Amid the shattered remnants of Genesis's two mightiest kingdoms, the ruins of a small village still stand—scarred and silent.
Traces of the massacre remain, as if time itself refused to forget. Dried blood still stains the collapsed walls of hollow homes. The roads, once walked by laughter and life, lie blackened beneath the feet of creeping greenery that dares to reclaim the soil.
But further from the village, the warmth of nature dies. The air sharpens. The land freezes.
And at the center of that dead frost... a monument towers.
Half-buried in permafrost and divine dread, it looms like a wound in the world. A colossal tomb of ice—not brittle, breakable ice, but a sacred cold, dense and unnatural, forged with divine intent.
Jagged spires of blue-white crystal pierce the sky from its corners, gleaming like the frozen fangs of a long-dead beast still guarding its curse.
It radiates a chill that defies nature—not mere cold, but something deeper. The kind of cold that quiets thought, mutes emotion, and whispers that time itself has been halted within.
No snow falls here. The air is dry, motionless, and brittle—like the world itself is holding its breath.
Etched into the glacial walls are runes older than written scripture. Neither angelic nor infernal, they burn faintly with silver-blue light, pulsing like a heart slowed to the edge of death.
To guard this sacred prison, thirteen figures have stood sentinel for centuries. They are the Vigilant Thirteen—the last surviving generals who led the eight kingdoms' conquest of Lunaris and Igniavora.
Now, they are more than warriors. They are elite sentinels, clad in obsidian armor laced with froststeel, silent as statues, eternal as stone.
Their breath fogs in the frigid air.
Their eyes never leave the horizon.
They do not speak.
They do not sleep.
Their presence is not merely military—it is ritual. Each measured step in their patrol is a sacred act, part of a duty that has outlived kingdoms and kings.
And at the center of the tomb—faintly visible through the layered ice—is a silhouette.
Towering.
Still.
Monstrous.
The shape is distorted by the glacial encasement, but even half-buried, the malice radiating from it is unmistakable. Yet the guards do not flinch. It has not moved in five centuries.
But today…
Today, all thirteen felt it.
A premonition. A ripple in the air. A crawling, cold awareness that something had changed.
They didn't speak of it. They didn't need to.
As beings forged by war and blessed by divine senses, their instincts had never failed them. And when all thirteen felt it at once, it could only mean one thing:
Calamity.
Without a word, they fanned out, searching the frozen plains for signs of disturbance—arcane pulses, trespassers, divine resonance. They combed the terrain from dawn until dusk.
And found… nothing.
Nothing—which made it worse.
Because now, what they felt was no longer a premonition.
It was dread.
Cold, inescapable, and absolute.
Not the kind born of fear…
But the kind that whispers: you will not survive this.
There could only be one explanation.
A being far more powerful than them was targeting this place.
The Vigilant Thirteen had survived countless wars, divine duels, and cataclysms. But to all sense the same impending doom in unison—while gathered together—could only mean one thing:
Something above them in power was approaching.
And on Genesis, only one force stood above them:
The kings of the eight kingdoms.
But that didn't make sense.
The kings had forged the seal. Strengthened it. Entrusted it to the Thirteen.
Why would they now seek to destroy it?
Then—
A single, horrifying thought rippled through all thirteen minds at once:
They weren't the ones being hunted.
They were the hunters who had forgotten their prey.
As one, they turned toward the center of the frozen land.
Toward the tomb.
And froze.
The surface of the divine seal—smooth and unbroken for five hundred years—was no longer still.
Cracks.
Veins of glowing, hairline fractures were spreading across the ice. Slowly. Relentlessly.
Panic snapped their discipline.
They reached for their communication devices, desperate to transmit a warning to the ruling thrones—
But they were too late.
BOOM.
The sound tore across the tundra like a divine thunderclap.
The seal—once believed unbreakable—shattered into a thousand shrieking shards of ice and light.
From within the crater of fractured frost, something moved.
A silhouette stepped forward. Slowly. Purposefully.
The Vigilant Thirteen didn't flinch.
They couldn't.
Their limbs locked. Their minds blanked. Their instincts screamed.
Cold sweat pooled beneath their armor, and one by one, they felt it—
the presence.
A force so suffocating it felt like the scythe of death had already kissed their throats.
The fog from the explosion parted.
And then they saw him.
The being even the eight kings wanted to kill, but failing miserably.
The last of Alvarya's royal bloodline.
Belzebuth Alvarya.
He stood over two meters tall—regal and monstrous.
His long white hair spilled down to his waist, untouched by time.
