The moon stood at the center of the sky, casting its pale white light over the suffocating darkness of the night. A dilapidated church, once belonging to an ancient tribe, rested in the middle of a desolate graveyard. Tombstones were lined up everywhere, the dead lying in their comfortable coffins, deep in their eternal slumber. But… do the dead truly remain in their graves in this world?
Adam lay before one of the tombstones. He was awake, yet his mind was lost in thought…
"Is it possible… could it really be Mina? … Damn you, Adam, have you lost your mind? Mina is dead. You buried her with your own eyes—have you forgotten?"
At that moment, he realized something… something he had forgotten—and now remembered.
"She died in front of me… she died… in front of me!"
He adjusted his position, leaning his back against the tombstone as he stared at a towering gray tree with no leaves, standing at the center of the graves. The tombstones circled it in a precise formation—five rings of graves surrounding the dead tree, with about five meters of space separating them. He looked up at the moon… and remembered.
He remembered that night when he was just a nine-year-old boy. Back then, he used to water his mother's tomato garden, as he always did. Every member of the family had a role, and he had accepted his. That was when he heard it—the roar of an unknown beast tearing through the silence of the forest near the village. Fear gripped his heart, freezing him in place in the garden. But what drove him to leave and rush into the forest was the sound of his sister's scream…
Then… then what…?
He remembered nothing after that—only a patch of blood, torn pieces of his sister's clothes… and her shoe.
"Did I really forget something so important?!"
A tear of regret fell from Adam's eyes.
"How… how could I… how could I forget her… how could I forget Lina…"
He clenched his fist in anger and struck the grass beneath him.
"Do I even remember anything from my past life?"
The question struck him hard. Ever since that incident, his memories had been hazy—almost nonexistent.
Then a desperate thought crossed his mind for a brief moment. He truly wished it were real… yet feared that it might be, because it would mean so much.
"Is Lina still alive?"
He pressed his temple hard, feeling dizzy for a few seconds. Could she really be alive?
The question at that moment was: Do the dead remain in their graves?
And the answer was…
No.
In mere seconds, chaos began. Hands of the dead burst forth—hands clawing out from the depths of the earth… no, from the depths of hell itself. Their flesh was nearly rotted away, withered and decayed. Earthworms dangled from their faces and clothes, devouring them little by little. Adam sensed danger as the ground trembled beneath him.
"Damn it!"
He leapt quickly away from the grave beneath his feet as a massive ghoul burst out, growling. Adam fell onto his back, staring in horror at the scene before him—monsters emerging from wooden coffins buried two or three meters underground in a nightmarish manner.
"Bl… bl… blood… cu… curse… blood…"
The massive corpse before him, its head split open, croaked in a broken voice.
Adam got back on his feet, shouting, "I have to get out of this place!"
He tried to find any path to escape—but it was useless. The entire area was surrounded by corpses from every direction. He paused for a moment… a moment that stretched long… and saw himself speaking to him.
"Wasn't this what you wanted? To waste your life among these dead… to become one of them? Then why run now?"
"I don't really know…" he replied with a bitter smile.
"Didn't you want to die? All you ever wanted was to be with your family."
"Do you truly want that? Or do you simply refuse to believe?"
"Believe what?"
"That your sister is dead… or perhaps you simply don't remember."
He looked at him, and as the figure began to fade—pushing Adam back to reality—it said:
"Choose for yourself… will you embrace death and go to your family, even though you're not even sure they're dead…"
Tears of confusion and helplessness streamed from his blue eyes.
"…or will you choose to live and gamble on the impossible?"
Adam wiped his tears, gripping his shirt tightly.
"I'll gamble."
His double smiled as it faded away, and Adam continued:
"I'll gamble on life… once again!"
He steeled his resolve, pushing away thoughts of death and surrender—for now.
"And now… I need to get out of this filthy graveyard."
'Most likely, that split-headed corpse is the one causing me trouble… I should stay as far away from it as possible and carve my way through the weaker, collapsing bodies.'
As he passed by the tree, he noticed a short-handled shovel lying nearby. He rushed to grab it, gripping the old wood eagerly.
"Still in good condition."
Two letters were carved into its handle: (A V). He hoisted it onto his shoulder as he ran.
"This should do the job, I think."
He sprinted across the muddy ground, swinging the shovel left and right, carving a path through the scattered corpses along the way…
And in the distance, Adam saw it—a grand, timeworn church looming on the horizon.
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"We must remain silent until the sun rises if we wish to survive."
