Prologue: The Echo of the Epoch

Gwen was falling. It wasn’t a stumble or a slip; it was a deliberate surrender. He sank into a bottomless abyss, where light was refracted and darkness wasn’t an absence, but a solid, heavy presence. He landed on a solitary, jagged peak, so high that the stars above had long since died. Beneath his feet, the ground was a slab of black obsidian glass, reflecting only absolute solitude.

Then came the roar. It wasn't a sound, but a shockwave of antiquity, vibrating through his joints and ribs.

Before Gwen, space tore open. A colossal Griffin descended. It was the color of oxidized bronze and lightning. Its eyes were two chips of glacial emerald, and its wings, when folded, cast a shadow over Gwen’s entire meager world. This was the King of the Griffins, and Gwen knew the King saw straight through his skin, directly into his Sherwin soul.

The King lowered its head, a slow movement that carried the weight of millennia.

“O descendant of Sherwin,” its voice was a torrent of icy thought, ceaselessly reverberating inside Gwen’s mind, like curses carved deep into stone. “Since our two bloodlines first bound, we have never truly parted. The oath of blood remains a chain.”

Gwen swallowed hard. He couldn't move or speak.

“Every few decades that pass,” the Griffin King continued, a deep sorrow leaking into the resonance, “a Sherwin descendant shall be chosen by fate, tied by the Thread of Destiny, to bond with a Griffin. It is a necessary pairing to hold the line. And now, you are the chosen.”

It stepped closer. The scent radiating from it was sulfur and high atmosphere—the smell of dangerous power.

“Come to me, descendant of Sherwin. Seek the deep valley where my kin reside, and know the fate that awaits you. Your path has never been a personal excursion.”

The Griffin King’s claw reached out. It wasn't sharp like steel, but sharp like truth.

The tip of the claw touched the center of Gwen’s forehead.

There was no pain. Only an electric jolt of the past.

The entire memory of those who came before—all the Sherwin descendants and the Griffins they bonded with—slammed into his brain like an avalanche.

He saw: Proud warriors riding the birds, soaring through clouds torn apart by magic; coordinated strikes, one with a sword, one with talons, fighting together against the encroaching dark.

He saw: Tragedy. A Griffin falling, wings shattered, and its rider screaming in silent agony. He saw the awful sacrifice: young warriors using their last breath to heal their dying companions. Glory was drowned by loss. It was a burden of blood, passed down generation after generation.

Gwen screamed, his cry swallowed by the silence of the dream. The weight of every past war pressed down on his heart.

The Griffin King withdrew its claw. The memories faded.

"You have seen. Wake up, descendant of Sherwin. The game has just begun, and destiny has chosen its piece."

The dream shattered.

Gwen shot up in bed, gasping, as if he’d just swum through a frozen ocean. He gripped his head, trying to push back the horrifying images of war and loss.

He lay in the darkness of his room, but directly on his forehead, he felt a burning sensation, a divine, undeniable mark.

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