Chapter 1 — Nightmare In Sky City
Sky City might have been only a bronze-ranked settlement, but it was usually full of life. Tourists filled the streets by day, and at night adventurers took over the taverns. The city was noisy, warm, and restless.
Today, everything was wrong.
The gate that was almost always left open had been shut before dawn. Half-transformed humans — hybrids stood stiffly on the walls with weapons drawn, watching the distant horizon with grave expression.
Something huge was moving toward them.
Even from several kilometers away, the silhouettes were frightening. The smallest of the beasts stood over five meters tall.
Chaos beast hordes weren't rare, but this one was far too large for a small place like Sky City.
Hybrids that can wielde weapons, gripped their weapons tighter. Their breathing grew shallow with each breath they drew.
Outside the gate stood their mayor — a bulky man over two meters tall. Crimson flames flickered across his skin, and seven-inch claws extended from his hands and feet. He was the city's only bronze-ranked hybrid.
In this age of chaos beasts, humans survived by merging with beast essence. If you were lucky, you kept your reason. If not, the beast inside consumed you and you became an upgraded monster.
The beasts crossed the distance faster than anyone expected.
A deafening roar tore across the plain as a panther the size of a van leapt upward. The mayor stepped forward and sliced it in half mid-air.
There was no time to hesitate. He fully transformed.
His beast form took the shape of a flaming lion. The heat around him surged, making the air ripple. He leapt more than a hundred meters straight up and came crashing down in the middle of the horde.
BOOOOM.
Crimson flames erupted from his body, sweeping across the battlefield. The fire avoided the hybrids but clung to the beasts. Flesh melted. Bones cracked and roar tore through the air.
Even the thick-skinned three-horned rhinoceroses couldn't endure it. Double-winged falcons flapped wildly, creating powerful winds, but the flames ate through their feathers like paper. In seconds, dozens of beasts collapsed into steaming red sludge.
Hybrids on the wall stared, stunned, before cheering with renewed courage.
They transformed in response — azure lions, scarlet-eyed serpents, golden king cobras. Some wielded weapons, others fought with claws and fangs. One after another, they leap off the hundred-meter wall, using their claws or weapons to glide down the wall and charged into the horde.
The sky filled with hybrid abilities: blades of water falling like rain, spears of ice forming in mid-air, boulders manifesting above heads and crashing downward.
But chaos beasts were still stronger. In the first exchange, several hybrids died. The beasts lost none. Each beast fought two hybrids at once and still held its ground.
If not for the mayor's opening strike and the humans' numbers, Sky City would already be finished.
While the front line held back the beasts, the mayor searched the battlefield. Hordes always had a leader. Kill the leader, and the horde scattered.
Just when the hybrids began to push the beasts back, something unexpected happened.
A sound ripped through the city.
The shut city gate didn't break. It didn't crack.
It turned to dust.
The shockwave shredded the nearest hybrids. The vibration rattled bones.
When the dust cleared, a crane-like monster stood in the ruined gate.
It was enormous — more than thirty meters tall, with wings nearly a hundred meters wide. Its feathers were black, but not a normal black… more like they swallowed light. A foul, rotten, fishy smell leaked from its body. The air felt poisonous around it.
Even seasoned hybrids felt their instincts scream. Some weaker ones collapsed and reverted back to human form. The beasts, however, only grew more ferocious.
The mayor reacted first. He sprinted forward in lion form and slammed into the crane with all his strength, sending it flying more than a kilometer. The impact carved a crater in the ground.
Hope flickered back into the hybrids' eyes.
A purple-haired man wielding a broadsword cut his way through beasts, trying to escort civilians deeper into the city. Someone shouted, "The vice-chief of the Marble Guild is here!"
The moment the name was spoken, a passing beast shredded him. Distraction meant death.
The crane screeched again — chirp, chirp, chirp.
Panic spread through the city. Mothers and grandmothers dropped to their knees clutching prayer mats. Men with megaphones shouted to draw beasts away. Others just screamed to distract them. Inside the walls was terror; outside was blood.
But their commotion bought the fighters a little time. In the short minutes since the crane appeared, more than twenty percent of the horde had been killed, and human casualties were still fewer.
