Wen Yuyan struggles to wake, his consciousness drifting between dream and awareness.
An ancient bell tolls. He opens his eyes and finds himself standing at the crossroads of a twisted tunnel. One side coils around the trunk of a colossal tree that pierces the unseen sky. Countless crystalline windows float along its bark, each shimmering with shifting colors.
He steps closer. Inside every crystal window, a fragment of his youth plays out.
At last, he stops before a window etched with antlers. Within it, a woman named Ala cradles a newborn. Her husband stands beside her, gently draping a red scarf over her shoulders. Christmas ornaments glitter around them. Ala places an azurite pendant into the infant's palm.
Suddenly, she seems to hear something. She turns toward the glass, her gaze meeting Yuyan's—and begins to walk toward him.
Her voice echoes through the tunnel. A tremendous force seizes him, dragging him forward. The invisible giant tree at the tunnel's center unfolds in blinding radiance. Yuyan is torn from the ground and hurled into the blazing heart of the tree.
He awakens in a dim dungeon, seated at the center of a magic circle. Five crystals of different colors are arranged around him, each engraved with a calculus equation. He solves them swiftly, one by one.
A skeletal butterfly appears, its wings whispering as it guides him away from the circle.
He sees blood flowing across the floor, mingled with ritual vessels. Hair and fingernails blanket sheets of glass. A magical chainsaw hangs inverted from the wall. A candle sprouting centipede legs leaps into his palm.
He moves forward. A mirror with bat-like ears adjusts itself, angling toward him. A stranger stares back. The eyes gleam like a vast purple galaxy; within each iris, two living stars are born and burning.
Skeletal butterflies chant. Their bodies dissolve, reforming into a single sheet of parchment.
"Yuyan of another world,
I am Orian, a slave punished by the Theocrats.
For countless years I have been sealed within this pyramid.
Ala summoned you here so that you may continue the life I was denied
and bear the destiny of saving the Glass World."
— Orian
He walks toward the dungeon's exit. When his hand touches the seal, it shatters like glass.
He turns back—and sees himself imprisoned beneath a pale-green wood pyramid.
Stepping onto violet clay soil, he enters a ruined gray town, annihilated by magic. The land glows with an unnatural crimson sheen, as if the entire continent has been washed in blood.
Rivers at his feet churn with skulls and rotting scarlet flowers, the stench of decaying flesh surging upward. Before him rises the Azurite World Tree, erupting from the earth, its trunk blazing like living neon. The corpses of enormous dragons lie scattered at its roots.
Beneath broken eaves, people huddle with their children, begging for food under a rain of blood. Their pale-blue skin burns where the rain touches it.
"Orian!"
Beryl runs toward him, calling out his new name. Her cheeks resemble plum blossoms dusted with snow—soft, yet edged with cold resolve. Her eyes are sharp as blades, as if a hidden knife waits beneath falling petals.
"I thought the Theocrats had taken you," she says.
She throws her arms around him. Tears spill down her face. "I've worried about you all these years… I didn't dare resist them. But every day, I kept practicing magic."
She leads him to the shattered Foxfolk temple—her refuge with her younger brother. Howie trembles in the red rain, clutching a rusted electronic teddy bear to his chest.
"After you disappeared, the Theocrats came again," Beryl says, placing her hands over Howie as frost magic flows, easing his fever. "Their hell-grade curse was powerful enough to corrode an entire tier. So many friends and families are dead… and every night, they return to take the children to the upper levels."
Through a wooden window, Orian sees a wasteland. The town's ruins are ripped apart by magical explosions and curses. Mutated plants writhe among roaming dogs that move like the undead.
Another explosion erupts nearby. Houses collapse. Screams echo as bodies dissolve into the blood river.
"The Theocrats are here!"
Griffins pierce the clouds, casting massive shadows over Westhill Town. Mounted upon them are the Theocrats themselves—draped in indigo and silver robes, divine runes blazing upon their staves. Their eyes glow beneath crimson glass leaves.
Beryl shakes the bell at her waist. A shield blooms around the temple. They hide behind a broken fox deity statue.
Through shattered windows, Orian hears screams. The mudborn of the second world are slaughtered, obliterated into dust by divine explosions.
Archmage Kalia of the Azurite Academy descends, ivory antlers crowning her head. She holds the blooming Moon-Laurel Staff of the Celestial Deer and gazes mercifully upon Huai'en and Marki below.
"These so-called Theocrats are war criminals!" Wyne shouts, trying to cast a spell—his wand snaps in half. "You monsters—"
"Boss," Maki whispers, hands shaking as he prays. "Kneel. Your magic is nothing compared to theirs."
A brown cloth sack materializes before Kalia, spinning like a vortex and swallowing them whole.
Orian watches as more floating sacks appear, devouring children one after another. Chaos consumes Westhill Town. Some flee in terror. Others—especially children—kneel before the Theocrats, begging to be chosen. Some parents even push their children forward, desperate to escape this cursed land.
Heavy iron boots approach.
The war-mage Alex advances, each step booming through the air. He swings his chameleon ring; the shield shatters instantly. One kick collapses the doorframe. One slash of his saber sends wood exploding.
"Mudborn?"
Behind the statue, Beryl raises her bell.
At the instant it rings, every bell tied across the rooftops awakens, vibrating in unison. Plum blossoms cascade from above, spinning midair before transforming into razor-sharp blades.
Alex's saber flashes, shredding the storm of petals. Beryl draws her dagger and charges. A maelstrom of plum-steel roars between them.
A colossal magic battleship drifts closer, shaped like a divine beast. Twin dragon wings blaze with emerald light. It devours crystals from rooftops and streets, its radiance intensifying. Teenagers scramble to climb aboard, only to fall one after another.
Alex hurls Beryl to the ground.
Orian lunges forward, trying to shield her.
Alex slashes an arc through the air. A ram-horn-shaped sigil blooms beneath their feet, spinning open. Light erupts—
—and swallows them completely.