The morning sun had just risen.
The crimson sun shone upon a primeval forest teeming with life.
Deep within the ancient forest.
There was a village.
In this village, a burly man worked at a forge, his muscles knotted and his skin like cast bronze. A pair of thick, slightly curved ox horns crowned his head, and faint white mist puffed from his broad nostrils with each breath.
There were women with slender figures and lovely faces, fluffy, fiery-red tails swaying gently behind them, their shifting gazes carrying a touch of the fox race's innate allure.
There were children playing in a stream, cat ears atop their heads, their movements nimble and exceptionally agile.
There were elders with crane-white hair and youthful faces, pairs of gray-white wings folded behind their shoulders.
There were young women with antlers on their foreheads, carrying basins of water.
The village was quiet and peaceful.
But at this moment, deep in the village, toward the ancient forest.
An elder with crane-white hair had his brows tightly knitted, his gaze fixed on the depths of the ancient forest. The heavenly phenomenon yesterday had shaken their village greatly.
Deep in the ancient forest, a blazing sun seemed to have fallen. Even from an unknown number of miles away, they could feel the invisible pressure of its might.
Yesterday, through his reassurances and the pretext of going to investigate, the unrest in the village had subsided.
But he knew that something momentous must have happened deep within the ancient forest.
Something he could not lightly meddle with.
For as he ventured deeper, the closer he drew to the site of that phenomenon, the stronger the pressure he felt.
In the end, still an unknown distance away, he had been seized by terror, as though heaven were collapsing and