Darkness stretched in every direction.

  It was a void without shape, without color, without sound.

  Grekh floated within this nothingness, his consciousness vague, trapped between reality and the unknown. He could feel his body, yet at the same time, he felt nothing. There was a sense of weight, but he had no idea where he was.

  Memories came in flashes.

  The blue flare.

  The screams of the humans.

  The burning pain within him.

  The scent of blood, iron, and ashes.

  The power.

  The destruction.

  Then, suddenly, the void shattered.

  The cold was the first thing he felt.

  It was sharp, sinking deep into his bones. A frigid wind blew over his skin, making his tense muscles contract involuntarily. His breath was short and uneven, each inhale a small struggle against the numbness creeping through his body. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were heavy, as if weighted down by stones.

  His body lay on the hard, uneven ground. The strong smell of wet earth mixed with the bittersweet odor of burnt wood filled his nostrils. Something metallic and bitter lingered in his mouth—blood.

  He tried to move.

  A weak groan escaped his throat as a throbbing pain coursed through his body. It felt as if every muscle had been twisted, crushed, and then left to rot. His chest felt like a block of stone, heavy and sore, and his head pounded as if he had been struck by a boulder.

  With effort, he opened his eyes.

  The sky above was a black canvas speckled with cold, indifferent stars. The moon hung high, shining pale over the shadows of the ruined trees. The air was thick with the dampness of the night, and a thin mist was beginning to spread across the ground, creeping like specters over the scattered corpses.

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  He blinked, feeling the weight of exhaustion pressing down on his body.

  Then, he realized.

  The silence still dominated everything.

  No sounds of insects, no rustling leaves in the wind. Not even the distant crackle of fire. Just a void of sound, an emptiness that amplified the feeling of isolation.

  Grekh forced himself to sit up, gritting his teeth against the effort. His entire body protested, and he nearly fell back, but he planted his hands on the cold ground and remained upright.

  That was when he saw it.

  The battlefield was a graveyard.

  The goblins' bodies were strewn across the ground, some still clutching their crude weapons, as if they had fought until the bitter end. Dried blood stained the earth, darkening the leaves and tree trunks. The stench was thick, suffocating—a mixture of burnt flesh and oxidized iron, hanging heavy in the air.

  The cave…

  He turned his head slowly toward the entrance of what had once been his home.

  Or at least, what was left of it.

  The ceiling had partially collapsed, massive rocks blocking the passage, and the fire that had burned inside had reduced everything to rubble.

  Ash covered the ground like dead snow.

  No one had survived.

  The weight of that reality struck Grekh like a punch to the gut.

  He stood, dizzy, his heart pounding inside his chest. His breath was uneven, and a bitter taste rose in his throat.

  He was alone.

  Completely alone.

  The tribe he had known since birth… was gone.

  The rough, mocking laughter of the older goblins. The grumbling of the children fighting over scraps of food. The warmth of the fire on cold nights, the feeling of belonging, even within the brutality of tribal life.

  All of it was gone.

  Grekh felt his chest tighten, but he couldn't tell if it was sadness, anger, or something worse.

  He walked toward the ruins of the cave, his feet dragging over the cold earth. Each step echoed in the silence of the night.

  He knelt near a pile of rocks and ran his hand over the scorched ground.

  There was nothing to bury.

  Nothing to remember.

  The only thing left was ash and death.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to take a deep breath. His body was still weak, but he knew he couldn't stay there.

  The humans could return.

  They could bring more warriors. More hunters.

  And he…

  He didn't know what he was.

  The blue fire still flickered in his mind.

  He looked at his own hands, trying to feel the energy that had erupted from him before. But now… nothing. No spark. No warmth.

  He didn't understand.

  Why had that happened?

  Why had he, a goblin, been able to wield something impossible for his kind?

  The question spun inside him, growing like a thorn lodged in his mind.

  But at that moment, the only thing that mattered was survival.

  He had no food. No weapons. No home.

  He needed to find shelter before the night became even crueler.

  Slowly, he stood, feeling a sharp pain in his side. Maybe a fractured rib. Maybe something worse. But it didn't matter. He was alive.

  And as strange as it felt, that seemed… wrong.

  He started walking, leaving behind the wreckage of what he had once called home.

  The forest closed in around him, its long shadows dancing under the moonlight. The cold bit into his skin, and every nocturnal sound made his ears twitch, alert.

  With each step, his mind kept trying to understand what had happened.

  The blue flame.

  The terror in the humans' eyes.

  The absolute silence after the destruction.

  He should be dead. He knew that.

  But for some reason, he was alive.

  And it wasn't just that.

  Something inside him had changed.

  His eyes turned toward the darkness of the forest.

  If his tribe no longer existed, then he had to move forward. But where?

  Goblins had no permanent homes. His tribe was all he had ever known. He couldn't simply join another group and expect to be accepted.

  Not after what had happened.

  Because deep down, he knew…

  He was no longer just an ordinary goblin.

  He had become something different.

  Something no one had ever seen before.

  And the world would not let him forget that.