In the fallen city of Erevos, Tetsuiya Kurogami scavenges the wastelands to make a living. The work is at great risk, but poverty and hunger force him to take risks that most people would never consider. Erevos is no longer a city in any real sense. It is a graveyard of broken towers, collapsed highways, and half-buried structures swallowed by ash and time. The sky above is permanently dull, as if the world itself has forgotten how to shine.
He moves carefully across fractured concrete and rusted debris, his scavenger pack heavy with whatever he managed to collect—damaged energy cells, broken circuit cores, scraps of machinery whose purpose no one remembers anymore. Every step he takes is cautious. In Erevos, even silence feels dangerous.
Scavengers always move in groups. Never alone. That is the rule. Not because of rival humans, but because of something far worse,the Nethers. No one truly understands what they are. Some say they are the aftermath of the failed Quantum Singularity Reactors, others believe they are distortions of reality itself, echoes of another dimension that should never have crossed over. Whatever the truth is, one thing is certain: when they appear, people disappear.
Tetsuiya had always followed the rule. Until today.
They had been five in his group, moving through the lower sectors of Erevos, searching collapsed residential blocks and broken transit tunnels for salvageable tech. The deeper they went, the weaker the communication signals became, and the heavier the air felt. Then it happened,a distortion in the atmosphere, a ripple that bent light in unnatural ways. Instinct took over, and the group scattered. Tetsuiya turned to regroup, but in the chaos of movement and broken sightlines, the others were gone. Or worse, they had assumed he was gone.
When he tried to contact them through his comm device, only static answered him. No coordinates. No voices. Just silence.
“They left without me…” he muttered, the realization sinking in slowly at first, then all at once.
In Erevos, being left behind was no different from being marked dead.
He adjusted his pack and started walking.
Alone.
The deeper he moved into the wasteland, the more wrong everything felt. Buildings leaned at impossible angles, shadows stretched too far, and even the wind carried an unnatural weight. It didn’t feel like air,it felt like something passing through him instead of around him.
Then the silence broke.
A low, burning sound echoed through the ruins, like reality itself was tearing. Tetsuiya froze instantly. Ahead of him, the air began to distort, colors folding into themselves like collapsing glass. Dark shapes began to form within the distortion, slowly at first, then stabilizing into something solid. Three figures stepped forward, their bodies unstable, flickering between existence and nonexistence, wrapped in dark flames that did not rise upward but instead collapsed inward as if consuming light itself.
The Nethers.
This was the first time Tetsuiya saw them.
Up close, they were worse than anything he had ever imagined. Their forms were humanoid only in suggestion, as if something had once tried to become human and failed mid-creation. The air around them warped violently, temperature shifting without logic. Their presence pressed into his mind like static, like reality itself was struggling to remain intact.
Tetsuiya stepped back slowly, his breath tightening.
So this is what wiped out entire sectors…
One of the Nethers tilted its head.
Then they moved.
Fast.
Tetsuiya turned and ran immediately, boots striking broken ground as he sprinted through collapsed corridors and shattered streets. Behind him, the air cracked again and again as the Nethers followed without hesitation. He had no weapon, no signal, no backup. Only instinct and fear pushing him forward.
The ruins became a maze of dead ends and fractured pathways. He turned into a collapsed passage, slipped through a narrow gap between slabs of concrete, and dropped into a wide open plaza buried under debris. When he stopped, his heart sank.
No exits.
The Nethers entered behind him.
Three of them.
They did not rush. They did not need to. Step by step, they closed in, surrounding him with absolute certainty. Tetsuiya’s hands trembled. There was no escape, no chance of survival, no one coming to help.
“I’m… not dying here,” he whispered, though the words felt fragile even as he spoke them.
The lead Nether moved first.
Something inside Tetsuiya snapped.
Pain exploded through his neck as if something was forcing its way through his body. He gasped and dropped to one knee. Dark lines began crawling beneath his skin, spreading upward like living circuitry. His vision blurred as a strange pressure built inside his chest, and then something impossible appeared—a faint halo-like mark forming behind his neck.
