The sky bled.Gray-red rain crashed against the streets hard enough to burst into crimson mist. Rust, rot, and blood choked the air until breathing itself felt filthy. Ren stood trembling beneath a collapsing bus stop while the world around him died screaming.A man was ripped apart midair by an unseen force descending from the heavens. Flesh and blood rained down across shattered cars. A little girl's skull burst open between one heartbeat and the next.Above the city, the sky split apart.A vast violet-black wound opened across the heavens, filled with burning stars that screamed like living things.Then the silver light came.And the city vanished.In another world, a forest village drowned beneath blood rain.A colossal black serpent Core Beast crawled through burning homes, crushing bodies beneath its scales. A dying boy lay half-buried in mud and blood after watching his parents torn apart before his eyes.Then Ren's soul fell through the dimensional fracture.It slammed into the boy's dying body.Agony tore through him like his spirit was being ripped into a thousand wet pieces."Welcome to your new hell."Before the serpent could finish the slaughter, golden light descended through the storm.Vark carved the Beast apart with brutal precision. Black blood flooded the mud. Torn flesh and shattered scales scattered across the corpses.He lifted the dying child onto his shoulder."I did not save you out of mercy," he muttered."I owed your father a debt."Far above them, a dark star pulsed hungrily in the endless sky.And from somewhere beyond the void, a whisper echoed."Balance..."
