Grahilo definitely didn't expect this. He had just accepted himself as a person in another world. He just found out this guys memories. And his rewards: he was running!
He was running for his life with thousands of teenagers as Jiporugis were chasing him. Lysca was in front of him,running like a headless chicken.
Grahilo's pulse roared in his ears. Then came a low hiss—dry and rhythmic, like steam fed through broken pipes. But it wasn't mechanical. It was alive.
He looked back. Terrible mistake.
Figure's emerged from the shadows.
The Jiporugis.
They weren't human. Not anymore. Twisted by war, engineered or evolved—no one knew for sure—they were tall and lean, their limbs jointed in unnatural angles, like insect exoskeletons stretched over bone. Their skin shimmered in dull metallic hues—platinum gray, rusted bronze, and void-black—cracked in places to reveal pulsing veins of bioluminescence.
Their faces were hollowed masks of bone and alloy, mandibles twitching where mouths should be. Eyes? If they had any, they were buried deep in sockets that blinked with predatory light. Some crawled. Others skittered. All moved too fast to belong to the laws of nature.
The air thickened with them—hundreds, maybe more.
Their feet pounded over cracked stone and metal debris, toward the towering gates of Kirigaar—still sealed, still silent.
The first scream ripped through the dusk like a torn drumskin.
A Jiporugi lunged—jagged limbs slicing the air—cleaving one boy from shoulder to chest. His body twisted mid-run, spraying crimson arcs across the ground before crumpling. A girl reached out to grab him, but she was caught mid-step by another claw that crushed her spine with a sickening crack.
Grahilo didn't look back. He couldn't.
"Run!" Lysca shouted, grabbing his arm and weaving between fallen bodies and skittering beasts. "The gate—just keep running!"
The earth shook with monstrous footfalls. One of the creatures slammed its claws into the beetle's shell, tearing off a chunk of metal that spiraled into the air like a dying wing.
Another teen summoned a burst of flame, hurling it at the attackers—incinerating two—but a third impaled him before his body hit the ground.
Grahilo's lungs screamed. The scent of blood, metal, and ozone choked the air. He stumbled over a severed boot—no foot inside—then dodged as Lysca dragged him under a railing moments before a razor-sharp tail sliced through it like paper.
Dust whipped around Grahilo like a furious shroud, stinging his skin, clawing his throat. The gates of Kirigaar loomed just ahead—tall, silent, uncaring. Behind him, chaos reigned: Jiporugis tearing through bodies, teenagers screaming, some fighting, most fleeing.
But Grahilo stood still.
The glowing-eyed beast still watched him from afar. It hadn't struck. It hadn't moved. It just stared.
And something inside him snapped.
"Why?!" he roared, voice raw and shattering against the iron gate.
"Why is my life like this?!"
His scream tore through the air like lightning. "Why the war, the monsters, the pain?! I didn't choose this! I didn't ask to wake up in a walking metal insect with death hunting me down!"
The wind answered only with silence.
Lysca turned, eyes wide, but didn't stop him.
He screamed again, louder. "Why do they all have powers—and I have nothing?!"
The Jiporugi flickered. The symbol on its chest pulsed once.
Then twice.
The ground rumbled.
The gate cracked open—just wide enough.
A ripple of desperate energy surged through the survivors. Teenagers broke into a full sprint, stumbling over wreckage and bodies, clawing for a chance to escape the nightmare behind them. The Jiporugis screamed, their claws tearing at metal and stone, but the gate pulsed with protective current—enough to hold them back for now.
"Go! Go!" Lysca shouted, grabbing Grahilo's hand and dragging him forward.
They raced side by side, dodging limbs, ducking slashes, vaulting the fallen. The gate loomed closer—its opening glowing like salvation. Grahilo felt it, his breath tight, the warmth of Lysca's grip grounding him.
One by one, the teens made it through. Lysca turned, yanked him harder. "We're almost there!"
Then it happened.
The gate's mechanisms shrieked—a sound of grinding gears and angry steel. With terrifying speed, the split began to close.
"No—no, no, no!" Lysca cried. She shoved Grahilo forward.
But too late.
She slipped through the final inch with a gasp—
—and the gate slammed shut, inches from Grahilo's outstretched fingers.
He collided with it, palms flattened against cold iron. "LYSCA!" he screamed, pounding the metal.
Beyond the gate, her voice echoed faintly. "Grahilo—!"
