Chapter I – A Song Beneath the Ashes

“Din… Kaodin… Kaodin…”

A voice echoed in the dark — distant, stretched thin, as if slipping through water.

“Y-Yes… I’m here… I’m— huuhhh…”

He jolted awake with a gasp.

For a moment, he felt as if he’d plunged off a cliff — that sickening drop from a dream that yanks the world out from under you — yet when he touched his arms and legs, nothing hurt. No bruises. No scrapes. His body was whole.

He blinked slowly, trying to steady his breath.

He was lying beneath an enormous dried tree, its twisted branches clawing at a colorless sky. The soil around him resembled scorched earth, cracked and lifeless. This wasn’t his dojo. This wasn’t anywhere he knew.

“That voice… someone was calling me. But… from where?”

A low, wet gnarling rolled across the ruins.

“ngaaa… ngaaa…”

It crawled across his spine. Something was nearby.

Kaodin pushed himself up, but dizziness warped his vision — blurring everything into wavering shadows. Still, he managed to raise his back.

Then pain stabbed through his belly.

“Ugh… ahh—what is this…? It hurts… it hurts so much…”

He clutched his abdomen, expecting to find a wound.
Nothing.
No bruise, no cut, no swelling.
The skin was completely normal — but the pain burned like invisible fire.

More gnarling. Louder now.

Shapes stirred behind a collapsed wall — vaguely human silhouettes, hunched, twitching, smearing themselves against something on the ground. Feeding? Moving? He couldn’t tell.

He couldn’t understand.

Fear slithered through his ribs.

He wasn’t ready to fight anything like this.
He didn’t even know what “this” was.

Instinct — the one drilled into him since he was five, when he’d been ordained as a little novice monk — took over.

Endure pain.
Steady the breath.
Balance the heart.

He folded his legs into a cross-legged posture, hands resting atop each other, and closed his eyes.
But the moment his lashes met, the world didn’t fall silent.

It pressed closer.

“ngaaa… ngaaa…”

The sound crawled along the barricade, scraping the edges of his awareness.
His breath hitched — then he forced it steady.

Inhale…..
Exhale…..
Find the center, the balance….

Another gnarling, this one sharper, wet, like something dragging air through a torn throat.

His shoulders flinched before he caught himself.
Too loud.
Too noticeable.

He tried again.

Inhale — softer.
Exhale — quieter.

The world flickered around him, a distortion between outer terror and inner stillness. His senses wavered. One moment he felt himself sinking into the dark within his chest; the next, the chorus of gnarling surged again, scraping against the concrete, closer now.

He clenched his jaw, breath trembling despite him.
“Focus… focus… please…”

The pain in his belly pulsed like a molten knot.
But the rhythm of his breath finally began to sync with it — slow, steady, deliberate.

And then, for a fragile second—

Silence.

His presence thinned, dimming like a candle behind glass.
The world seemed to overlook him.

But the silence didn’t last.

A sudden thud — something hitting the barricade.
A dragging sound.
Feet? Hands?
He couldn’t tell.

His breath almost broke.
A tiny inhale too sharp — he froze.

If he breathed wrong, if he let even a sliver of fear escape, they would hear him.

He sank deeper, pulling everything inward.

Inhale…
Exhale…
Disappear…

The gnarling rose again — but this time not in hunger.
Confusion.

The silhouettes pressed closer, then slowed.
Sniffing.
Searching.
Failing.

His breath softened into a nearly invisible rhythm, and the unseen things drifted past the concrete barrier just meters away.

One second slower, one quiver more…
and they would have torn him apart.

Inside the darkness behind his closed eyes, something stirred — a faint circular glow swirling slowly in his lower abdomen. A fist-sized ring of red light, pulsing in rhythm with his breath.

What… is that?

Then memory surged — not gently, but like a wave crashing through his mind.

He remembered the marble hall — cold, quiet, peaceful.
He had snuck there after exhausting practice, lying against the cool floor to rest his aching back.

Just a short nap.

But he hadn’t woken up.

Not for hours.

Back then, he didn’t know the entire dojo had erupted into chaos.

“Din! Din, where are you!?”
“Check the storage room!”
“Look behind the old bags!”
“Has anyone checked the backyard farm!?”

Senior disciples sprinted across the training yard — some barefoot, some still half-wrapped from sparring. Hand-wraps, gloves, and towels were scattered everywhere from the frantic search.

Father moved from room to room with sharp, trembling steps, calling his son’s name in a voice that tried to stay firm but cracked under worry.

“Kong, check the back field!
Prayuth — you’re always with him. Did he say anything earlier?”

Prayuth swallowed hard.
“No, Master. I thought he’d come to ask for sparring like usual… but he was gone when I looked.”

Kong nodded nervously, confirming it.

Even the younger students ran beside the older ones, voices shaking:

“Din! Din! Where are you!?”

Outside the dojo gate, his mother questioned every passerby, desperation creeping into her tone.

“Have you seen Kaodin come out during lunch?”

“No, ma’am… is he missing?”

Her breath trembled as she replied,
“He disappeared during the lunch break. That’s not like him… he always lines up on time only after his senior disciples…”

The entire dojo — every disciple, every family member — scattered across the neighborhood.

The sun was dipping by then, painting the street with agitated faces of the entire dojo people.

Inside the dojo, Father pushed open doors with trembling hands.
Under his breath he whispered:

“Not like this… come on, Din… where have you gone off to …”

He slid open the old meditation hall door.

Silent.
Empty.

Except—

A small foot protruded from behind a wooden pillar.

Father’s heart stopped.

“Kaodin…?”

