Chapter One: A Cry Between the Fangs of the Forest
Night devoured the forest the way waves swallow the drowning. Darkness coiled around the twisted trunks like a colossal serpent, delighting in choking the breath out of life itself. Here—where neither human nor demon dared to tread—the earth drank deeply of monster blood, as if it were an eternal altar left forever open.
Through that ruin, Thaddeus carved his path.
His heavy footsteps shook the soil, and the scrape of his black blade—ablaze with dark fire—filled the air with the echo of death. His eyes—half human, half dragon—held dormant magma smoldering beneath ash, seeing nothing but visions of betrayal. Images of comrades who abandoned him to die when Sky Net invaded his planet. Images of blood flooding his city's streets, of women and children screaming, of his torn wings that could no longer spread.
With every strike that felled a beast, he remembered faces.
With every spill of blood, he felt as though he were washing his shame through slaughter.
But the wound never closed.
Only rage continued to multiply within him, like a black plague.
Between his ragged breaths, he heard something that did not belong among the howls of monsters.
A faint sound. A stifled cry.
The voice of a child.
He turned his head slowly, like a rabid beast catching the scent of fresh blood. Through bent branches, beneath the mutilated corpse of a demon, he found her.
A small body—no, smaller than what could be called a body. An infant. Bare save for blood-stained rags. Her features were alien to all known races. Her eyes were red like dying embers, her ears sharp as tiny spears. Pale skin gleamed beneath moonlight tearing through the clouds, like a flower born in the heart of a graveyard.
Thaddeus froze for a moment.
"A demonic elf…?"
Impossible. Hadn't this entire race been erased centuries ago by Sky Net?
The infant cried, unable to comprehend the creature standing before her—only that he stared like a starving wolf. Yet Thaddeus's gaze was not one of mercy. It was the look of a hunter who had found a rare prey, a gem that should not exist.
A twisted smile spread across his face—the smile of one who knew a fragment of hell had been placed into his hands.
"Your existence alone… is worth a fortune measured in continents."
He reached down, his touch cold as a blade's edge, and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. The infant suddenly stopped crying, as though she sensed his cursed essence. His half-dragon eyes reflected in her tiny pupils, as if a silent pact had been forged between them.
He did not hesitate. He raised his head—and in an instant, space split apart around him. A dimensional passage opened like the maw of a black beast. He stepped through once, vanishing from the forest and leaving behind only monster corpses devoured by black flames.
When his awareness returned, he stood at the center of a vast hall drifting through space. Metallic walls gleamed under starlight, and armed men guarded the corridors. One of the Galaxy Traders' ships.
The captain shouted in shock:
"Who are you?! How did you get onto my ship?!"
Before he could finish, Thaddeus's aura erupted.
A crushing pressure made even the air groan. Soldiers slammed into the floor like puppets with their strings cut. The infant was still in his arms—but her eyes were no longer wet with tears. There was something else within them… something primal, instinctive, gleaming.
Thaddeus advanced with calm, certain steps and cast his words like divine commands:
"Name your price."
The trader faltered, eyes darting between the child's features, then igniting with incomparable greed.
"A d-demonic elf…! Thought extinct… I offer you thirteen warships and one hundred fifty-five thousand war gems!"
Thaddeus did not answer. His gaze froze on a metallic emblem on the trader's chest.
A symbol he knew all too well.
Sky Net.
In that instant, time stopped.
Flames of cities returned. Wings fell. The sound of his scream as his homeland collapsed. His mother's face crushed beneath the feet of machines. The voices of comrades who sold him out.
His lips trembled—then his scream erupted, a roar that shattered the ship's walls:
"SKYYYY NEEEEET!!"
The walls convulsed. Lights died.
From his body burst a black wave, as though space itself were drowned in hatred. In the blink of an eye, everyone in the hall was torn apart, and the great trader became ash scattered by the air.
As the flames faded, a sound rose behind him.
He turned… and saw something that made his eyes narrow in shock.
The infant—the tiny being—sat amid the blood. Her mouth was stained crimson. She was drinking from a mangled corpse beside her. Small fingers dug into dead flesh, red eyes gleaming with a light he had never seen before.
She was not merely an infant.
There was a primal thirst flowing through her veins… a hidden power.
In that moment, Thaddeus realized something.
Before this newborn being, he no longer felt alone.
He was no longer the only monster born between the world's fangs.
He approached, lifted her from the blood-soaked floor, and wiped her mouth with a hand reeking of fire. He stared at her for a long moment, then whispered in a hoarse voice—as though her name were a seal binding her fate:
"From now on… your name is Lina."
He crossed dimensions once more—but this time, he did not arrive at ruins or burning cities. He appeared in a space belonging to no map. A green sky where meteors danced, and beneath his feet he stood upon the back of a celestial whale swimming through the stars, its body larger than mountains, its eyes shining like distant suns.
There, Thaddeus stood with the infant in his arms as she gazed into the infinite void.
He looked toward the far horizon and spoke as though inscribing a bloodbound testament:
"If this world has torn me apart… I will tear it apart a thousand times over."
And the celestial whale released a deep breath, as though space itself had answered his vow.
✦ End of Chapter One ✦