An old man in his early fifties stood by one of the windows of an ancient monastery. Inside, a group of the cursed sat waiting among the church benches. For some reason, six hours earlier, corpses had begun emerging from their graves in the earth. Some of their companions had died at the hands of those rotten beings. After escaping from the grip of the foul dead, they had taken refuge within this old monastery.
"How long, old man Hoggz?" came a rough voice from an even rougher man.
He was nearly two meters tall, with night-black hair streaked with strands of silver like moonlight, sharp wine-colored eyes, and a sleeveless coat lined with white fur resembling that of wolves.
"The garments within this circle are memories written in blood… and each takes its role in history until the circle is complete—like a play."
"Balder, just listen…" Hoggz said. "Those corpses are nocturnal creatures. They'll be dormant during the day, giving us a chance to move, leave this cursed graveyard, and head toward the Iron City."
He looked up toward a balcony and called out:
"What's the situation up there, Charlotte?"
She appeared, wearing a brown cloak and leather attire, her emerging golden hair hidden beneath it. She lowered the small telescope from her eye and said:
"I don't think things look promising, Hoggz."
"I told you… we should move now."
"If we try to move as a group during the night… only a few will survive."
"And that's exactly what I want," Balder said as he moved to leave.
"What do you mean?"
He turned back, shouting in Hoggz's face:
"I mean we need to lighten the load on our backs a little."
Everyone looked at Balder with disgust and contempt. He continued:
"Why all these hateful looks? We're not a family, nor are we bound by blood. Why should I protect weak trash like you? The only ones that matter to me are the useful ones—Hoggz the seer, Charlotte… and our gallant knight, Percival."
Hoggz glanced at him from the corner of his green eye and said:
"If you abandon them, I won't guide you to your goal."
Balder's crimson eyes gleamed like a beast in the darkness. Moonlight reflected off his sharp teeth, his veins nearly bursting. He approached Hoggz with slow, heavy steps—so heavy that each footstep seemed to carve into the floor—until he stood directly before him, smiling indifferently at the piercing stares directed at him.
"When Percival returns, the four of us will decide the fate of this group," Charlotte said as she watched the city walls from above the monastery.
"Fine… you have until Percival returns to think, old man," Balder said before turning and disappearing into the veil of shadows.
"That will suffice…" Hoggz muttered, scratching his white beard. Then he looked at the moon, silently hoping this crisis wouldn't end with them killing one another.
Above, Charlotte felt something strange. Her gaze was fixed on the old church in the middle of the graveyard, as if something was pulling her attention toward it. Hoggz noticed.
"Is something wrong, Charlotte?" he asked.
"No… nothing, Hoggz… nothing," she replied, forcing herself to look away.
Meanwhile, beneath the faint moonlight, blood-stained, decayed hands pushed open the iron gates of the church, engraved with the image of two angels.
Adam stood there, staring at the church… and somehow, it felt as if it was staring back at him.
For reasons unknown, his gaze drifted toward one of the crumbling buildings scattered around the church at some distance—it was an old monastery, just as ruined as this place.
Behind him, hordes of corpses surged forward, rushing to tear him apart.
He slammed the gate shut and secured the heavy iron bolt. He wasn't concerned about its strength—the strongest among those corpses could be put down with two or three of his blows.
He collapsed onto the ground in pain, trying to catch his breath. He had run all the way from the dead tree where he first appeared to the gates of this church. Forcing himself up, he began walking again toward the church door, passing by withered plants and dead gardens along the inner courtyard.
Step by step, the distance closed until he finally reached the door. Exhausted from fighting and resisting the ferocious corpses, he thought of taking a moment's rest—but…
He opened the door just enough to slip inside, then shut it behind him. Taking a seat, he stared ahead. The moon was white as usual… but suddenly, he felt a terrifying presence.
Eyes glowing from every direction. The mournful howls of wolves echoed. He clutched his ears, trying to block it out—his head felt like it would explode.
The moon turned blood-red.
Its crimson light fell upon the body of a massive man—silver-white hair, blue eyes, and the head of a wolf, with fangs as sharp as honed daggers. A towering werewolf, nearly three meters tall.
Then he heard the voices of the drifting black shadows around him as they took the form of ten massive figures surrounding him…
"The White Goliath…"
He spat at their feet, laughing bitterly. The one standing at their center opened a large scroll and declared:
"By the authority of the Supreme Council of the Nine Ruling Clans, with the approval of its members and the confirmation of all charges against you, and by the power vested in me…"
"White Goliath… we sentence you to death!"