling trigger, spring-loaded and grease-stained. It was unreliable under pressure, dangerous to use. Only the skilled dared carry it. Only the brave survived it.

  More Ashguards followed. From towers and rooftops they fired and swung, blades flashing as they arced through the smoke. Each carried one grapple and one sword, forced to fight with economy and brutal grace. Their gear clanked and hissed with every motion—momentum, weight, and impact over silence.

  One lashed onto a spider-type and yanked themselves beneath it, stabbing upward through its thorax. Another sliced a wing from a bird-class mid-dive, sending it tumbling in shards of glass and flame. To the west, a worm-type ruptured the ground. Ashguard teams timed their grapples to pull civilians away.

  And yet the canine brute pressed forward.

  It stepped over a shattered vehicle, ignoring corpses. Toward her.

  It loomed above Alyssa, jaws opening to reveal rows of serrated crystal.

  Another hiss of steam and cable split the air.

  A warrior dropped between them, crouching low, blade drawn. Without hesitation, he surged forward. With one brutal step and twist, he slid beneath the beast’s descending jaw and drove his blade straight into its throat. The steel tore upward, carving a hole through the skull. A geyser of glowing ichor burst forth.

  The Rhupenshron shrieked once before collapsing with a thunderous crash. Limbs twitched. Its eyes dimmed.

  The warrior stood in the glow of the steaming wound, panting. He turned toward Alyssa.

  She had not moved.

  His mask hid his face, but he looked at her for a long moment before speaking.

  “You alright?”

  She said nothing. Her eyes met his, empty and unfocused. There was no fear. No gratitude. Just loss.

  With a sharp pull of his grapple, the warrior vanished into the smoke, leaving only the corpse behind him. Alyssa remained, too small for the world around her.

  Elsewhere the Ashguards fought on. Rhyza Lorren swung through the smoke, Adric Vohn slammed into beasts like stone through glass, Kael Vern cut with brutal efficiency. Soreya Drenn taunted her partner even as she fought, and Eren Valche matched her blade for blade. Vaeyna Caldris, sharp-eyed and grim, pulled Alyssa from death’s path and left her hidden in the bunkers.

  And through it all, Alyssa’s world stayed broken.

  She stood in the bunker among huddled civilians, eyes blank, clutching the scarf. She did not cry. She did not speak. She simply stood.

  Two years passed.

  The training yards filled with dust and the clash of wooden swords. Children stood in lines, learning how to hold blades they might not live long enough to master.

  Alyssa, now ten, stood in the front row. Short. Quiet. But her stance was straighter than the rest. Her grip firmer.

  She did not laugh when the others teased. She did not flinch when Instructor Halveth barked. She only listened. Watched. Endured.

  Halveth passed behind her, voice low. “Good form, Alyssa. Keep pushing.”

  She nodded once.

  That night, she sat beneath the barracks with the other cadets, food untouched, Noah silent at her side. Above them the clouds still glowed faintly orange from distant fires.

  Her fists clenched around her canteen.

  One day she would have her grapple. Her sword. Her chance.

  And when she faced them again, she would not freeze.