CHAPTER ONE — THE RETURN
The shadow of the Aegis Wall always dictated the mood of District 7.
On days when the sun hung high, the colossal barrier of reinforced steel and carbon plating cast a kilometer-long line of shade across the sector, a stark, gray reminder of the world beyond. But beneath its silent silhouette, life stubbornly persisted.
It was a warm afternoon—the kind of peaceful day that almost made people forget they were living on borrowed time. The central square was alive with the easy hum of normalcy. Paved with polished granite and bordered by gleaming glass fronts, it looked like a postcard from an era before the sky shattered.
At the outdoor cafés, citizens sipped synthetic espresso beneath wide sunshades, while low, ambient music drifted from mounted sector speakers. Street vendors called out from their organized metal stalls, pitching local street food, cheap electronics, and daily ration supplements. Nearby, children laughed, darting between the streams of a decorative fountain while their parents watched from stone benches, their postures relaxed but their eyes occasionally drifting toward the horizon.
Behind the protection of the UDF fortress walls, people walked without urgency. They talked without lowering their voices. They lived as if tomorrow was guaranteed.
They were trying desperately to be normal in a dying world.
At least, they were.
Then the sirens tore the illusion apart.
---
The Incident
It was a warm afternoon, a peaceful day. The city square was broad and clean, paved with polished stone and bordered by modern buildings of glass and reinforced concrete. Cafés lined the streets, their outdoor seating filled with people sipping drinks beneath sunshades, quiet music playing from mounted speakers. Vendors shouted from organized stalls selling street food, electronics, and daily necessities, their voices blending easily into the hum of the city. Children laughed as they played near decorative fountains, watched casually by parents seated on benches nearby.
The towering walls in the distance loomed silent and unmoving, a constant reminder of why the city could afford such peace. Here, behind their protection, people walked without urgency, talked without lowering their voices, and lived as if tomorrow was guaranteed. They were trying to be normal in a dying world. At least, they were.
Then the sirens tore the illusion apart. Smartphones and large display screens across the district blinked red.
[EMERGENCY ALERT — ALL CIVILIANS]
[ BREACH DETECTED — IMMEDIATE EVACUATION REQUIRED]
[THREAT CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN]
[AWAKENED UNITS: PREPARE FOR CONTAINMENT OPERATIONS]
[UDF RESPONSE ETA: 10 MINUTES]
Panic detonated like gunpowder.
Stalls toppled in chaos.
Citizens screamed, scrambling for shelter.
Cars crashed into each other as people fought to escape.
The air grew still then it twisted—warp—folding inward like a fist closing. Ripples of heat and shadow spiraled into a single dark point. A pressure wave rolled across the square, rattling windows and snapping streetlamps.
Five people stood in front of the Rift seed about to bloom; they were Awakened humans.
"Form up," commanded a burly man at the front—calm, but carrying the edge of someone who'd buried too many friends0. It seems he is their commander.
His arms were suddenly engulfed in light. The radiance condensed into an obsidian gauntlet. He held it for a moment, then staring at the team, his skin taking on a grayish tone, as if his skin had become something other than human.
"No one…dies, that's an order." He said looking at their nervous faces.
The woman beside him gave a slight nod and did the same, summoning twin kukri blades that seemed to drink in the light. Her eyes glowed gold—beautiful, and terrifying, like she could see everything.
The Awakened next to her was covered in floating orbs of light. They coalesced into dark leather armor before he conjured a barrier that shimmered like liquid glass. The two Awakened behind them raised their prima-infused rifles calibrated for anti-Rift combat.
All of them drew their armor from their Astral sea.
The air grew denser.
Heavier.
Time seemed to pause.
Essence converged.
Then it exploded in a thunderclap.
A shockwave tore through the square. Glass blasted outward. Cars rolled and collided as the Rift ripped open, bleeding crimson light and hurricane-force winds.
The Awakened who had conjured the liquid-glass barrier stepped forward, reinforcing it and shielding the team from the shockwave.
Then something shifted inside. The two Awakens stand behind, raising prima-infused rifles took aim.
The Awakened braced—
But instead of a beast, a figure staggered through.
It was human.
---
A RIFT WALKER
He emerged like a ghost dragged from a dying world.
His armor was ancient—silver and gold etched with sigils that pulsed faintly beneath layers of blood that seemed to be drying up as if the armor was drinking the blood. A cracked visor. Gold light burned in his eyes. A longsword and a spear in hand, he leaned on his eerily long silver spear for support, his sword dragging behind him.
He took one step.
Another.
Then collapsed to his knees.
It seemed he was laughing—maniacally—and muttering something.
"I'm alive… I escaped that hell."
"I… think he's a Rift Walker!"
the Awakened holding up the barrier said with a surprised face then he let down the barrier.
"One… who just returned—"He added.
The Returned rift walker suddenly looked back. As if staring at an unseen enemy. Suddenly the Rift convulsed again.
This time, a nightmarish creature with tendrils crawled through the Rift covered in wounds and sword marks. Then it forced the remaining part of its body through the Rift, enlarging it. The mere sight of this hideous creature sent shivers down the Awakened team spines.
