What stood before my eyes defied all logic.

• The Colossal Benefactor

Absolute darkness. It was as if the world had run out of sky and ground.

The only visible thing was a hanging wooden bridge, old and twisted, held up by thick ropes vanishing into the blackness.

On the other side… nothing. The void seemed like a physical place.

I swallowed hard. Is this the secret exit? I thought, trying to convince myself.

I took the first step.

The bridge answered with a harsh screech, a groan of old wood echoing in the silence.

“What kind of emergency exit is this?” I muttered, just to not feel so alone.

The silence devoured me again. Or so I thought… until I heard breathing. A slow, deep, colossal exhalation.

I froze. I wanted to believe it was my head, my fear, my shattered nerves. I kept walking toward the end of the bridge, where the darkness seemed denser.

Then, the ground in front of me moved.

And my blood ran cold.

There, curled up like a house cat grown to the scale of a skyscraper, a colossus slept. Its fur, black as ink, pulsed with bluish flashes traveling down its back like living waves.

Adrenaline exploded in my chest.

I wanted to back away, to flee from that beast, but fate was cruel.

A rotten plank gave way under my heel.

CRACK!

The sound was a gunshot in the solitude of the void. I fell, my fingers miraculously clutching the edge of a beam.

The giant awoke.

Its waves of blue light accelerated, frantic. The creature turned. I saw my reflection in two azure eyes, ancient and terrible.

It was a feline. A monster. A god.

Its presence was a physical weight crushing me, even as I dangled there. Its fur contracted toward its face, gathering energy, and…

It sneezed.

A brutal gale hit the bridge, shaking it as if it were made of paper. I held on with teeth and nails, feeling my fingers bleed.

How powerful is this being?! He almost blew me away with a sneeze! I thought, terrified.

The titanic feline shook itself, lighting up completely in an ethereal blue, revealing its true majestic form.

“Aaahhhu…” it yawned. The sound was like boulders colliding in a cave. “Now I am awake.”

I remained paralyzed, clumsily climbing back onto the platform.

“It spoke?” I whispered. “A cat spoke?”

Its gaze, now sharp and piercing, locked onto me.

“Now I do. Tell me, who are you, human? How dare you interrupt my nap?”

“Uh… u-um… I am Asashi Kansaki.”

“Mmm… so you are Lucan’s son. He never told me he had a fifth,” it said with a tone of irritation and boredom.

“You know my father?” I asked, stunned.

“Of course I know him. There is no Kansaki I do not know. I have seen all your generations born, grow, and die,” it replied with regal pride.

“And who are you? He never told me about you.”

The feline arched its body in a bow that, despite its size, possessed impossible elegance.

“I am the benefactor of the Kansaki.”

“Benefactor…?”

“Wait. Before we continue: where is your father? He should be with you. I am not the one who should explain this.”

And then, reality hit me again. The image of the fire, the screams, the blood.

“My father… my mother… my brothers… they are all dead!” I screamed at the floor, unable to contain the tears that burst forth as if my soul had shattered. “The whole village! The Kansaki are gone!”

The giant fell into a sepulchral silence.

“What? Impossible. This location is secret. Lucan had enormous power, and your brothers…”

“It happened…” I said, wiping my face with rage. “The two clans of the Golden Triad found us. They united. They exterminated us.”

The feline stood up. Its illuminated body now looked like a mountain of contained fury.

“Then I shall introduce myself properly, boy. I am Mezfnir, the one who controls the spirits. I have protected your family for centuries. You guarded this place of energy, and I granted you control over spirits to strengthen you.”

“So that’s where their abilities came from? And the power of the other clans comes from beings like you?”

“Exactly. My siblings. Every powerful clan has pacts with one of them. And if you have reached this place… it means you are ready too.”

“And are they all like you?” I asked, imagining an army of giant cats.

Mezfnir let out a dry laugh, like the cracking of old branches.

“What? No, of course not. We are fifty siblings, and each one is different. We vary in shape, size, and ability. We come directly from the Creator himself, so ‘normal’ we are not.”

I stared at the colossus, assimilating his power, and an idea crossed my mind with desperation.

“Wait…” I said, voice trembling. “If you are so powerful… and you are one of them…”

I fell to my knees, pounding the ground helplessly.

“Why didn’t you defend us?! If you are a god, you could have crushed them! You could go now and kill them all!”

Mezfnir lowered his immense head. His azure eyes lost their shine for an instant, showing ancient sadness.

“I would love to, boy. Believe me, I wish I could go down there and tear them apart for what they did. But we have an unbreakable rule imposed by the Creator: we are not allowed to directly harm humans.”

I clenched my fists until my knuckles turned white. Pain and rage choked me.

“Then…” I whispered, looking up with burning eyes. “If you can’t do it… give the power to me. If you give me my spirit, I will take revenge.”

