Prologue: The Day the Sky Split Open
August 4th, 2040
Houston Police Department – Interrogation Room 3
It started with silence.
Too perfect. Too absolute.
Kael Mercer leaned forward, hands braced on the table, the suspect mid-sentence—
Then everything stopped.
The hum of the fluorescent lights. The buzz of the old ceiling fan. Even the air seemed to hold its breath. Then, like the flick of a divine switch, every electronic device in the precinct died. Lights popped. The glass of the one-way mirror cracked with a sound like a gunshot.
And then came the card.
It blinked into existence before him, floating in the air—black as space, glowing with alien glyphs that twisted like they were alive. Kael’s instincts screamed to draw his weapon, but his body froze.
The glyphs shifted, pulsed.
“Bound.”
The word wasn’t spoken. It invaded his mind—laced with power, finality, and something older than time.
Agony erupted in his right hand. The card slammed into his palm like a molten brand, fusing to his skin, his nerves, his soul. Kael collapsed, teeth gritted, body convulsing as the card carved itself into him.
And outside?
The sky screamed.
He stumbled into the hallway just as the heavens tore open.
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A crack—miles long—ripped through the sky like it had been shredded by a celestial blade. From that wound poured light and shadow, color and darkness, beauty and horror. And falling through it, like burning angels cast from a dying god’s throne—monsters.
They landed like meteors, some as tall as buildings, others the size of wolves. All wrong. All hungry.
Kael ran. Down the stairs, through the ruined precinct, out into the burning chaos of downtown Houston. Screams echoed across the skyline. Buildings collapsed. A fireball lit up the street as something massive slammed into a news van, tossing it like a toy.
Then he saw it.
The monster.
Eight feet tall. Chitinous. Twisted.
Dozens of unblinking eyes blinked in chaotic rhythm across its chest. Mandibles clicked. It dragged something wet behind it. Something human.
Kael raised his Glock.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Each shot rang like thunder in the empty streets. Each one hit center mass.
And did absolutely nothing.
The bullets flattened or ricocheted. The creature didn't even flinch. It smiled, or something like it—mouths inside mouths twitching, gurgling in a mockery of laughter.
Kael backed away, heart pounding, empty mag in hand. He knew death when it stared at him. He’d seen it in alleys, in morgues, in the eyes of killers.
But this wasn’t death.
This was something worse.
The monster lunged.
Kael screamed—and the card in his hand ignited.
Reality fractured.
The air pixelated, glitching as though the world had corrupted. Static screamed in his ears. Something crawled out of the space beside him—something broken. Something wrong.
A figure—a summon—but not like the others.
It shifted endlessly. A blur of limbs and shadows and jagged geometry. The system didn’t want it here. It shimmered with rejection, its form twitching in and out of existence.
It roared—and attacked.
The monster didn’t stand a chance. One swipe. Two. Gone. Carved apart like wet paper.
Kael dropped to his knees, shaking.
The summon turned to him. Its head twisted at unnatural angles, its voice a layered distortion.
“You shouldn’t exist.”
Then it vanished.
The world ended that day.
Electricity died. Governments fell. Satellites burned.
But something worse replaced it.
The System.
Every human was now bound to cards. Monsters dropped loot. Power came in tiers. And the most powerful drops?
Didn’t come from monsters.
They came from killing people.
Kael walks the ruins now. Searching for his family. Hunting monsters.
But the real predators are human.
And the system?
It whispers. Tempts. Corrupts.
Kael hasn’t broken.
Not yet.
But every step he takes… the line blurs.
And the only thing more dangerous than what fell from the sky—
—is what Earth has become.