But he was still outside.
And the gates of Kirigaar began to shift.
Just an inch.
Grahilo staggered back from the slammed gate, dust swirling around his feet. The chaos behind him had dimmed—Jiporugis still circling, but now watching. Waiting.
He raised both arms, waving wildly at the towering doors, his voice cracking.
"Uh—hello?! You forgot someone! Kinda important guy, slightly breathing, still alive out here!"
His voice echoed. Nothing.
Then, a static hiss crackled through a speaker embedded in the wall. A sharp, sterile voice rang out, colder than the metal gate itself:
"We don't allow Unawakened trash. Kirigaar is no sanctuary for the weak."
The words hit like a punch to the gut. Grahilo's blood boiled.
"Trash?! I fought! I survived! I bled like the rest of them!" he bellowed, fists slamming against the gate. "You think because I didn't throw lightning or bend earth that I'm useless?! OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR!"
His curses ricocheted across the courtyard, fury spilling out like magma. The gate remained unmoved, indifferent.
Behind him, the Jiporugis began to stir again.
Grahilo's fists slammed against the gate again, his voice now hoarse with desperation and fury.
"Fucking OPEN!" he roared, the words ripping out of him like broken glass. His scream echoed off the metal, off the broken land, off the watching monsters who now halted—not out of fear, but fascination.
The gate didn't budge.
His chest heaved, veins hot, tears stinging. "I'm not trash! I didn't crawl through fire to be shut out by cowards behind walls! I saved someone! I bled for this!"
Grahilo's voice cracked as he slammed both fists against the cold iron gate, his chest heaving, fury tangled with dread. The Jiporugis watched in stillness, claws twitching, fangs gleaming under the red haze of sunset.
"I don't want to die twice!" he screamed, louder than before—louder than the wind, louder than the silence from Kirigaar.
His knees nearly buckled, but he didn't stop. "I already lost everything once! My world, my name, my life! You ripped me out of it, dropped me here like a broken coin—and now you want me to fade again?!"
The gate remained unmoved.
Grahilo's breathing came in wild gasps. "I didn't transmigrate to be forgotten—I refuse to vanish."
Grahilo darted away from the gate, boots skidding over scorched stone, lungs burning with effort and rage. Behind him, the Jiporugis came alive again—no longer watching, but hunting. Talons clacked. Mandibles split open. The leader surged forward with terrifying speed.
He ran.
Through shattered columns and broken bodies, dodging claws that sliced the air beside him. The wind howled, thick with smoke and ash. He looked for cover—any scrap of metal, any dip in terrain—but the ground was barren, exposed.
Then he heard it.
Whip–crack!
A blur shot from the side, and before he could turn, a talon slammed into his shoulder, piercing flesh like buttered cloth. Grahilo gasped, a scream torn from his throat as his feet left the ground. Blood sprayed in an arc across the battlefield.
The Jiporugi had him.
With a shriek of triumph, the creature launched skyward, dragging him behind like a ragdoll caught in a predator's dive. Higher and higher, past the towers of Kirigaar, past the howling wind—until the entire land shrank beneath him, nothing but smears of red and rust.
He twisted in pain, reaching for the talon embedded in his shoulder, breath catching, blood trailing like ribbons.
Grahilo twisted mid-air, the pain in his shoulder screaming louder than the wind. The talon held him firm, dragging him upward like prey—but something inside him surged. Not power. Not magic. Will.
His fingers dug into the creature's joint, pushing past blood and torn fabric. He shouted through gritted teeth, muscles straining against the wind's fury.
"Let—go—of me!"
With a final roar, he slammed his free elbow into the talon's hinge—once, twice, a third time. The metal cracked. The creature shrieked.
And then—
He pried loose.
Air swallowed him instantly. His body flailed, weightless, bleeding, falling far, far from the claws that had claimed him.
The sky spun.
Scarragon waited below.
The wind howled around Grahilo like a living thing, tugging at his limbs as he tumbled from the sky, blood trailing in a ribbon behind him. Below, the dunes of Scarragon stretched vast and merciless—shifting waves of scorched sand waiting to swallow him whole.
Then—impact.
His body slammed into the sand with a thud that cracked through the silence. Dust exploded outward, bones jarred, breath stolen. The force drove him deep into the desert's skin, leaving a crater where he struck.
For a moment, his limbs twitched.
Then nothing.
His eyes rolled back. The world dimmed. And everything went black.