Mezfnir observed me long and deep, with palpable disappointment.

“Do you truly wish to cling to revenge, Asashi Kansaki?”

“I want them to see how stupid they were to leave me alive. I want them to know they are cowards. I want the world to know who they really are. If you call that revenge… then yes. It is the only thing I have left.”

Mezfnir sighed.

“I understand. But listen to my advice: never let anger control you. The second it does… it will be too late for you.”

The spirit advanced toward the center. His fur shone ferociously, light waves concentrating in his right claw like a miniature sun.

“Come here, boy, and listen. You do not choose the power. The spirit chooses you, based on your history, your pain, and your destiny. Prepare yourself.”

His claw touched my forehead.

The light swallowed me. And the world went dark.

• The World of the Spirit

I opened my eyes over a pool of still water, inside a palace of white marble, pure and infinite.

In front of me, a gigantic statue of a woman held golden scales.

I walked toward the center. The place emanated peace, a sense of paradise.

But when I reached her feet, the stone eyes of the statue ignited.

CRACK.

It fractured. Pale light leaked from the cracks. A piece of marble from the face fell to the floor with a dry thud… revealing a human skull underneath.

The statue collapsed onto its limbs and began to crawl toward me with unnatural speed, moving like a broken spider.

I stumbled back, falling on my back in terror. The skeletal face stopped inches from mine.

“Ahhhg… so you are the boy, eh?” the statue groaned, clicking its jaw.

“Who are you?!” I screamed.

“I saw what you want. I saw what they did to you. I saw your destiny. It is all… interesting.”

“Are you the spirit?”

“Exactly. I am Veritas, the Spirit of Judgment and Perfection.”

“Judgment and Perfection?”

“Cruelty is a defect. Cowardice is an imperfection. Like any poorly made work, your enemies have weak points crying out to be broken. I give you Judgment. Use my eyes to dismantle their work.”

“Wait, I don’t understand… what does it do exactly?”

“You will see. It will be more fun if you discover it yourself,” it mocked.

“Wait! I need more expla—!”

The marble world crumbled to pieces.

• The Return

I woke up with a start on the wooden floor.

Mezfnir was sitting in front of me, licking a paw with indifference.

“You’re back,” he said without looking at me. “And? I see in your aura that you got a peculiar one. That lunatic, Veritas.”

“Peculiar? It almost scared me to death! And it didn’t explain anything.”

“Typical. Veritas only appears when something amuses it. It seems it liked you. Anyway, if you want your revenge, you must leave.”

“How do I get out of here?”

“Through there,” he pointed to his own open jaws. “Enter my mouth.”

“What? No way in hell.”

“Boy, if I wanted to eat you, you’d be history already. Trust me.”

I had no choice. Mezfnir’s mouth was a portal of absolute darkness.

I entered, trembling. A voice resonated in my mind before everything disappeared: “You will come out far away. Do not die. I want you to tell me your stories when you finish.”

I swallowed hard.

“Thank you, Mezfnir… I will return.”

I walked. And I stepped into the void.

• The Lake of the Beginning

I advanced through a black corridor where time didn’t seem to exist. I couldn’t see my own hands, only felt the cold floor beneath my feet.

Little by little, a sound began to fill the void.

Water.

The sound was constant and soothing.

“A waterfall…” I thought, relieved. “It must be the exit to a forest, or a river.”

I quickened my pace, guided by the noise. The sound of water grew, becoming louder, closer. I imagined daylight at the end of the tunnel, fresh air.

But the sound changed.

It was no longer the soft patter of a waterfall. It turned into a deep roar, a vibration shaking the invisible floor of the corridor.

I stopped, confused. I saw no light of an exit.

And then I understood. The sound wasn’t coming from something falling. It was coming from ahead. It was coming at me.

The darkness before my eyes shattered when a solid wall of freezing water burst into the corridor.

It wasn’t a current; it was an impact.

The water, released with the pressure of immense depth, invaded the tunnel and hit me like a giant hammer. It wrapped around me violently, dragging me backward, spinning me, stealing my air and my balance.

The corridor disappeared. The floor disappeared.

The illusion broke, and only the cold, the crushing pressure, and total blackness remained. I was submerged in the middle of nowhere, not knowing which way was up or down, suffocated by a force I didn’t understand.

I kicked desperately, my lungs burning for oxygen.

Then I saw a faint glimmer. A distant light. I didn’t know what it was, but I swam toward it with the strength of panic.

I broke the surface gasping, coughing up water and air, expecting to see cave walls. But no.

I was floating in the center of an immense, crystal-clear lake. In the distance, on the shore, a small city lived its day-to-day life under the sun, with people walking and smoke rising from chimneys.

No one there knew that, seconds before, I was walking through the darkness of another world.

And I understood, shivering with cold and fear, that my journey had just begun.