Prologue : Ninth.

With the howling of wolves echoing through the vast forest, the mighty mountain range loomed above, its snow-capped peaks piercing the clouds.

Below the forest lay the expansive space between two great lakes, where five knights in shining white armor, reflecting the sun's rays, rode alongside their horses.

They crossed an immense, strange circular expanse—a barren land, stretching as far as the eye could see. Its shape was pure white, devoid of grass, while the surrounding lands flourished with trees and green plants. But the land itself was not dead; it was simply empty, yet ordinary in its stillness.

"Strange," one knight muttered.

"Man, haven't we arrived yet?" another questioned.

"Are you sure this is the place?"

"What kind of question is that? The sacred capital of Arkan is supposed to be here," another knight replied confidently.

"Well, I've never been here before."

"None of us have," came the response. "But I heard the capital lies between the two large lakes."

"And we're between the two lakes," the first knight pointed out. "Where's the capital, smart guy?"

"Let me see the map."

Amidst their questions and confusion, the knights, whose horses had never ventured into such a place before, stood perplexed. Despite following the correct path marked on the map, the capital was nowhere to be seen.

The uncertainty grew as the eerie howls of wolves filled the air, coming from the dense forest surrounding them.

"I'm sure we're on the right path," one knight insisted.

"Yes, yes, just hurry up before the wolves decide to make a meal out of us," another replied nervously.

As one knight examined the map more closely, two others gathered around to check it for themselves.

The other two scanned the north and south cautiously, their senses heightened.

"It's the right path. What's wrong with you guys?" the knight with the map said.

"Yeah, just let me see for myself," the second knight replied.

"Don't pull the map out. You'll tear it, you idiot."

Amidst the semi-heated discussion over the map, a small stone fell on the knight who had been looking north, striking the armor of the knight who had been absent-mindedly gazing south. "Damn, what's going on?" the latter exclaimed, startled.

"Stop this silly game."

"Huh? What game?"

"Don't act like you don't know—"

Suddenly, more stones began falling, growing larger as they descended from the sky.

Both knights looked up, and what they saw made their blood run cold.

"Oi!" one cried out, panic rising in his voice.

"Screw the mission! Let's go back!"

"Oi!" the other shouted, scrambling for a response.

"What's going on? Why are these stones falling?"

The three knights, engrossed in their discussion over the map, turned their attention to the knight.

"Look," the first knight pointed shakily.

And then they saw it—a sight beyond belief.

The daytime sky, once illuminating a scene of tranquility, suddenly transformed into a dome of sweeping shadows.

An immense city, vast in scale and adorned with ancient carvings, descended slowly and overwhelmingly from the heavens, inverted. Its shrouding of the horizon was like a celestial veil that did not retreat.

The light faded, and the sunlight that once infused the souls of the knights dissolved into nothingness, replaced by shadows of grandeur and doom.

The knights' teeth chattered despite their attempts to remain steadfast.

One of them asked, trembling, as if his words stripped him of the last remnants of his courage, "What is this? How can something like this happen?" A cold chill crept through his veins, making him question everything he thought he knew about logic and fate.

The towering buildings of the city crumbled mercilessly, crushing the earth with immense force, splitting and scattering as though the ground had rejected them.

The earthquakes caused by the collapse of the buildings made the knights fall to the ground, and the sounds of destruction were deafening, as if nature itself had begun to curse what was happening.

And then there was the scene... the scene that would never be erased from their memories, not even with their last breath.

The fallen bodies... Hundreds? No, tens of thousands, as if the city itself were declaring the hemorrhage of its inhabitants.

The bodies fell with deadly speed, like meteors piercing the atmosphere, striking the ground and exploding in waves of blood, forming a sticky river that nourished the devastation.

The knights screamed in terror as they fled, hoping to escape the raining devastation. They sprinted between the falling bodies, each breath desperate, as they sought the distant light—their only beacon of hope beyond the unfolding disaster.

"Run, you idiot!" one knight shouted, barely keeping up.

His horse stumbled and bolted, leaving him behind.

Cursing under his breath, he managed to rise to his feet, only to be struck by a barrage of falling stones.

They shattered his body on impact, turning it to mush, his life extinguished in a cruel instant.

The remaining four knights pressed on, their minds grasping for any shred of hope, yet finding none.

They reached the distant light, only to realize it was an empty space—an opening between two crumbled parts of the city.

Their fleeting hope vanished in an instant, revealed as nothing more than the brief illusion created by their instinct to survive. With unrelenting force, the fallen city engulfed the knights, crushing them under the weight of its descent.

Their screams were swallowed by the earth-shaking impact—a deafening roar louder than thunder, sending shockwaves through the land.

All the wildlife fled in terror, heralding the emergence of a new form created through utter destruction.

The catastrophic collision shattered the lakes, the forests, and all the land in its wake.

In an instant, life was obliterated.

The five knights were the last to witness it, dying as the world around them crumbled into chaos.

And the only thing that remained alive amidst this devastating scene was the cry of the eagle, soaring with its wings stretched wide toward the sky.

There, where the destruction could not reach, it flew steadily, gazing down at the ruin sprawling beneath.

It did not pause, nor did it glance at the scattered wreckage below.

Instead, it chose to keep ascending, heading toward the place it truly belonged—the peak of the sky, where only those with the courage to soar can reach.

---

After several lean days, in a vast cemetery with thousands of graves, soldiers in black uniforms stood in formation, their rifles raised in salute. They fired in unison, a tribute to the fallen.

Among them, a red-haired young woman in shining white armor sat on a grave, her arms wrapped tightly around her friend with hair as white as snow, who was leaning against the headstone, crying.

"Akriod," the girl whispered sorrowfully, the name of the deceased.