A world ummade

Dion walked.

The road beyond the gate stretched into the thick wilderness, a place where the remnants of the old world twisted into something unrecognizable. Towering trees, their bark gnarled and blackened, loomed overhead, their roots coiling over cracked asphalt and shattered concrete. The path was uneven, shifting between patches of dead grass and earth scorched by long-forgotten battles.

He moved with quiet caution, his ears tuned to the forest's unnatural silence.

The sky, once endless, now carried a strange weight—a dense, ash-colored expanse where the sun barely pierced through.

He glanced up. The light was fading.

Night was coming.

No hunter—no sane one, at least—willingly walked these lands after dark. The deeper the night, the more the Dread Spawn emerged, prowling through the ruins in search of anything foolish enough to wander. Even Awakened avoided the open roads after sunset.

Dion wasn't Awakened.

He quickened his pace. Not quite a run, but no longer the slow, measured walk from before. He needed shelter.

Soon, the shape of crumbling buildings rose in the distance. A ruin.

It was nothing special. Just another shattered remnant of the old world—torn walls, collapsed ceilings, the skeleton of what had once been a structure of purpose. Whatever it had been before the shockwave no longer mattered. Now, it was just a hiding place.

Dion stepped inside, his boots crunching over broken glass and loose gravel. The air inside was stale, thick with the scent of dust and decay. He kept his blade close, scanning for any movement.

Nothing.

Good.

He found a corner where the walls still held firm and set to work.

If he did not want to be eaten while sleeping, he had to work for it.

Setting the Traps

Traps first.

From his pack, he pulled a thin wire, stretching it across the entrance and securing it to a rusted beam. A simple trick, but one that had saved his life before—if something walked through, he'd hear it. Next, he placed a few makeshift alarms—small metal scraps tied to a string, positioned so that any disturbance would send them clattering.

Satisfied, he settled down.

His pack rested beside him, untouched. His stomach ached, but he ignored it. Food was a resource, not a luxury. Every bite needed to count, and this wasn't the time to waste any of it. While some Dread Spawn could be eaten, most were poisonous, and he preferred not to include them in his plans unless he had no other choice.

Instead of eating, he pulled his cloak tighter and lay back against the cold stone.

Thoughts of a Broken World

Dion stared at the ruined ceiling, the cracks in the stone forming lines that led nowhere. His mind wandered.

Rumors about how humanity usually survive and prosper in the face of many calamities

Yet wasn't eighty years more than enough time for humanity to claw its way back up? Shouldn't civilization have risen again by now?

There were stories passed down from the elders—of an age when technology could accomplish the impossible. Machines that could supply entire cities, medicine that could heal almost any wound, weapons that could wipe out armies in an instant.

But the world had other plans.

Technology failed.

Not just in pieces, not just in some places—everywhere. Machines that once ran entire nations simply stopped working. Electricity flickered and died. Satellites fell from the sky. The tools of the old world—computers, vehicles, even firearms—became little more than dead relics, powerless against the new reality.

The world had changed.

The rules had changed.

Physics itself twisted. Lands reshaped. And humanity?

It nearly perished.

The first generation—those who witnessed the fall—were all but wiped out. Everything they knew, everything they relied on, became useless overnight. They were left defenseless against the horrors that emerged from the ashes.

Survival became the only law.

Only when the Oracle appeared did things begin to shift. Humans adapted—not through knowledge, but through power. They learned to harness NyxFlow, to wield abilities that defied the old world's logic.

Some still sought to reclaim lost technology, but progress was slow. What little remained was too expensive for people like Dion. For most, life had regressed to something primitive—stone and metal, instinct and survival.

Dion didn't trust the Devas.

But even he couldn't deny that, without them, humanity might not have survived.

Even the almighty Deva's need a decade to unify humanity under the banner of RidgeFort. Dion didn't know whether it is a single person that did it or many, info like that isn't for someone like him and yet almost every human on earth, even childrens know of their feat. Their rule was undeniable. They had done what no one else could—gathering the scattered remnants of humankind, forging the last great stronghold against the horrors outside.

But of course, unity was a lie.

The strong ruled. The weak scraped by.

Just like everything else.

Dion exhaled, closing his eyes.

The wind howled outside.

Night had fully arrived.

He held his sword close to his body, keeping it within easy reach in case something decided to invade his resting place.

Then, the noises started.

Distant, guttural roars.

His grip on the sword tightened.

Dread Spawn.

Even without seeing them, he knew what they were. He had heard these sounds before.

Not all Dread Spawn were the same. Some were mindless beasts, driven only by hunger. Others were cunning, intelligent enough to set traps of their own. And the worst of them? They were nightmares given form.

The weak, twisted ones—the Grimlings—were little more than deformed husks, scavengers that feasted on corpses. But above them, things only got worse.

Harrow. The mindless hunters. Fast, relentless.

Banes. Smarter than Harrows, predatory creatures that stalked humans specifically.

Hollows. Abominations that distorted reality itself.

Harbingers. Commanders of the lower ranks, leading them with eerie precision.

And then, the ones that spelled true catastrophe—

Dreadlords.

Nightmares that had no equal, appearing only when disaster was imminent.

And the Eclipses…

No one had ever seen one and lived to tell the tale.

Dion shivered. He had faced a Harrow once.

And lived.

No Hollowborn had ever survived an encounter with a Harrow. Not without help.

He laughed quietly to himself.

"Maybe I really am a cockroach…"

That was what people called him. A cockroach that refused to die.

His body ached at the memory of the last time he had seen a Harrow up close.

Even now, he wasn't sure how he had survived.

His eyelids grew heavy. The exhaustion of the day weighed on him, but he didn't let himself fully sleep.

Not yet.

Not until morning.

Not unless he wanted to wake up with a Harrow's claws buried in his chest.