Standing at the heart of Skyox City, right beside its lone Grimway Station, I took a moment to absorb everything around me—the marvels of Grim-tech, the sleek flying vehicles streaking overhead, the condensed-light billboards casting shifting colors across the streets. It was futuristic, dazzling… yet not what I had imagined.

  The infrastructure broke the illusion. Instead of towering skyscrapers piercing the clouds, the buildings here rose no higher than thirty meters, sprawling outward for acres instead of reaching upward. The reason was simple: flying grimmons preferred nesting at high altitudes. Also, the city's underground had been heavily reinforced as well, built to withstand tunneling grimmons that attacked from below.

  In my vision of the future, humanity stood proudly at the top of the food chain. Here, that reality didn't apply. Without Grimmyth sharing its resources, power, and knowledge, humans would have gone extinct long ago. Back on my Earth, humans were the monsters, but this Earth had actual monsters, Grimmons.

  "Hey, bumpkin! Stop loitering and crawl back to your shanty!" someone jeered from the passing crowd. I turned, trying to spot the voice, but the flow of people swallowed him up before I could even pinpoint his face. A few hushed snickers rippled around me as the crowd moved on.

  It could have been worse, I reminded myself, tugging my hoodie lower over my head. Fortunately, I'd remembered to pull it on before I started geeking out. After all, the memes of Crayon crashing the Zenith Guild's signing ceremony were spreading across the grim web as fast as a scandalous nip slip.

  Soon, I was swept along with the tide of people heading toward the Grimway Station. When we reached the gates, I broke away from the crowd, as only those with ptform or Gionship tickets could enter. I didn't have either.

  Instead, I followed the outer wall, making my way toward the clusters of dreamers squatting nearby, clutching their tribute, all of them waiting for a miracle of their own in their tents or trailers. These guys had established a fully functional slum around the outer walls of the Grimway station. The authorities overlooked it, fearing riots. All they had was hope. If they took away even that, there was no telling what the mob would do.

  These dreamers hoped a wisp of Grimmyth's will would slip through the Grimgate, notice their humble tributes, and trade them for a grim deck—contracting them as warlocks of Grimmyth, the Grimlocks.

  Simir to how the wisps of Grimmyth's energy, Gion, leaking into Earth through the Grimgates mutate animals and trees into Grimmyth's own monsters—Grimmons. As a result, Earth has gradually become overrun by Grimmons since the first Grimgates were opened. It was too te to close them by the time they figured it out.

  Normally, one had to enter Grimmyth itself for the contract ceremony, but miracles like this weren't unheard of. And like all miracles, they were rare—so rare that most people never witnessed one in their lifetime. Still, no one here gave up hope. Hope cost nothing. Even the poorest could afford it, as long as they had the will to keep believing.

  Aside from my curiosity about the Grimgates, I was here for that same fragile hope. I could have stayed home, lying low and living off the meager supplies I had left until the media frenzy died down. Instead, I chose to come here—choosing hope over hiding.

  I made my way through the crowd to find a spot by the wall to get comfortable, pnning to hide from the backsh of Crayon's action here. On my way, I couldn't help but overhear people discussing that the government should provide one free contract ceremony to each of its citizens but were too corrupt to do so.

  Contract Ceremony was the sacred rite in which a human travels to Grimmyth to seek a covenant with it. Only those whom Grimmyth acknowledges may form a contract with it receiving a unique Grim Deck in exchange for a tribute, allowing them to purge, seal, fuse, and upgrade Grimmons with their grim cards as the Warlocks of Grimmyth, Grimlocks.

  This ceremony determined whether the individual was worthy of wielding Grimmyth's power and shedding their mortal status, changing their fate forever.

  Only by becoming a grimlock could one face the creatures of Earth mutated by stray Gions leaking from Grimmyth through grimgates, Grimmons. Let alone powerful grimmons guarding the grimlores within the Grimmyth, the Grimlords. Based on their power, grimmons are further cssified into seven ranks: Unsung, Fabled, Dreaded, Epic, Legendary, Mythical, Unholy.

  To initiate a contract with Grimmyth and receive one's Grim Deck, thus becoming a Grimlock, one must offer something of personal value in exchange. This offering has commonly been referred to as the Tribute.

  Many believe that the greater the value of the tribute, the stronger the Grim Deck they receive will be. However, centuries of accumuted data suggest that a tribute's worth is entirely retive. What humans deem rare and precious may hold little to no value in the eyes of Grimmyth.

  Some have tried to outsmart the Grimmyth by offering tributes that others once used to receive powerful Grim Decks, but the results have been inconsistent—sometimes yielding success, other times complete failure. This inconsistency has led the more pragmatic minds to question whether the tribute's value truly influences the strength of the Grim Deck at all.

  As I walked deeper into the slum, the scene unfolded in stark, orderly rows of tents and trailers stretching along the station's outer wall. People sat on bnkets or folding stools, clutching gss jars that held their chosen tribute a kidney suspended in nutrient gel, a lone eye drifting like a pale moon, neatly packaged portions of liver, fragments of pancreas, coiled sections of intestine, vials of bone marrow or blood stem cells, or slivers of bone, cartige, tendons, ligaments, and skin.

  Some people prepared multiple organs as their tribute, while others could offer only one—limited by what their families could spare. These people had taken the phrase 'something of personal value' with brutal literalness. This was sheer madness.

  Watching them, I was struck by their ruthlessness and how young many of them were—just turned eighteen, yet already hardened enough to carve pieces out of themselves without hesitation.

  Their callousness wasn't born from the fear of failing to form a contract with Grimmyth, but from the far greater terror of receiving a weak Grim Deck. Even though no one knew for certain whether the value of a tribute truly influenced Grimmyth's judgment, they spared nothing. To them, even the smallest chance of obtaining a powerful deck was worth bleeding for.

  After all, once a person received their Grim Deck from Grimmyth, there was no going back. Each Grim Deck held fifty-four cards, their backs etched with a unique Grim Cypher belonging to the Grimlock, that determined the strength of every card and the overall potential of the deck—ultimately shaping the Grimlock's entire future.

  There were no chants, mantras, or secret methods to help someone form a contract with the Grimmyth. Everything depended entirely on it. Even after centuries, no one had discovered how the Grimmyth chose who to contract with and the strength of the Grim Deck it bestows on them.