Before Raizen could muster a defense, the beast charged like a black whirlwind, its razor-sharp claws slashing toward his chest with lethal intent. Trained instincts kicked in; he twisted aside at the last second, but the creature's talons grazed his left arm, leaving a shallow, stinging cut that wept blood. Gritting his teeth to stifle a cry, he swung the stone axe with all his might, aiming for its leg. The monster's hide, tough as granite, barely scratched under the blow. Undeterred, he dodged to the side, channeling every ounce of strength into a desperate strike at its head. The frail axe shattered into fragments against its skull, but the thunderous hit staggered the beast for a fleeting moment, buying him a precious chance.
The four natives snapped into action, lunging forward, their wooden spears thrusting wildly at the creature. But its armored skin shrugged off their crude weapons like rain on stone. With a single swipe of its claws, it sent one man crashing to the ground, blood spurting from a gaping wound at his throat as he let out a brief, agonized scream. The leader roared with fury, driving his spear toward the beast's back, but it spun with terrifying speed, its talons piercing his shoulder effortlessly. He collapsed, motionless, pinned by pain.
Raizen's eyes darted across the scene, assessing the fight and terrain in a heartbeat. His only advantage lay nearby: a massive, rotting tree trunk teetering precariously and a deep ash-filled pit just behind the monster—perhaps the remnant of an abandoned trap or some strange quirk of this alien land.
"Fall back!" he bellowed at the two remaining natives, their faces pale with fear. Snatching the fallen man's spear, he sprinted toward the pit. He hurled a chunk of decayed wood at the beast's head, drawing its attention. It snarled, charging after him blindly, ignoring the others. As it neared the pit's edge, Raizen leapt aside in a split-second gamble. The creature, carried by its own momentum, tumbled into the chasm with a furious roar, its claws scrabbling uselessly at the soft earth. Giving it no time to recover, Raizen vaulted onto a nearby rock, launched himself downward like an arrow, and drove the spear's sharp tip into the beast's lone visible crimson eye. The point pierced its fragile defense, plunging deep into its brain. The monster let out a final, wrenching howl, thrashing briefly before its body went limp, lifeless at the pit's bottom.
Gasping for breath, Raizen clutched his bleeding arm, crimson drops falling to the ashen ground. Strangely, the earth seemed to drink his blood, the red stain fading in moments as if it had never been. "This soil… something's wrong with it," he muttered, his wary gaze fixed on the creature's corpse. But there was no time to dwell on the anomaly—the three surviving natives approached, staring at him with a mix of awe and deep-seated suspicion.
"You… you killed it," one whispered, his voice trembling with fear yet tinged with respect.
Raizen knelt by the pit, yanking the spear free. A thick, black ichor, reeking so foully it turned his stomach, oozed from the wound, mingling with the ash below. He looked up at them, his voice low but steady, radiating authority without a trace of doubt. "I'm not your enemy. I told you that. If you want to survive things like this—or worse—I can help. But first, I need answers. Where exactly is this place? And who are you?"
The leader, Kaelric, despite the blood seeping from his pierced shoulder, braced himself against his spear to stand. His eyes, though still guarded, held less hostility, tempered by the weariness of a man steeped too long in distrust and loss. "I am Kaelric Duskwind, last elder of the Aerith tribe," he rasped, clutching his wound. "This is Noxvaria—a cursed wasteland on the vast planet of Asvaria, forsaken by the gods long ago. Monsters like that Twistfang you slew, deadly storms that shred flesh, and the brutal Shadowfangs from the North have stripped us of nearly everything. My Aerith tribe is dying—starvation, disease, and too few left to fight for the last scraps of hope." He pointed toward the deepening shadows of the dead forest. "Come with us to our outpost—but mark this, outsider: if this is a trick, or if you harbor ill intent, you won't live past tonight."
Noxvaria? Planet Asvaria? The name of that damned project was a whole planet? Raizen's mind reeled. This wasn't Earth—not the past or future Kael had spoken of, but an entirely different world, a foreign star? A torrent of questions flooded his thoughts, tangling his already frayed nerves. He didn't fully trust Kaelric's words, but this was his only shot to learn more about Noxvaria—and, more crucially, to survive his first perilous day in this hellscape.
He nodded firmly, his eyes blazing with resolve. "I'll come. But if you truly want to survive, follow my lead."
Kaelric's lips curled into a bitter, resigned smirk. "We've nothing left to lose, outsider. Let's see what you're worth."
