"When the world falls, all that remains of us is what we hold in our hands… or whom we hold onto."
— From the journal of survivor Yue Mi, one month after the Fall.
The forest swallowed her footsteps, as if the trees themselves conspired against the light, against survival, against the child who fought to keep standing.
Yue Mi was running, her small hand clutching tightly onto that of her younger sister, Yue Xuan, who was no more than seven years old.
Each step sank into muddy pools that reflected the moon… but it was no longer as it once was. Its color now was crimson—bright, furious, like a demon's eye bearing witness to the end.
The sound of ragged breath, mud cracking beneath her weight, and the whispers of the wind laughing at human weakness.
Only a month had passed since the black meteors fell from the sky… yet what happened since could not be measured by time.
The great continent's cities—once thought unconquerable for millennia burned.
Armies scattered. Governments collapsed. Cities turned to mausoleums of flesh and ash.
Yue Mi was one of the few who survived.
Thanks to her father, a former general in the High Protection Forces, she escaped.
They fled to a mountain shelter, hiding from the night creatures that descended with the meteors.
But fortune does not always follow the fleeing.
The demonic wolves infiltrated the bunker, tearing through steel, concrete—and hope.
The last thing Yue Mi saw was her father sealing the door behind them, his eyes heavy with sadness as he pressed the detonator.
But nothing exploded.
As she ran, carrying her sister, stumbling, sobbing—she knew…
Her father had stayed behind… and died fighting.
Now, she crossed the forest, her feet wounded, her heart fevered, her mouth whispering a prayer she couldn't remember ever learning.
Then she felt them—those eyes.
Sharp as blades. Cold as vengeance. Silent as winter's death.
She stopped for a heartbeat. Her ears caught heavy breathing behind her.
A growl. A scrape of claws. A pattern of footsteps pressing into wet earth.
She turned slightly, and there they were—glowing crimson eyes among the trees.
One. Three. Ten.
"The demonic wolves…" she whispered.
Suddenly, nothing else mattered. Not the moon. Not the forest. Not the pain.
Only one thought echoed in her mind: Protect your sister… or die with her.
She clutched Yue Xuan close to her chest and ran—without thinking.
But the ground showed no mercy.
She tripped over a root. Fell.
The younger girl screamed. Yue Mi screamed louder:
"Help us! Please! Someone—!"
And through the trees, she saw it…
An armored vehicle, bearing the forbidden emblem of the covert organization:
A.C.E.S.
She raised her hand, every fiber of her being screaming, "We're here!!"
But before the lights could reach her… the wolves had encircled them.
Seven. Ten. More.
Their howls were pure hell. Their teeth dripped acid-like saliva. Their eyes stabbed into her soul.
She knew this was the end.
She gripped her sister tighter, shut her eyes, and waited…
A second passed like a minute. A minute passed like a lifetime.
Then…
A strange gust swept over her.
Followed by a sound.
Not human. Not beast. Something in between—a final howl, fused with agony and death.
She slowly opened her eyes.
And what she saw… could never be forgotten.
A sea of blood stretched before her, the earth soaked with torn corpses, scattered limbs, twitching jaws.
In the center of it all stood a single man.
He wore a long black coat, its hem soaking up blood like it hungered for it.
In his left hand, he held the head of one of the demonic wolves—its eye still twitching.
When he turned toward her… time froze.
His eyes… crimson. Glowing like the moon behind him.
His hair was pitch-black, thick and wild like a starless night. Strange tattoos marked his skin symbols she couldn't understand, like ancient spells from a dead age.
But what shattered her sanity… was what beat in his chest.
A red orb. Alive. Pulsing like a second heart. Something alien, burning.
She looked at him, trembling, and knew one thing:
This was no man… nor monster.
This was something born from fury itself.
The little girl whispered under her breath:
"Who are you?"
But he didn't answer.
He simply turned away and walked. Blood dripped from his coat, and even the air seemed too afraid to touch him.
That night, the sky did not rain water…
It rained ash.
A soldier from the A.C.E.S. recovery unit wrote in his report:
"Only two girls survived the massacre at Huan Lin Forest.
We found dozens of demonic wolves torn apart in ways we cannot explain.
The survivors described a figure in a black coat, with glowing red eyes.
Their description matches the entity classified as:
The Crimson Pulse. The Shifting Threat. The Son of the Red End."