Prologue: "The Island That Should Not Exist"

The eastern sea of Kagetsu was calm the night it appeared.

No storms.

No tremors.

No celestial signs.

Just a sudden glow—

deep crimson, like blood spreading through clear water.

Fishermen were the first to see it.

A vast mass of land rose from the ocean, wrapped in scarlet mist, its trees glowing a faint red as though lit from within. Broken temple pillars jutted through the canopy, and strange shapes—neither animal nor human—moved in the haze.

By dawn, every witness had vanished.

Only their boats remained, drifting in perfect circles.

When the shogunate received the report, they sent a team of scholars and warriors to investigate.

Thirty men and women, the best in their fields.

Not a single one returned alive.

Instead… fragments drifted back.

A wooden box washed ashore containing one explorer—

but his body had turned to smooth stone, frozen with his mouth wide in a silent scream.

Another was found standing in the middle of the tide, half-submerged—

his flesh hardened to black crystal, his eyes glowing faint red.

The shogunate named the place Akairo Rakuen—

Crimson Eden.

A land touched by the divine… or cursed by it.

Rumors spread like wildfire:

“A paradise of immortality.”

“A gateway to the afterlife.”

“An island that eats the souls of men.”

The shogun, obsessed with the idea of eternal rule, demanded the truth.

But sending soldiers had already failed.

So he turned to the ones who had nothing left to lose:

Condemned criminals.

Murderers, traitors, forbidden monks, rogue ninja clans—

anyone whose death sentence already awaited.

If they ventured into Crimson Eden and returned with the Crimson Elixir,

their crimes would be forgiven.

If they failed…

their corpses would feed the island like all who came before.

To control them, each prisoner would be paired with an elite executioner—

a deadly shadow known as a Yamibito.

Bound together by chains of duty and death, this army of sinners was gathered beneath the shogunate’s blood-red banner.

And among them stood a man with crimson eyes and a calm, empty expression.

Akuma Ren.

The assassin once feared as The Crimson Ghost.

He knelt in silence as the executioners read the rules.

Ren showed no emotion, no fear—

only the slightest tightening of his fist.

Because deep in that cursed island,

beyond the red forests and stone-faced horrors…

Ren believed his younger brother still waited for him.

The drums of departure thundered.

The ships set sail.

And Crimson Eden, as if sensing new prey approaching,

let its crimson mist stretch a little farther across the sea—

like a hand reaching for its next meal.