The sky was the color of fresh, drying blood.
Lyra ran until the air in her lungs felt like liquid fire.
She burst through the twisting, suffocating canopy of an endless forest, branches tearing at her clothes and whipping across her face.
Below her, slick, gnarled roots burst from the earth like skeletal fingers, threatening to send her crashing down at any second.
Behind her, a tide was coming.
It was a living ocean of complete blackness, wide enough to swallow the horizon.
Millions of insects surged through the shattered trees.
There were beetles with jagged horns the size of wolves, centipedes stretching as long as locomotives, and winged terrors whose beating carapaces blotted out the crimson sun.
The deafening, synchronized *click-click-click* of countless mandibles vibrated through the soles of her feet.
It wasn’t a sound; it was a physical pressure.
‘Run.’ Her mind screamed the single syllable over and over.
‘Just run.’
She didn’t know why they were hunting her.
She didn’t know how she had gotten here.
She only knew, with a terrifying, certainty, that if that living carpet of chitin and hunger caught her, there wouldn’t even be bones left to bury.
Suddenly, the earth exploded ahead of her.
A giant golden mantis, its armored body gleaming like polished brass, crashed through the treeline.
With a terrifyingly casual flick of its blade-like arms, it sliced a massive, centuries-old oak clean in half.
The top half of the tree collapsed with a thunderous roar, blocking her path entirely.
Lyra skidded to a halt, her boots kicking up dark, ash-like soil.
“No…” her voice broke, dropping into a breathless whisper.
She spun around, but it was already too late.
The black swarm had looped around the clearing.
They were closing in from every single direction, forming a suffocating wall of clicking jaws and gleaming carapaces.
She was trapped.
Her knees trembled, losing their strength as ragged breaths racked her chest.
Tears of raw frustration and terror blurred her vision.
She pressed her back against the fallen oak, her small frame looking entirely insignificant against the nightmare surrounding her.
“Someone…” she choked out, her fingers digging into the rough bark.
“…please…”
Then, the clicking stopped.
An eerie, unnatural silence swallowed the crimson forest whole.
The sudden absence of sound was louder than the swarm had been.
Millions of glowing, blood-red eyes fixed onto her small figure all at once.
Slowly, impossibly, the massive golden mantis lowered its head until its mandibles brushed the dirt.
Behind it, the wolf-sized beetles folded their legs, and the giant centipedes coiled tightly against the earth.
Every single monster in the endless tide was bowing.
A deep, resonant voice echoed through the silence, vibrating not in the air, but directly inside the marrow of her bones.
It sounded like stone grinding against stone, ancient and heavy with a weight that could crush empires.
“…Greetings, my Queen.”
From the center of the kneeling sea of monsters, a single, ordinary black ant emerged.
It was no larger than a grain of rice, entirely devoid of the monstrous mutations around it.
It calmly climbed onto a cracked stone directly in front of her feet.
The exact moment its tiny golden eyes met her amber ones…..
“Miss! Hey, miss!”
Lyra’s eyes flew open with a sharp, ragged gasp.
She bolted upright, nearly slipping off the slick leather seat of the vehicle.
The elderly bus driver caught her eye in the rear-view mirror, his brow furrowed with mild concern.
“You alright back there? Looked like you were having a rough one.”
Lyra blinked rapidly, her hand instinctively flying to her chest.
Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She looked down at her clothes, then at the scratched metal floor of the city bus.
Morning sunlight, warm and familiar, filtered through the glass windows.
Outside, the streets of Silvercrest were completely alive, utterly removed from the crimson nightmare of her dream.
“…Just a dream,” she whispered, her voice still a bit raw.
She rubbed her throbbing temples, but the smell of ash and the echoing vibration of that ancient voice refused to completely fade.
It had felt entirely too real.
She looked out the window as the bus rattled along its route.
Silvercrest was putting on its grandest face today.
Towering skyscrapers of glass and steel stood alongside massive, ancient stone monuments dedicated to the legendary beast masters of old.
People packed the sidewalks, waving colorful banners, while enormous holographic screens floating between the buildings replayed high-definition highlights from previous awakening ceremonies.
Today wasn’t just a holiday.
For every sixteen-year-old in Aetheria, today was the day the dice were rolled.
The day their entire existence was given a tier.
“If I awaken a Thunder Wolf, my old man will finally stop looking through me like I’m a ghost!” a boy a few rows ahead boasted, slamming his fist into his palm.
“Please, a wolf?” a girl beside him scoffed.
“I heard a genuine Phoenix fragment manifested in the capital last year. That’s the kind of power that gets you a noble title before you even graduate.”
“Honestly, I don’t care what grade I get,” a third student chimed in, shivering slightly.
“As long as it isn’t some pathetic insect. Imagine awakening a pest. You might as well just drop out of society right then and there.”
A wave of cruel, careless laughter erupted through the bus.
Lyra looked down, her fingers tightly gripping the crisp, white official invitation resting in her lap: Grand Awakening Ceremony.
She wasn’t praying for a dragon, nor was she daydreaming about imperial glory or a seat in the high academies.
She just wanted a decent, stable beast soul—maybe a rare-tier herb gathering beast or a minor elemental affinity.
Something that would allow her to secure a comfortable job so she and her mother wouldn’t have to skip meals to afford rent in the Eastern District.
Nothing more.
The bus groaned to a halt at a crowded intersection, and another wave of students flooded inside, their voices loud and competitive.
Lyra quietly pulled her legs inward, making herself as small as possible against the window.
Right as the bus lurched forward again, a sharp tear tore through the chatter.
Welcome to Lyra and her Beasts journey, I hope you enjoy the story.