Prologue: Ashes of a New Dawn

A low, all-encompassing rumble shattered the silence of the heavens. The earth quaked, as if a living entity roused from a deep slumber. The sky, once clear and blue, now blazed with crimson fire, torn apart by fissures from which black smoke billowed. This was not merely an end—it was the birth of something new, something terrifying, something incomprehensible.

Gerda stood at the edge of a precipice, her black hair with emerald streaks whipping in the wind, laden with the scent of sulfur and metal. Before her stretched a planet reborn by Jizi's will, yet now it was fracturing at the seams. Massive chunks of earth tore free from the surface, rising into the air as if seized by an unseen hand. Below, in the fathomless abyss, lava churned, emitting eerie greenish vapors, while above, flocks of winged shadows—creatures spawned from this new world's chaos—circled relentlessly.

This apocalypse did not arrive alone. With it came the Echoes of the Rifts—towering crystalline structures erupting from the ground like the bones of a long-dead titan. Each crystal pulsed with a blood-red glow, radiating waves of energy that warped reality itself. Trees bent and twisted into grotesque, living statues frozen in agony, while the air trembled with the whispers of a thousand voices belonging to no living soul.

Gerda clenched her fists. Her body still burned with the inner power awakened after her encounter with Jizi, but now that power felt less like a gift and more like a curse. She could sense the planet screaming, its core writhing in torment, torn apart by an unknown force. This was not the conclusion of the story that began the day the sky fell upon her grandfather. This was a new chapter, one where the old rules no longer applied.

In the distance, amid the smoldering ruins, she caught a flicker of movement. Figures clad in black armor, their eyes glowing a fierce crimson, advanced with mechanical precision. The warriors of Rannii—or what remained of them. But now, their bodies were threaded with crystalline veins, and their weapons sparked as if infused with the energy of the Rifts. They were no longer human. They were something more—and something less.

A low growl sounded behind her. Gerda turned to see Shi, his skin now shimmering with a reddish hue, his eyes aglow like smoldering coals. Beside him stood Agatha, her form shrouded in shadow from which thin, writhing tendrils occasionally burst forth like living appendages. The planet's rebirth had changed them all. They were no longer mere survivors. They had become part of this world—a world where the boundaries between human, beast, and god had dissolved.

"This isn't the end," Gerda whispered, gazing at the horizon where the crimson glow merged with an encroaching darkness. "It's only the beginning."

At that moment, one of the Echoes of the Rifts detonated, unleashing a pillar of light that pierced the clouds and vanished into infinity. The planet shuddered, and from beneath the earth, new lifeforms emerged—beings of metal and flesh, their eyes blazing with white fire. They regarded Gerda, Shi, and Agatha not with hostility, but with curiosity, like a child studying a newfound toy.

The apocalypse had altered everything. This was no longer a struggle for survival. It was a war for the right to belong to the new order—or to tear it asunder.