Shura Arin was falling.

  Not drifting. Not descending.

  Falling.

  The Eternal Depth screamed around him. Air that should have been empty crushed his chest, clawed at his skin, tore at his ears like a living thing. His body spun wildly, arms and legs useless as the world above dissolved into choking gray mist.

  I’m going to die.

  The thought was sharp. Simple.

  He opened his mouth to scream.

  Nothing came.

  No sound. No breath.

  Only the echo of a voice—burned into his mind like a brand.

  Don’t fight the air. Flow Viora from your heart.

  The Holy Guard’s final words struck him again, cruel and distant.

  Panic surged. His heart thundered. His chest felt too small, as if it might collapse inward. Memories tried to surface—faces, warmth, laughter—but they shattered before he could grasp them.

  Then… something else.

  A familiar warmth.

  Always there. Always watching.

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  Shura clenched his teeth and shut his eyes. If he was going to die, he refused to die screaming.

  He reached inward.

  The moment he touched it, his chest ignited.

  Fire poured from his heart, flooding his veins like molten iron. It hurt—burned—yet felt right, like something long denied had finally been released. The crushing pressure around him shifted. The fall didn’t stop, but it softened, resisted, as though the world itself recoiled.

  The Void rejected him.

  Ten kilometers below the surface, Shura struck the ground.

  Stone exploded beneath him. The impact ripped the breath from his lungs and shattered his thoughts into white-hot pain.

  Then—nothing.

  Silence.

  Shura woke to silence so heavy it felt like it pressed against his bones.

  This wasn’t the gentle quiet of the Country of Light. This was a suffocating stillness, ancient and unmoving. His body lay sprawled across coarse, ashen moss that crumbled like dead skin beneath his fingers.

  Everything hurt.

  Breathing felt wrong.

  A pale glow pulsed across the land—slow, rhythmic—like the heartbeat of something buried far beneath the earth.

  Where am I…?

  “He’s awake.”

  The voice was soft. Careful.

  Shura blinked. His vision swam as four figures sharpened into focus above him.

  Warriors.

  The first to step forward was a tall woman named Zenkyou. She looked barely past twenty, her lean frame coiled with quiet strength. Her bare hands were scarred and steady—hands that had ended lives without hesitation.

  “Well,” she said, crouching beside him, “that’s new. Found you face-first under the Ceiling. Fall from the sky, did you?”

  She laughed—loud, fearless.

  Behind her stood a young man with a permanent scowl, a massive black sword strapped to his back. The weapon looked impossibly heavy, yet he carried it as if it were nothing.

  “Or he’s a mutant,” he said flatly. “We should leave him.”

  A girl barely older than Shura hovered nearby, faint light trembling around her fingers. She stayed close to Zenkyou, eyes wide—afraid, but curious.

  “He doesn’t feel hostile,” she said softly.

  The fourth man didn’t speak.

  He watched.

  Sharp eyes. Calculating. A bow half-drawn, arrow resting patiently against the string—ready to end this the moment Shura twitched wrong.

  Zenkyou met Shura’s gaze. “Who are you?” she asked. “And where did you come from?”

  Shura tried to answer.

  Nothing came.

  Not because his throat failed him—but because his mind did.

  It wasn’t fog.

  It was emptiness.

  No home. No faces. No name that felt like his own. Just broken fragments drifting in a void far colder than the Depth he had fallen through.

  “I…” His voice cracked. “I don’t know.”

  The words hurt more than the fall.

  “I don’t remember anything.”

  The swordsman snorted. “Perfect. A broken kid.”

  “His Viora is unstable,” the archer said quietly, lowering his bow just a fraction. “Raw. Like it was torn awake.”

  Zenkyou studied Shura for a long moment.

  Then she made her choice.

  “Alright, Sky-Boy,” she said, gripping his arm and pulling him up. “You’re coming with us. The Elders can decide what kind of problem you are.”

  Shura’s legs shook as he stood. Every step felt heavier than the last, the air pressing down like invisible chains.

  As they began to move, he looked up.

  There was no sky.

  Only a vast ceiling of endless gray mist.

  And for the first time since waking, fear settled deep in his chest.

  I fell from the world above.

  And whatever this place is…

  It doesn’t want me.