22 Years Later

The Luxian guard was kneeling in an abandoned alley. His wounds cried crimson tears that sent ripples twisting and turning over the blood ocean beneath him, traveling far and wide until they hit a dead body. Mutilated guards dotted the area, and their white uniforms drank the blood like a sponge, disgraced with red sacrilege that caught the moonlight.

Those guards were his companions. Just hours ago, they had a future ahead of them. They were young and lively, happy to return to their families after their shift as the night watch. But now, they were corpses resting in the slums, waiting to be forgotten.

An ominous haze settled over the bloodbath. It thickened and molded itself into a human-esque body, contorting and twitching before a pale hand tore through the darkness and a shadow materialized before the kneeling guard. Heavy boots splashed in blood, and bones groaned as the shadow kneeled, its ferocious eyes piercing into the guard's own. Gagging up blood clotting in his throat, the guard wheezed out his final words.

"Reveal yourself, demon."

The demon snickered as foul strings of miasma accumulated in its open palm and swirled so expeditiously that a miniature bead enlarged into an opaque sphere in a matter of seconds.

"The time is near," it rasped. "The Demon Days are approaching."

The guard shook his head as a trickle of blood leaked down his chin. "You demons will never win. The elementals will stop you just as the first Legends did."

A sinister smile played on the demon's lips, and without another word—without an ounce of hesitation—it crushed the opaque orb in its hand. Whorls of darkness entered the guard's nose, mouth, ears, and eyes as he plopped to the bloody ground, writhing. Stygian tears oozed down his cheeks as black suffused his veins, and with his last breath, the dark mist escaped his mouth and dissipated into thin air.

Running its bony fingers through the blood, the demon smirked at its atrocious art and inhaled the scent of death when its head suddenly snapped up. Its red eyes peered beyond the dead bodies, the alley, when the blood drained from its ashen face. It blindly reached towards an uninvited spectator as an unmistakable whisper left its chapped lips.

"Prince Jeon Jungkook?"

* * *

Jungkook's eyes flew open as he gasped, retracting his hand from the lifeless guard's. A green aura emanating from his pendant waned as he inhaled staggering breaths and desperately wiped the sticky blood coating his fingers on his blue cloak.

This had never happened before. As a time elemental, when browsing memories through Anilium, never was he noticed, yet that demon. . . A shiver crawled down his spine. When he had first stumbled upon the vicious scene, his mouth dried and his legs buckled. Frequent reports detailed royal guards of the night watch dying near the slums, and because of his father's indifference, Jungkook had decided to solve the problem himself.

But this. . . Glancing at the dead men, at the bloodstained uniforms of the Luxian guards, at the blank eyes of the deceased, he gulped. This was realms beyond what he had anticipated.

The clouds overhead masked the moon, and tiny patterns of light danced over the blood puddles drenching the alley. It had been five hours since dusk struck—since he had left the castle—and this had seemed like a good idea until. . .

Until he saw a demon butcher a group of royal guards, proud soldiers who were trained to be cunning and swift and remorseless. And Jungkook—who was training under Elias Novire, the son of the Captain of the Guard and one of his closest friends—had a tiny sip of the grueling training. So seeing about a dozen guards die right before his eyes shook him to the core.

A frigid breeze ruffled his umber hair and carried the malodorous stench of decaying flesh. Clenching his teeth, he unconsciously rubbed the cracked pommel of his sword as the demon's omen caressed his ears.

The Demon Days are approaching.

The Demon Days—the darkest era in the history of Kartas. Just as the Oracle Elkii had foretold, it was approaching once more, so if Daetunos's seal truly was corroding, then Jungkook had to warn his father. Tilting his head towards the tenebrous sky, he sent a silent prayer to Lexitem before dashing into the crooked streets of Clarica. Above, a storm brewed, and thunder cracked a distance away. As he hastened through the slums, he was oblivious to the small rat tailing him on the roofs.

* * *

Raos the rat balanced on the slim ridges and slid down the stone shingles only to climb another stone-clad mountain. When Jungkook veered right, Raos cried in agony, but he still scampered across a clothesline that extended to another rooftop. A million cursed clothespins almost tripped him, and an unsophisticated crow almost ate him. But he finally caught up to Jungkook, who was foolishly racing into a menacing, green light.

Raos froze, his eyes blinking and ears flicking once—twice. Wrinkling his snout, he whimpered as he forced himself to leap towards the horrid light, high-pitched squeals escaping his mouth as the monstrous blaze devoured him. He was suspended in the air—his limbs flailing, his tail fluttering, his mouth agape—when his belly struck bare cobblestone. Then his back, then belly, and back again. When the world finally stopped spinning, he shook his throbbing head and rose to his stubby feet. Even as his vision cleared, he could only see darkness, but when he finally took in his surroundings, his jaw dropped.

The world was deprived of color, and it was impossibly silent. The wind that was ruffling his silver fur moments ago was stagnant, and everything around him exuded a smoke-like mist that whirled through the air. Raos emitted a similar mist, as well, but one in color, not monochrome. The alleys were gray and empty save for a few cracking crates and barrels stacked against a brick wall to his right. That troublesome boy Jungkook was nowhere to be seen, but raising his head, Raos found a trace of green mist that swerved deeper into the slums and faded from sight. So setting aside his stupefaction, he followed the dissipating mist. He staggered and stumbled, twinges of pain zapping through his body, but he ignored it and followed the mist to the end, where he scaled a building to get a better view.

Sitting on the ledge, Raos found Jungkook hiding behind a corner, studying something very intently. A blinding, green light shimmered around his form and dimmed every passing second. Following Jungkook's line of sight, Raos saw three people standing in a blind alley: a rotund man tied in rope, a girl leaning against a wall, and a boy holding an intricate blade. They were frozen and painted over in monochrome like the rest of the objects surrounding them, and for some reason, Raos's beady eyes were drawn to the girl. There was something about her that was. . . peculiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Tilting his head, Raos squinted, vying for a closer look before tossing his wonders aside and pulling his gaze back to Jungkook. But mid-turn, his ears popped, vibrant colors flooded his vision, and deafening sounds pierced his ears. A culminating pressure forced him against the shingles, and his legs trembled as he struggled to maintain upright. When his bones felt like they were about to snap, the pressure and sounds faded as if they were never there.

Heart thrashing and worm-like tail flicking, Raos scrutinized Jungkook, but before he could piece two and two together, new voices muttering in the background distracted him. The sound was hushed under the thrum of Raos's heart, but his twitching ears captured a distant conversation and traced it to the three people Jungkook was engrossed in. They were no longer frozen, and color painted their once-monochrome bodies.

As Raos stared at the people, at Jungkook, the gravity of the situation dawned on him. He regarded Jungkook in a new light and chuckled as he shook his head. It was a shame to eliminate a time elemental, a rarity of this age. Still, Raos prepared to finish his mission nevertheless.

Heat seeped through his veins and made his fur stand and skin bubble. Using the strength of his hind legs, Raos thrust himself towards Jungkook and soared in the air for what felt like a glorious eternity, but when he was about to reach his target, sharp talons pierced his back. They clawed their way deeper into his skin, and the anguish of his spine cracking each time the claws constricted left him paralyzed.

Through his pain-blinded vision, he saw Jungkook get smaller and smaller as the claws carried him like a ragged doll farther and farther away until Jungkook was nothing more than a mere speck in the twilight of Clarica.