They set off through the dead forest, Raizen keeping a cautious distance from the three natives, his hand never straying from the spear he'd claimed. As they passed a derelict encampment—tattered hide tents flapping like wraiths in the cold wind, a tiny pair of child's leather shoes caked in ash lying abandoned, a cracked clay bowl beside a long-cold heap of embers—he paused, a profound sadness flickering in his eyes, too deep for words. Memories of his mother surged back: her frail form by a meager fire in their Saigon slum shack, her trembling hands offering him the last scrap of bread, her faint voice brimming with love and hope: "You must be strong, Raizen, even if you're the last soul left in this world." His fingers brushed the Eternal pendant at his neck, a silent vow to her memory: I'll survive, Mother—no matter how this world falls apart, I'll live.
But then, a new sound—sudden and laden with menace—cut through from behind. Not the eerie scrape of a monster, but the sharp, deliberate clink of metal on stone, cold and deadly. Raizen spun on a warrior's reflex. From the thick shadows behind a massive dead tree, a figure stepped forth.
It was a woman. Her snow-white hair stood stark against Noxvaria's mournful gloom. Her eyes, strikingly dual-hued—one icy blue like eternal frost, the other blazing red like hellfire—glinted enigmatically under the storm's distant flashes. A thin, pale scar traced her slender neck, the mark of a blade that had nearly claimed her life. Her black leather armor, scarred but form-fitting, accentuated her powerful frame, a faint swallow emblem etched on her left shoulder, nearly invisible without scrutiny. The steel sword in her hand gleamed with lethal promise under the feeble light—a rare, precious metal in this backward land of brittle, makeshift weapons.
She advanced, her crimson eye coldly scanning the Twistfang's corpse in the pit before locking onto Raizen, sizing him up with unmasked suspicion. Her voice was low, sharp as the blade she held: "Who are you? That cloth you wear… I've never seen its like in Noxvaria."
Before Raizen could gather his wits for a reply, the white-haired woman moved. Swift as a gust, she surged past him, her sword arcing in a flawless, deadly curve, severing the head of another Twistfang that had lunged from the shadows behind him—unseen until that moment. Black, rancid blood sprayed, but she didn't pause, vaulting over the twitching corpse and yanking Raizen back as a third roar, then a fourth, a fifth, and a chorus of others erupted from the dead forest's depths.
Raizen stiffened, still clutching his bleeding arm, his gaze a mix of shock and disorientation fixed on the enigmatic woman who'd saved him twice in mere minutes. Words failed him—the metallic voice's prophecy of "the chosen one" and "the source of destruction" echoed inexplicably in his mind. But before he could speak, more roars answered their kin—not a few, but dozens, a horrific symphony signaling a horde of colossal beasts closing in.
The woman's brow furrowed, her hands tightening on her sword's hilt. She turned to him, her face grave, her voice cutting like a command that brooked no refusal: "If you don't want to die foolishly like those tribesmen, run—now!" Her fiery eye swept toward the rising darkness in the forest, her sword raised across her chest, braced for a new battle, likely far bloodier than the last.
Raizen hesitated for a heartbeat, studying the mysterious woman with her white hair and uncanny eyes, then glancing at the forest where the monsters' roars grew nearer, more terrifying. He didn't know who she was, where she came from, or what she wanted, but her decisive action and peerless skill—plunging through shadows to snatch him from death's jaws not once but twice—convinced him she could be his first ally, or at least someone trustworthy in this alien, death-stalked land. He gripped the wooden spear tighter, the initial sorrow over his fate giving way to a steely, unyielding resolve.
Earth… he thought, images of Thiên Long Tower's arrogant spires and his mother's crumbling slum hovel flickering like shattered memories. I want to go back… But if this is truly Valen Kabe's mad game, or something even greater, running won't solve anything. He thought of Kael, Seiryu, and the others—Veyra, Leon, Anya—their fates unknown, perhaps trapped in this hell too. If I can't return yet, I won't die here for nothing. I'll find them if they're alive. I'll find answers. And these people, he glanced at Kaelric and the trembling Aerith survivors, they need help—and I need them to survive and understand this place. Noxvaria… He stared into the forest's abyssal shadows, where the monsters' roars still echoed, …won't be my hell forever. I'll make it my empire.
He nodded sharply to the white-haired woman, his voice deep, resonant with power and newfound confidence amid the howling wind and monstrous cries: "I'll run—but not to hide."
He followed her, his gaze cold yet burning beneath with an unquenchable spark of determination. Noxvaria might be a inferno, but he would forge it into the crucible of his unstoppable rise. The true fight for survival had only begun.