​The air in the Outer District of the Bastion tasted like soot and desperation. Kaelen Thorne tightened the straps of his rusted scavenger gear, his knuckles white against the frayed leather. At twenty-one, his rank was a stagnant E-Rank, the lowest tier a Seeker could hold. He was a "Wall-Rat," tasked with picking through the rubble of old-world ruins while the higher-ranked Seekers took the glory—and the paychecks.

​"Keep your head down, Kaelen," Jax grunted, his massive shield clattered against his back. "The wind is shifting. I don’t like the smell coming from the Dead Zone."

​Beside them, Elara was checking the pressure valves on her Aero-Kinetic harness. She didn't look up, but her jaw was set tight. "The sensors have been twitching all morning. Command says it’s just tectonic interference from the Fractures, but Command hasn't been right about a tremor in a decade."

​Suddenly, the world went silent. It wasn't the silence of peace, but the vacuum of a held breath. Then, a sound like a mountain cracking in half tore through the atmosphere. The massive, five-hundred-foot stone wall of the Bastion—the barrier that had stood for a century—shuddered.

​A hand, fleshless and glowing with a sickly blue bioluminescence, gripped the top of the rampart. It was followed by a face that defied nature: skinless, with rows of serrated teeth and eyes that burned like dying stars. It was a Colossal-Class Goliath, a monster that shouldn't exist.

​With a deafening roar, the creature leaned its weight forward. The stone erupted in a rain of boulders, crushing the residential blocks below. Kaelen was thrown backward, his lungs screaming as the shockwave flattened the scavenger camp. Dust choked the sun, turning the afternoon into a grey tomb.

​Through the ringing in his ears, Kaelen saw his squad buried under the debris. He tried to move, but a jagged piece of rebar had pinned his thigh to the earth. Blood soaked into the dirt. Above him, the Goliath reached down, its fingers the size of cathedral pillars.

​Death is here, Kaelen thought, closing his eyes.

​But then, a sound vibrated not in his ears, but in his marrow.

​[THUMP. THUMP.]

​A translucent black screen flickered into existence before his fading vision.

​[Warning: Heart rate at critical levels.]

[Emergency Protocol: The Black Pulse is awakening.]

[Condition for Inheritance Met: "Stare into the Abyss until it blinks."]

​[Would you like to survive? Y/N]

​Kaelen’s fingers twitched. He reached out, his blood-slicked hand hovering over the 'Y'. "Yes," he gasped, his voice a jagged rasp.

​[Synchronization 0.01%... Loading the Monarch System.]

[First Quest Triggered: Survive the Fall of Gate Zero.]

​The air around Kaelen began to freeze. His shadow didn't just lengthen; it rose from the ground like boiling ink, wrapping around his wounds, knitting flesh to bone with agonizing, dark magic.

Then he woke up to find the Collus Golliath and said in a cold voice "time to hunt"