chapter 0 prologue

Caelan stood over the bodies of the fallen bandits, his gaze calm but distant. The metallic tang of blood lingered in the air, and his chest felt hollow, as if something inside him had fractured. For a moment, the adrenaline that had pushed him through the fight ebbed, leaving behind a gnawing emptiness.

He stared at the lifeless forms. Men who had once breathed, thought, and lived—extinguished by his own hands. A wave of nausea rose within him, but he fought it back. He had no choice. He couldn’t allow himself to falter now. Yet, even as he tried to reason with himself, a single thought lingered, cold and unrelenting: I’m changing.

Something inside him had shifted. He could feel it, like a piece of himself had broken off and been left behind with these men. The person he once was—the boy who had grown up in a safe, orderly world—felt so distant now. Back home, violence was just a story, a headline on the news or a scene in a movie. Here, in this brutal, unrelenting world, it was a part of life. A grim reality he couldn’t escape.

But this wasn’t like killing monsters or hunting for food. These were men. Human lives. And he had ended them.

He closed his eyes, letting out a shaky breath. The image of his family flashed before him—their warmth,their love, their laughter. They were his anchor, his reason for pushing forward. I have to survive. I have to get back to them.

And yet, the cost of survival weighed heavy on his soul. The values he had clung to back home, the morals that once defined him, were crumbling under the weight of this new reality. The line between right and wrong, predator and prey—it was all blurring. He couldn’t afford to hesitate or second-guess himself in this world. If he did, it would devour him.

But deep down, he feared he was losing something vital. The more he fought to survive, the more he felt himself becoming someone he didn’t recognize. Someone he wasn’t sure he wanted to be.

As he turned away from the bodies, the realization hit him with chilling clarity: this world was forging him into something new, hammering away at who he used to be. Whether that change would be for better or worse, he didn’t know. But one thing was certain—there was no going back.