Four curved horns arched from his head like a broken crown.
Five eyes stared at them—two in the usual place, and three more gleaming from his forehead.
All five were jet black, pierced with crimson-red pupils that seemed to burn with memory, hatred, and silence.
Behind him, two enormous draconic wings unfurled. And then… a second pair followed.
Pale, divine scales covered parts of his arms, shoulders, and legs, gleaming like bleached armor beneath the frostlight.
But what froze the guards' souls wasn't his wings… or his eyes…
It was his chest.
Right where his heart should've been—
There was nothing.
A clean, horrifying hole pierced straight through him.
A hollow space where life once beat.
And yet…
He stood.
Breathing.
Living.
Watching.
Their bodies shuddered unconsciously as the being approached—
But they were helpless.
Not one could move, not even a twitch.
And then… he walked past them.
Silent.
Unbothered.
As if they weren't worth the flicker of a glance.
The thirteen exhaled in quiet unison the moment he was gone, a single thought echoing in their frozen minds:
He didn't even care to kill us.
Yet still, they couldn't move.
Belzebuth made his way toward the ruined village.
Oakvale.
Once his home.
A small, forgotten village that barely housed a hundred souls.
It was never great, never grand—but it was his.
As he walked the main road, blackened and cracked beneath his feet, the memories returned—
Before the calamity.
Back when he thought he was just another village boy.
His parents had lived here, humble yet respected—owners of the largest land in Oakvale.
They raised cattle, worked the soil, and gave honest pay to those who helped tend the fields.
Though wealthier than most, they never acted above anyone. They toiled beside their workers, hands deep in the earth.
And the village?
Peaceful.
No luxury, no splendor—just warmth, shared meals, and days marked by seasons rather than fear.
But now…
That peace was a memory drowned in blood.
The streets were cracked and stained, the walls collapsed and rotting. The scent of old death still clung to the wind, even centuries later.
Yet Belzebuth said nothing.
He walked on—until he reached the remains of a grand mansion at the village's edge.
His family's home.
The doors hung loose, shattered and left ajar. The front steps were chipped. Ivy strangled the fence.
But he did not hesitate.
He stepped inside.
Dust whispered beneath his feet as he crossed the threshold, walking without pause toward the master bedroom.
This was where his parents had died.
He remembered it clearly.
His father—standing tall, arms spread wide, shielding his mother even as the invaders descended.
His mother—clutching his father's back, blood soaking her dress, eyes full of panic and disbelief.
He had burned that moment into memory, thinking himself prepared to face it again.
But now… there was nothing.
Only the dark stain on the floor where blood had dried and darkened the wood—a silent, bitter testament to the ones who once lived here.
The bodies were gone.
Carried off by the invaders, perhaps. Or stripped away by wild beasts.
They were gone.
Despite all he had seen… despite five centuries of silence… it still hurt.
And then—
A memory surfaced.
Not his own, memories that he inherited because of his ability, echo of oblivion.
A woman—desperate, trembling—hiding her child in a chest deep in the basement of a house.
Her breaths were shallow, her voice cracked with fear as she whispered promises of safety.
But the invaders came.
They didn't open the chest.
They didn't speak.
They simply stabbed through the wood.
Again.
And again.
Until the screaming stopped.
That mother… was Miranda.
His childhood friend.
The wife of his sworn brother, Takeru.
And the child...
Her name was Yui.
Belzebuth had played with her in the fields during lunch breaks. He used to lift her up on his shoulders when the wind was strong so she could chase it.
Eyes dulled with something worse than fury, he turned away from the mansion and made his way toward the ruins of Takeru's house.
Down into the basement.
There, in the corner—
A blood-streaked chest.
Its lid clawed and splintered.
A beast had tried to open it. Failed. Left it behind.
He approached.
The lock snapped under his fingers.
Slowly, he lifted the lid.
Inside lay the small, brittle remains of a child—bones curled in on themselves.
Beside them, a plush rabbit, stained black by rot and blood.
It must have once been white.
Belzebuth dropped to his knees.
For the first time in centuries, his body trembled.
Tears traced silent paths down his cheeks.
He did not weep.
But he remembered.
And he grieved.
He did not weep.
But he remembered.
And he grieved.
His hand reached down, brushing the plush rabbit's ear.
A whisper echoed—
A sound long buried beneath ice and time.
"Yui! Where are you? We need to run—now!"
The voice wasn't his.
It was Miranda's.
It cut through centuries like fire through parchment.
And suddenly—
He was back there.
The sky bleeding light.
The dome descending.
The screams of the village.
The moment everything ended.