Far to the south, in the dense forests and shadowed jungles, the lands claimed by the Beastmen and their woodland kin, something stirs—unseen, unknown, undetected by the rest of the world.

The Nyshara Wilds, a realm untouched by the war of others, had never known silence.

The great southern forest pulsed with life, woven together in an unbroken harmony. The emerald canopy stretched endlessly, filtering the golden light of dawn through shifting leaves. The forest floor, thick with moss and wildflowers, trembled with the soft patter of paws, hooves, and talons moving through the undergrowth.

Life thrived here.

The insects hummed in a steady chorus, their wings flashing like shards of light against the deep green. The rivers whispered as they carved through ancient stone, feeding the land with cool, clear water. The deer drank without fear, their antlers gleaming with beads of moisture. Fox kits tumbled over each other in the grass, their high-pitched yips blending with the occasional caw of a bird overhead.

But there was one people who stood at the center of it all. The Lirakai. The Beastmen of the South, the Children of the Wilds.

They did not walk apart from the forest. They were its heart, its voice, its memory.

The village of the Trel'Kari stood among the trees, its dwellings shaped from woven vines, from stone and bark, from earth and river clay. No walls. No gates. They had never needed them. The Wilds had always protected them, and they, in turn, had protected the Wilds.

Smoke curled from cookfires as the morning began, the scent of roasting roots and freshly caught fish rising into the air. Tanned hides dried on thick wooden racks, while carved totems stood at the edges of the village, etched with sacred markings—prayers for balance, for harmony, for peace.

The Lirakai moved as one.

The horned ones, the mighty Harakir, stood tallest among them, their bodies strong as the great elk, their hooves firm against the earth. They were the elders, the protectors, the keepers of wisdom.

The swift ones, the Nyrekai, bore the forms of foxes and wildcats, their lean frames moving with effortless grace. Messengers. Hunters. Watchers of the shifting winds.

And then there were the Varesh, the wolfkin, whose voices were the first to rise in song each morning, their howls a greeting to the dawn. They were the guardians, the scouts, the warriors. And they were the first to sense it—the shift in the very air, a faltering breeze. It didn't stop. Not yet. But it hesitated, as if something was trying to push its way through.

The Harakir chieftain, standing at the center of the village, felt it beneath his hooves before he heard the first whispers of unease. He turned his great, antlered head toward the trees, his breath slowing. The Nyrekai huntresses, crouched on the thick branches above, suddenly stiffened, their tails flicking, their ears pinned back. One bared her fangs slightly, a growl dying in her throat.

The Varesh warriors, standing at the outer edge of the village, tensed, their fur bristling. Something was wrong. Something was coming.

The roots of the trees groaned. Not from the shifting of the wind. From something inside them. Beneath his hooves, the ground quivered—not the tremor of prey fleeing, but something deeper, more insidious. A wrongness slithered through the soil, pulsing like a heartbeat beneath the earth. The chieftain inhaled, slow and steady, but the weight pressing down on him was unnatural. Ancient. Rotten. His golden eyes flickered—not with wisdom, but with something rare. Something close to fear. but his voice, when it came, remained steady

"Gather the young."

The words should not have needed to be spoken. But the moment they left his mouth, the others moved. Without hesitation. Without question.

The Nyrekai hunters leapt from their perches, vanishing into the woven homes above to wake the children. The Varesh warriors took their places at the edges of the clearing, gripping spears tipped with flint, their breath even but their eyes sharp.

The Harakir elders bowed their heads, their fingers pressing against the sacred carvings in the wood. Their prayers did not feel heard. A pulse rolled through the earth Slow. Heavy. Hungry. Something beneath them shifted. The first crack split the air. A single tree shuddered.

A beetle, resting on its bark, froze, its tiny legs twitching—and then, without warning, fell. Dead. The roots recoiled. A leaf curled inward. Blackened. And then—ash. The chieftain turned.

"Run."

And at that moment, the Lirakai fled. A mother lifted her child, whispering prayers she knew would not be answered. An elder hesitated, his gnarled fingers brushing the carvings of a sacred totem—then he turned, leaving behind centuries of memory. They ran not as warriors, but as prey, their instincts screaming that this was something they could not fight.

From its perch high in the canopy, the crow had watched everything. It saw the deer, their great antlers cutting through the brush, their eyes wide with terror. It saw the foxes, their once-playful yips now shrill cries as they sprinted through the undergrowth. It saw the Lirakai their sacred totems abandoned, their youngest clutching desperately at the fur of their elders.

And then, it saw what they ran from. The first to change was a fawn. Too young. Too slow.

Its legs buckled as it fell mid-sprint. Its mother hesitated—just for a breath—but did not stop. Could not stop.

The fawn let out a cry, but its voice warped, turning into something wet, something ragged. Its flesh twitched.

The bones in its legs shattered—not from force, not from injury, but from something inside them, something forcing them to change. Its ribs snapped outward, stretching beneath its skin. Its jaw unhinged. Its wide, dark eyes boiled red. And then—it moved again. Not to stand. Not to flee. To hunt.

Nearby a deer screamed, its legs buckling, its eyes rolling white as something unseen poured into its veins, twisting its body beyond recognition.

The crow's talons tightened around the branch. Its wings twitched. It needed to fly, now, before— Then Pain. A deep, wrenching spike of all-consuming agony that dug into its bones and tore them apart.

Its talons clenched too tightly, sinking into the branch, carving into the bark as its muscles convulsed, tore, reknit themselves into something unnatural.

The air boiled in its lungs, the pressure building too fast, too much, like it would burst apart from the inside.

Then—the first crack. A splintering snap at the base of its beak.

It screeched—or tried to. The sound came out mangled, twisted into something wet and guttural, a sound no bird should ever make.

Its beak split, then widened, then kept widening, peeling back like a flower of raw, exposed flesh, revealing jagged rows of teeth where there should have been none.

Its wings snapped open—then shredded apart. Feathers falling like dead leaves, revealing slick, pulsing sinew.

Its veins blackened, dark tendrils spreading like fractures through glass.

The last thing it saw was a fox—it was small, defenseless, untouched. Wrong.

It should not escape.

The hunger came. Not slow. Not creeping. It was Instant. Overwhelming.

And in one violent burst, the creature that had once been a crow launched itself from the branch and struck.

Its grotesque wings beating the air with a frantic hunger. The wind screamed around it as it plunged downward, faster than it had ever flown before.

The fox turned—But it was too slow.

The creature slammed into it, its grotesque talons piercing deep.

The fox shrieked, its small body convulsing as the Blight spilled into it.

Its legs twisted, lengthened, snapped apart and reformed. Its fur fell away, patches peeling back to reveal slick, pulsing flesh. Its jaw unhinged, stretching far too wide, filled with too many teeth. It stopped screaming. It rose again. The thing that had once been a crow understood. It was not alone anymore. More creatures would flee. And soon, the Nyshara Wilds would belong only to them. The hunger called it forward. The deer were still running.. The creature spread its wings.

And then—It followed. It hunted.

And far beyond the Nyshara Wilds—behind towering mountain halls, beyond rivers that had once shaped empires, beneath skies untouched by war—

no other race knew what was coming.

Not the elves, who had sealed themselves behind their rivers of magic.

Not the dwarves, who had buried themselves deep beneath the stone.

Not the humans, who fought to survive in a world that had long forgotten them.

But soon— They would.