The cave breathed a heavy silence as Aren spoke.Her voice did not tremble—but her hands did, just slightly, as if each word weighed more than the last.
"We weren't always prey," she began.
Elizabeth's head lifted at once, as though the phrase had struck something buried deep within her. Emily wrapped her arms around herself; the cave's echo made even the softest movement feel fragile.
"More than three hundred years ago," Aren continued, "humans were few—but united. We had small cities, ordered magic, hands capable of building and surviving together. While the demi-human races wandered in scattered tribes, we planned, we built, we endured as a species."
Kara tilted her head, intrigued. Dayana stopped idly turning her bow.
"Then the savannah roared."
Aren's hand clenched as she said it, as if she could still feel that ancestral tremor.A tidal surge of wild mana erupted from the heart of the continent—a primordial roar that split the earth and turned everything into chaos.
Emily took an unconscious step back, as though the vision itself pushed her.
"That mana transformed everything—except us. Herbivores gained monstrous strength. Carnivores gained impossible speed and senses. Some gained bipedal form, language, reason… and that was the birth of the first demi-humans. The dark elves saw their blood twist, their own magic bending against them."
Isabella pressed her lips together, uneasy. Adela remained silent, absorbing every word.
"Humans…" Aren exhaled, tired. "We didn't change. We stayed the same—small, fragile, unadapted to a world that had suddenly become monstrous."
Emily's hands tightened, remembering every moment she had felt small.
"The last human city fell in three days. Khar-Mereth."
Kara let out a low breath.
"The new races—more numerous, faster—tore territory from us piece by piece. Humans stopped being a people. We became resources. Useful prey. Valuable meat."
Her gaze lowered.
"And not just that. Something about us became… desirable. Maybe it was our fragility. Maybe an aura no one else has. Herbivores say eating humans gives them clarity. Carnivores see us as rich prey. Dark elves sacrifice us to calm their spirits. Even some humans sell others… for one more day of life."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes in disgust.Isabella muttered a curse.Dayana lowered her gaze—but her fingers brushed her arrows, like a silent vow.
"With time, we lost more than land," Aren continued. "We lost memory. Generations were born in caves, in broken camps, in wandering clans that could never stop moving. We forgot how to speak as we once did. How to write. How to create."
Adela swallowed. Emily looked away, unsettled by the idea of a past erased.
"To forget became survival."
Then Aren lifted her head. Her voice hardened.
"So the evolved races created a myth: 'If humans ever unite again, the mana will destroy them once more.'"
Kara's eyes widened slightly.Isabella let out a bitter breath.Elizabeth's hand tightened into a fist.
"A convenient lie," Aren said. "A way to keep us scattered. Afraid. Submissive. A way to make sure we never remember who we were."
She drew in a long breath.
"That's why we're hunted," she finished. "Not because we're weak… but because if we ever stood together again, we would be dangerous."
Silence fell—heavy as a burial cloth.
Emily swallowed.Isabella pressed her lips tight.Dayana held her bow with new resolve.Elizabeth tilted her head, thinking.Kara stood still, processing it all.
And Lusian…
Lusian did not move.
His golden eyes glowed in the darkness with a weight that did not belong to that place—or to that time.
When he spoke, his voice was low, steady, contained like distant thunder.
"Living in fear is worse than dying. And you've lived that way for far too long."
No one dared to argue.