The mayor grabbed the crane's talons, flung it into the air, leapt after it, and punched. His fist didn't make contact, but the space between them rippled as a crimson wave exploded forward.
The crane deflected it.
The mayor's eyes widened. That had been his strongest attack.
Before he could recover, the crane shot skyward. It rose higher and higher — ten kilometers, then twenty — beating its wings so fiercely that a tornado nearly a kilometer wide formed beneath it. Wind howled. The poisonous smell made throats sting.
The mayor's scalp prickled. He drew the crystal sword from his back, jumped as high as he could, and unleashed the last of his strength in a slash.
A red line — thin as a thumb — shot upward and hit the crane's head perfectly.
Yet again, the attack deflected.
The energy beam spiraled downward.
The mayor paled. It fell straight toward the tallest building in Sky City — his own.
KABOOOOOOM.
The blast spread through half the city — more than five square kilometers. Buildings collapsed like sandcastles. Ground tiles flew like leaves. Dust swallowed everything.
Cries filled the air. Children, elders, families — crushed beneath stone. Survivors screamed for loved ones who lay silent.
In moments, more than half of Sky City became ruin.
Some people snapped. One man leapt from a broken rooftop, screaming at the beasts, but a massive bird swooped down and tore him apart.
With the gate destroyed, the remaining beasts poured into the city. They crushed people beneath their weight. Screams mixed with the thunder of footsteps.
The mayor, having reverted back to his human form, stood almost a kilometer away watching with trembling hands.
"Who would have thought… my city would be destroyed by me?"
His voice cracked.
"I raised this place from a nameless village. My brother died for it. I did everything I could. And now… now a bird played me."
Tears blurred his vision. Sky City — his life's work — was almost gone.
---
Inside a collapsed building, while hybrids fought and died outside, a boy hid among crushed bodies.
Apolo Quinn — a plain-looking kid of sixteen — crouched beneath rubble and trembling corpses.
Just minutes ago, he'd been laughing with new companions. Then everything collapsed. He slid under an iron table and held his breath while screams were drowned by falling stone.
When the tremors eased, he pushed the table, but it wouldn't move. His leg trembled and accidentally kicked a piece of debris aside, letting a thin beam of light shine through.
He dug until he created a narrow opening, squeezed out, and peered outside.
A massive black tornado hovered over the ruins, slowly rotating, swallowing debris. The sight made his hair stand on end.
He pushed the table away, stumbled out, and ran toward the gate hoping the hybrids would protect him.
He passed people buried waist-deep in rubble, begging for help. Fear drowned the guilt in his chest. He ran on.
Then his body went cold.
A cobra longer than a school bus lifted half of its body, its hood spread wide, its black eyes staring at him.
Apolo froze.
He didn't even hear the jaguar behind him until it slammed into him. The impact sent him flying. He crashed into something metal — the same iron table from earlier.
Pain shot up his legs. His arm felt like it wasn't his. He stared up at the swirling black tornado and thought dimly:
"If a bronze-ranked beast is this terrifying… what about platinum ones?"
The jaguar roared. The cobra hissed. Then the jaguar pounced.
Apolo had lived a soft life — royal birth, comfort, safety. He had failed to awaken his hybrid bloodline last year, but his parents had sent him away with enough wealth to survive quietly. He had never felt true terror.
But here, staring at death, something inside him cracked.
Or awakened.
His heartbeat pounded in his ears. His blood felt hot. His vision blurred red.
He opened his mouth.
A sound escaped.
Not a scream.
A chirp.
"Chirp… chirpppp…"
The sound rolled outward like thunder. Red mist burst from his body, sweeping across the battlefield.
Every living thing touched by the red mist froze — chaos beasts and hybrids alike. Even the massive crane dropped from the sky, trembling on the ground, unable to lift its head.
Apolo's body convulsed. His mind blanked. Blood-red scales crawled across his skin; wings tore from his back; his legs twisted into talons.
In a heartbeat, the frightened boy vanished.
A blood-red phoenix stood in his place.
It beat its wings once, scattering dust, then shot into the sky and dove toward the center of the battlefield like a falling star.