He rushed inside and found his son lying on the marble floor, asleep — peacefully, blissfully unaware of the chaos outside.

“Din! Din, wake up!”
He shook the boy firmly.
“Don’t sleep on marble — it drains your Qi, you’ll collapse!”

Kaodin blinked up groggily.

“Dad…? I was just resting… I’ll practice again soon…”

But when he tried to stand, his legs trembled violently — nearly giving out.
His arms were heavy, his fingers stiff.
His back ached as if he had been weighted down.

“I… I feel so tired… even worse than this morning…”
His voice was small, confused.

Father exhaled — half relief, half frustration.

“You’re burning your Qi, Din. Cold surfaces steal the heat inside your body — your internal circulation. Haven’t I told you never to sleep on the marble floor?”

Kaodin tilted his head. “Qi…? What’s Qi?”

Father crouched, steadying his voice.

“Qi isn’t magic, Din. It’s the heat inside your body — the strength that moves your breath and muscles. Everyone has it. The Chinese call it Qi Gong. In Thai, some call it lom pran. Different names, same meaning.”

Kaodin’s eyes widened.

“Internal power… like in Chinese dramas?”

Father pressed a hand to his forehead.
“Din… you’ll know what’s real when you feel it yourself. Today is proof. Now go get medicine from Mom, or you’ll catch a cold again tonight.”

Kaodin nodded, wobbling as he stood.

Outside, disciples rushed toward them.

“You found him!?”
“Where was he!?”
“Is he okay!?”

Father wrapped a firm arm around Kaodin’s shoulders.

“He’s safe. Just… careless.”

A long, collective sigh washed through the dojo — like a single exhale after a brutal sparring round.

The memory faded — and the red circle inside Kaodin brightened like a glowing ember.

His fatigue drained away.
His senses sharpened.
His breath deepened.

Qi — real, alive, and responding.

Then—

A flash.
A streak of rainbow light shot through the circle.

What was that!?

He tried to focus — but the flash vanished, leaving only the red glow behind.

Unknown to him, the rainbow light was the imprint of the cosmic rift.

His breath faltered—

And the creatures noticed.

Shuffling.
Dragging.
Breaths that sounded wrong, it sound as a dampen, inconsistent, and extremely rough for a normal human.

The earlier shapes began moving toward him again.
Slow at first.
Then faster.
Some on two legs.
Some dropping into an animalistic crawl, hands and feet pounding against the ground.

Kaodin’s eyes snapped open.

His pain was gone.

His fear, however, struck like lightning.

“I—I’m sorry! Where is this!? Can someone—anyone—help!?”

The silhouettes broke into a sprint.

He pushed himself up, legs still shaky but lighter than before — almost unnaturally so.
His senses pulsed with clarity, a rhythm echoing from the glowing circle within him.

Qi focused instinctively into his legs.
His body responded.

He ran.

Past the dried tree.
Past broken concrete.
Toward the only open space he could see — a battered barricade, still holding for now.

Behind him, the inhuman silhouettes shrieked and lunged closer.

His breath tore from his throat as he sprinted harder, driven by fear, instinct, and the faint, burning pulse of Qi inside him.

He didn’t know what these creatures were.
Or where he was.
Or why the world had become a nightmare.

He only knew one thing:

Run.

And somewhere ahead — far beyond the barricade, past the cracked asphalt and into the haze — Kaodin spotted a human figure.

A person.
Standing alone.

Hope flared in his chest so fast it hurt.

“Help! Please—help!”

He sprinted toward the silhouette, each stride fueled by terror. Behind him, the creatures shrieked and slammed into debris as they scrambled after him. The world blurred.

The terrain dipped deceptively, the dry soil turning soft — muddier with each step, until murky puddles reflected the colorless sky. Twisted mangrove-like roots knotted across the ground. The air smelled thick, swampy, metallic.

He didn’t notice any of that at first.

He just saw the figure — still standing.

“Help! Please—!”

That’s when he slowed.

The man stood in a shallow patch of swamp water, ankles half-buried in muck. His skin was pale, wet, smeared with earth. At this distance, the figure looked… wrong. The posture slumped. The neck bent at an angle too sharp to be natural.

But the man didn’t turn.
Didn’t answer.

The ground sucked at Kaodin’s feet, making him stumble as the mud thickened.

He blinked, squinting.
Something floated beside the man — rounded shapes, some half-submerged, some tangled in roots.

Bodies?
Clothes?
He couldn’t tell.

As, he ran slower.

The man’s shoulders began to tremble — not from cold.

From anticipation.

He lifted his head.

Kaodin froze.

At forty meters, he saw the smile.
A grotesque, stretched grin carved across the man’s face — jaw crooked, lips torn at the edges, teeth uneven and filed flat like tools. His eyes were wide, unblinking, shining with a hungry, childlike excitement.

And then Kaodin saw the rest.

Figures rose from the murky water around him — adults, children, all naked, their limbs twisted as though grown wrong. Their skin pale from sunlessness. Their eyes all reflecting the same hungry gleam.

A whole family.
Gathered in the swamp.
Smiling in unison.

As if he’d run straight into their front yard.

Kaodin stumbled backward, feet slipping in the mud.

“What… what are you…?”

The first figure took a step toward him, movements disjointed — like bones shifting under wet skin.
Then another moved.
Then another.

Their smiles didn’t change.

Their eyes didn’t blink.

Their bodies rose from the swamp like they’d been waiting beneath the surface for someone to wander in.

Behind Kaodin, the shrieks of the earlier creatures drew closer.

In front of him, the smiling family spread their arms wide — welcoming, inviting, hungry.

And Kaodin realized—
he hadn’t escaped one danger.

He had run straight into yet another……