His palms began to glow.
“What… is this…?”
The Nethers hesitated.
For the first time, they hesitated.
Tetsuiya didn’t understand what was happening, but his body moved on instinct. He slammed both palms onto the ground.
Instantly, the world responded.
A wave of freezing energy erupted outward, transforming the cracked earth into a vast field of ice that spread rapidly in every direction. The temperature dropped violently. The ruins became a frozen landscape in seconds, everything coated in unnatural frost.
The Nethers tried to advance—but slipped immediately. Their unstable forms lost balance on the ice, their movements disrupted, slowed, unstable.
Tetsuiya stared at his hands in shock.
“I did… this?”
But the moment didn’t last.
A sharp pain struck his head like a hammer.
He collapsed, clutching his skull. The glowing mark behind his neck flickered violently, then began to fade. The energy in his palms vanished, and the ice field cracked as if it had never existed, melting back into broken ground. The world stabilized again.
The Nethers regained their balance.
And now they were angry.
Tetsuiya struggled to stand, breathing heavily.
“I can’t… use it again…”
One of the Nethers lunged.
He had no time to react.
Then a flash of light tore through the air.
A sword made of pure radiance appeared out of nowhere, piercing the attacking Nether clean through its core. The creature froze mid-motion, then disintegrated into fragments of dark energy that vanished into nothing.
Silence fell for a split second.
The remaining Nethers stepped back.
Then another figure landed in the ruins, calm and effortless, as if gravity meant nothing. He reached forward and pulled the glowing sword from the ground. Tetsuiya blinked through pain and exhaustion as he saw him clearly for the first time.
A young man, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. Black hair slightly messy. Clear blue eyes that held no panic, only focus. A dark coat that moved gently in the wind, untouched by dust or ruin.
The stranger exhaled softly.
“Three of them… unlucky place to be alone.”
The remaining Nethers rushed him.
He didn’t move immediately.
He simply raised his sword.
And in the next moment, they were gone.
Not defeated but erased
Their forms shattered into fragments of light and darkness, dissolving into the air like broken reality.
Tetsuiya stared in disbelief.
“…Who are you?” he whispered.
The stranger turned toward him and smiled slightly.
“Someone cleaning up mistakes.”
Tetsuiya forced himself upright.
“Why did you save me? And how did you even know I was here?”
The stranger tilted his head slightly.
“I sensed something unusual. Not Nether energy. Not Eclipse energy either.”
His gaze shifted briefly to the frozen ground remnants.
“I saw what you did.”
Tetsuiya’s fingers tightened.
“So you were watching and saved me only now?"
“Only when you were about to die,” the stranger said calmly.
A pause settled between them.
Then Tetsuiya asked quietly, “So that’s it? That’s why you saved me?”
The stranger’s expression changed slightly.
Then he smiled.
“No.”
The sword in his hand disappeared into thin air
“You’re a dangerous kid and I like it.”
Far away, deep within Dominion headquarters, monitors flickered as an anomaly appeared on their systems. A signal unlike anything recorded before surged through their detection grids—unstable, powerful, impossible to categorize.
Genesis Energy.
A voice broke the silence. “Confirm source.”
After a pause, the answer came.
“Erevos sector confirmed.”
Another silence followed.
Then the order was given.
“Deploy elite retrieval division. Secure the subject. The Dominion will determine its use.”
Back in Erevos, the wind shifted again through the ruins as the stranger turned slightly.
“My base is nearby,” he said. “You can rest there.”
Tetsuiya hesitated for only a moment before nodding.
“…Thanks.”
They began walking through the broken city together, the silence between them heavier than before. After a while, the stranger spoke again, his voice lower now.
“You should understand something.”
Tetsuiya looked at him.
The man’s expression darkened slightly, not with fear,but certainty.
“From now on,” he said, “you’re going to be hunted.”
And in the ruins of Erevos, with a dead sky above and something awakening inside him, Tetsuiya kept walking into a future he never asked for.