This creature was an eight-foot-tall faceless monstrosity, resembling a lion with no face. Its terrifying teeth capable of crushing a bone in seconds, its main was made of tendrils as thick as pillars. At the edges of each tendril were jagged spikes—eight in total. The pressure radiating from it was enough to paralyze the Awakened team with fear.
As if that weren't enough to turn the square into a graveyard, more beasts emerged from behind—about a dozen or so. Three mist wolves, each five feet tall; a pack of pale devourers; and others still, their shapes barely distinguishable in the growing darkness.
The Awakened hesitated.
Their faces show a collection of emotions. Disbelief, terror, hopelessness.
They weren't sure if they could even come out of this unscathed or better yet alive.
"We're not equipped for this," one of them whispered.
The strange part was that every single beast had no interest in them, staring at the same target—the returnee in full plated armor, who was kneeling and breathing heavily.
Lightning crackled around him.
His body twitched as if in pain for a moment—then he stood up, his body seemed energized again, he plunged his spear into the ground with ease, fingers clenched around his sword. Golden electricity snapped across his armor. He rose slowly looking at the beast, his reaction showing hints of disdain, he then crouched into a low stance pointing the tip of his sword at the faceless beast.
Then he chuckled dry.
Broken. Unhinged.
"No peace for me, I guess…"
"Let's get this over with before I become a dried up corpse…"
His grip tightened around the longsword.
The world seemed to stand still.
"You can scream if you want. It won't change the ending."
Then he vanished.
A thunderclap ripped through the square as the faceless beast's tendril hit the ground. The beast let out a guttural scream of pain and fury. The remaining tendrils trash around wildly.
Silence.
Shock.
Fear.
His movements couldn't be traced. He moved like a blur of light.
The Awakened commander stood in shock and couldn't help himself but exclaim.
"What in the.."
Each strike was abrupt.
Violent.
Terrifyingly precise.
The other beast lunged at him— He cleaved a pale devourer in two.
A flying horror—half serpent, half bat—dove from above—
He reappeared behind it and split its spine open mid-flight.
Lightning wrapped around his limbs like chains from another world.
"I WON'T DIE HERE ... .NOT TODAY!" he roared, the sound raw and primal—more confession than battle cry.
"We need to assist him!" the commander roared.
The Awakened with rifles moved first taking aim. They infused prima into their rifles, their breath slowed. A mist wolf was about to lunge at the armored returnee from the back. The first shot was fired. It didn't take it down but it stunned it for the second rifle user to take the kill.
The other Awakened joined the fight, but none dared get close. To the battle in the middle between the faceless beast and the armored warrior.
The woman wielding the kukris cut down a beast, then caught sight of the returned rift walker in full plate armor as he fought. He was strong—but not impossibly so. That much was clear.
What terrified her wasn't his strength.
It was how he fought.
He used his spear, his bare hands, his sword—anything that could be turned into a weapon. There was no hesitation. No restraint. Only survival sharpened into violence.
They fought beside him—
but not with him.
The five Awakened intercepted any beast that went for the armored warrior's back.
The faceless beast was bleeding all over after sustaining so many injuries.
The armored warrior wasn't any different; it felt like he was getting weaker the more time passed.
The faceless beast swiped its terrifying claw down but he dodged, the force of the claw hitting the ground causing cracks.
The armored warrior seemed to be gathering a huge amount of prima in a single point for a devastating blow.
Lightning pooled beneath his feet to his arms coalesting around his body.
"good night"
He struck with his longsword—
Moving at an incredible speed.
The beast stood still for a moment, its head hitting the ground.
Then everything fell still.
The warrior dropped to his knees.
Silver streams flickered—
Then died—
and he slumped against the ground as if his bones had finally remembered exhaustion.
"He's… a fiend…" someone whispered.
No one disagreed.
Aftermath
Three minutes later, military transports thundered into the blood-stained square. Drones whirred overhead. Medics approached cautiously, treating him like an unexploded bomb with a heartbeat.
They removed his helmet.
What they saw made them freeze.
His face.
"He's just a kid…" someone whispered.
The armored warrior barely looked nineteen, maybe twenty. Dark hair. A youthful, handsome face still untouched by age—completely at odds with the carnage he had unleashed.
They strapped him onto a reinforced stretcher.
Locked his sword and spear inside an energy containment case.
Scanned his armor with trembling hands.
They could hardly believe the results.
The armor was repairing itself—plates knitting together, fractures sealing as if the metal were alive.
A captain, his face carved by decades of war, stepped forward and demanded a report.
"Give me the report on what happened here"
A quick debriefing was done by the squad commander and his squad.
A flicker of shock crossed the captain's eyes.A newly returned Awakened shouldn't have been capable of this.
No newly returned rift walker was capable of this.
Not even close.
He looked at the dead beast and the battlefield. They were sword marks and dead beasts everywhere he looked.
A team of cleaners were loading up the bodies of the dead beasts. It didn't take them long to finish.
As the transport drove toward the capital, one thought followed every soldier:
What kind of rift creates something like him?
And what horrors had he survived…
to return at all?
End of Chapter.