The sky had long forgotten what it meant to be blue. A thick veil of red smog hung over the city ruins, painting the world in dull shadows.
What was once a colorful city had turned into a concrete graveyard. Buildings, cracked in half and swallowed by vines, leaned like broken teeth.
Strange moss coated the streets, glowing faintly in the dark like warning signs left by nature itself.
This was life after the Fall.
No one knew exactly how it began. Some said it was a virus or mysterious meteor. Others said it was the Earth taking revenge. All that mattered now was survival.
Cities became forests of metal and rot. Plants mutated, alive, and actively attacking humans. Animals changed, insects became giants, and some herbivore turned into predators.
They were actively hunting human and even made their own new ecology to live in this ruined world.
Human civilization collapsed within a year. Governments tried to maintain control, but they were the first to collapse.
The only things that kept some people alive were scattered shelters, weaponized tech, and children born with something different in their blood, an EXOS gene that could bind and wild an artifact.
Like the ones from Eden Garden.
And that special child, Yoon Hayeon sprinted through a half-buried alleyway, her leg soaked in blood from a long gash.
She clutched her dagger tightly, the surface of its handle engraved with strange geometric lines. It was her artifact—an ordinary one—but stronger than any steel blade from the old world.
It was their weapon, a strange crystal that was found by the researcher from the old meteor that suddenly fell to earth a long time ago and now could also be found in the mutated animals and plants.
Not only as a weapon, but it could function in many ways that saved the human from being wiped out.
Behind her, Michael stumbled slightly but didn't stop. He carried another artifact in his arms, wrapped partially in protective cloth, though the golden glow still bled through the seams.
That artifact wasn't theirs. It was special and untested. Brought out from Eden Garden's hidden vault and entrusted to them to deliver to a lab in Zone-7.
It was supposed to be a secure route. A simple escort mission.
But everything had gone wrong.
Scavengers had ambushed them in the mid-zone ruins. Ruthless survivors dressed in patchwork gear, desperate enough to kill for food or tech.
They had shot without warning, and half their squad went down in seconds. Hayeon and Michael escaped only because of their training—and luck.
Their mission was already a failure, and now worse things were after them.
"We can hide there," Hayeon said, pointing at the collapsed subway tunnel ahead.
Michael nodded. "Let's move."
They slid behind a fallen train car and ducked low, catching their breath. Hayeon looked at the cube artifact in his arms.
The golden glow had grown stronger. It pulsed now like it had a heartbeat of its own.
"Still stable?" she asked.
"As stable as it's been. I don't think anyone actually knows what it does."
Of course, they didn't.
Everyone in Eden Garden—the orphanage they had grown up in—received an artifact when they turned ten.
Each one had a different shape, a different glow, and a different reaction when bonded. They were tools, weapons, and sometimes more.
But no artifact revealed its true ability until it accepted a host. Until it was bonded.
Suddenly, a sharp tremor rolled through the ground, and dust fell from above. A low, snarling sound followed like metal being crushed in slow motion.
Hayeon froze. "It followed us."
From the far end of the tunnel, something emerged—huge, hunched, and covered in wet, thorny vines. It moved like a beast but pulsed like a plant.
Its body was shaped like a boar's but with bark-like armor, tangled roots where fur should be, and eyes that glowed sickly green.
A mutation.
Not animal. Not plant. A perfect mix of both. A byproduct of the Fall—when the boundaries of life blurred and things began to evolve in ways that made no sense.
Michael stood, holding the golden artifact in one arm and drawing his own weapon—a short spear charged with static energy—from his belt.
His artifact glowed orange, a sign of decent rarity, and had saved them more than once.
Hayeon rose beside him. Her leg burned, but she gripped her dagger harder.
"If it gets that artifact, we're done," she said.
"Then let's make sure it doesn't."
The creature charged.
Michael met it first, slamming his spear into its side. Sparks flew. The monster shrieked, vines exploding outward like whips.
Hayeon dodged low and slashed at one of its back legs, managing to carve a gash into the soft root underneath the armor.
The beast twisted, sweeping a massive vine toward them like a tail. It hit Michael's side and sent him flying into a nearby pillar. He grunted, but he didn't let go of the golden artifact.
"Michael!"
Hayeon ran to him, but before she reached him, one of the beast's tendrils shot forward, aiming straight for her chest.
She tried to block—but she was too slow.
The impact knocked her to the ground. Her dagger flew from her hand. The vine coiled around her waist, lifting her off the ground.
She struggled, clawing at it, but it only tightened and finally shot to her chest, as she coughed in blood.
"Hayeon!!!" Michael screamed in panic as he tried to get rid of the vines with his spear.
But her wound was too deep, it was painful and she knew she wouldn't survive this.
"Michael... Listen, you need to run... Leave me and send that artifact!"
"No! I won't leave you here!"
But the artifact indeed made his movement slow as even now the boar tried to attack him.
"Continue our mission, comrade!" she coughed blood again, "This is our way... Eden way, remember..."
Michael's hands trembled, "Hayeon..."
She couldn't hold out the pain anymore, her eyes blurry, she knew she wouldn't survive this but Michael would.
"Just go... Promise me to survive."
Then something odd happened.
The artifact in Michael's hands glowed—brighter than ever before.
It pulsed once. Then continue again. Then a wave of light exploded outward.
The vines near it recoiled as Hayeon finally free from the veins, fell to the hard and cold ground.
Michael looked at the artifact in surprise, like it had burned him. It began to vibrate—shaking violently—and then flew out of his hands.
Straight toward Hayeon.
She caught it by instinct.
The moment her fingers wrapped around the golden shaft, the air changed.
Symbols lit up across its surface—symbols that hadn't been visible before. The glow intensified, spreading from the weapon into her arm, then across her chest. Her eyes widened. Her heart stopped for a beat.
[Sync Initiated]
[Compatibility: 93%]
[Bonding Complete]
The voice echoed inside her head.
She didn't understand it.
The golden artifact shifted in her hands—no longer a blunt weapon, but now forming sharp edges of pure golden light. Like the shape was adjusting to her. Responding to her will.
The beast let out a howl and lunged forward again.
This time, Hayeon reacted without thinking.
She slashed through the incoming vine—and it burned to ash on contact.
The golden weapon had accepted her.
She wasn't sure what it meant yet, or what it would do next. But the look in the creature's eyes changed. It hesitated.
Then the artifact pulsed again—and the world around her twisted.
The tunnel, the beast, the blood, Michael's voice calling her name—it all vanished in a flash of blinding white.
---
Somewhere else...
Hayeon's body hit cold, soft ground. Her breathing was heavy, her limbs aching. The sky above her was cracked like broken glass. Blue trees grew from red soil. The wind smelled sweet and wrong.
The golden artifact lay in her hand, still glowing.
A message floated before her eyes, written in light.
[Artifact Sync Complete]
[Displacement Triggered]
[Return Path: Unstable]
[Host Survival: Priority Locked]
She sat up, dazed.
Michael was gone. The beast was gone. The world she knew was gone.
She was alone.
But not empty-handed.