Chapter 1: The Day the World Lost Its Balance

Seventy–five years ago, the world ended without a warning.There was no prophecy, no divine message written across the sky. One ordinary morning, the balance that had quietly held humanity together simply broke. What followed was not an explosion, not a war, not a plague in the way history had known them.It was transformation.Nearly one–third of the world’s population changed.Their flesh withered. Their skin vanished. Muscles decayed as if time had leapt forward decades in seconds. What remained were moving skeletons—empty frames of bone standing where humans once had been. They did not scream. They did not cry. They did not speak.They simply stood.And then they began to move.The survivors gave them a name born from fear and confusion:Setam.Setam were not alive in any way humanity understood. They had no emotions, no language, no visible intelligence. Their skulls held no expression. Their hollow eye sockets stared at nothing—and yet, they moved with terrifying purpose.Inside their exposed spinal columns, a strange force pulsed. It was not light. It was not energy that could be measured by machines. But it was power. A deadly, unnatural power that did not belong to this world.Where Setam gathered, nature remained untouched.Where humans survived elsewhere, nature died.Forests collapsed into dust. Rivers dried into cracked scars across the land. Crops failed. Livestock perished. Within years, most of the world became desert—an endless grave of sand and hunger.Ironically, the only places where rivers still flowed… were within Setam territory.Humanity faced a cruel truth:To live, they had to enter hell.Communities formed around the borders of Setam regions. Every day became a calculated gamble. Small groups would enter the preserved lands—forests still breathing, water still pure—and steal what they could carry before the Setam found them.Many did not return.Over time, another change revealed itself.Those who had not transformed… were not entirely unchanged.Deep within their spinal cords, something dormant had awakened. A fragment of power—small, unstable, but real. It responded violently in the presence of Setam. Some discovered they could resist them. Some could fight them.From this discovery, a new role was born.They were called Destroyers.Young men and women, barely past childhood, were sent into Setam territory not as scavengers—but as weapons. They fought so others could eat. They died so villages could survive one more week.No one became a Destroyer expecting to grow old.The system that rose around them was cruel but efficient. The government claimed seventy percent of all resources brought back from Setam lands. In return, they provided training, weapons… and contracts.Because true power did not awaken on its own.To become a Destroyer of significance, one had to form a contract with something older than humanity itself.A Dragon.No one had seen where the Dragons came from. No one understood their origin. But through ritual and sacrifice, they implanted a “seed” of power into the spinal column of chosen candidates. That seed would merge with the individual’s natural strength.Some awakened minor abilities.Some died during the process.And some… became monsters in human form.The lifespan of a Destroyer was short. Two years. Three, if fortunate.After that, they were swallowed by battle.Yet, every year, sixteen–year–olds still stepped forward.Not because they were brave.But because hunger was worse than fear.In a quiet village near the border of preserved Setam territory, a boy was about to turn sixteen.He had worked in a weapon shop for years. He rarely spoke. He never laughed. He carried silence like armor.His name was Mustak.And though the world believed the age of miracles had ended seventy–five years ago…It was about to be proven wrong.