D-Animal
Prologue — The Bleeding Seed
In the beginning, the world believed technology had reached its limit.
Then, blood proved otherwise.
They called it D-Animal — short for Digital-Animal — when the first hybrid creatures of code and instinct emerged. They were neither simple machines nor ordinary living beings. They were entities born of affinity, shaped by the invisible bond between a human and the essence of an ancestral race: wolves, owls, felines, reptiles, insects — creatures humanity carried within its genetic memory and collective unconscious.
The bond began with the D-Armilla.
A discreet bracelet, cold to the touch, designed to collect the user's blood and decipher what no psychological analysis had ever managed to uncover: which creature their soul resonated with. Upon first contact, the D-Armilla pierced the skin, absorbed microscopic drops of blood, and initiated genetic, emotional, and neural readings. When affinity was confirmed, a Digital Seed formed inside a small translucent capsule, directly connected to the user's wrist.
The seed did not sleep.
It fed.
Every heartbeat, every drop of blood offered, accelerated its growth. When the Seed finally sprouted, a Calutus D-Animal was born — fragile, unstable, but alive. It was the first step of a journey with no return.
The Ranking System was created to measure this evolution.
H — Students newly connected to the D-Armilla, before the D-Animal's birth.
G — The Baby D-Animal emerges from the Digital Seed.
F — Adolescent phase; the creature begins to display class, instincts, and a personality of its own.
E to C — Evolution driven by training, symbiosis, blood offerings, and survival in real combat zones.
B — Consolidated warriors. Rare, dangerous masters.
A, S, and SS — Legends. Living weapons. Almost myths.
Most people never surpassed Rank F. Few reached C. Possessing more than one D-Animal was already considered unlikely. Three was practically unheard of — something the system classified as a functional anomaly.
Elara Pack was that anomaly.
At twenty-five years old, her name echoed through military corridors, surveillance centers, and dead zones where no civilian dared to enter. A member of a special elimination and containment force, Elara was known by a single title that crossed borders and languages:
The sniper who never missed a shot.
Never.
Her heterochromatic eyes — the left gray, cold as polished steel; the right blue, deep as a sky before a storm — held no hesitation. Only calculation. Distance. Silence.
She possessed three active D-Animals, all in perfect synchrony with her mind.
The first was the Black Wolf, Stealth Class.
A shadow of metal and code, specialized in absolute camouflage, silent infiltration, and trace-less assassination. Where it passed, sensors failed. Where it stopped, the world forgot something had ever been there.
The second was the White Wolf, Spiritual Class.
Its presence distorted energy fields, neutralized digital corruption, and amplified the bond between Elara and her own emotions — something dangerous, yet essential. They said its eyes glowed like ancient runes when it entered combat.
The third… observed.
The Gray Owl, Surveillance Class.
Always above. Always awake. Capable of seeing through thermal fog, electromagnetic fields, and even fractures in digital space itself. It did not attack. It didn't need to. Its role was to see everything — and warn before it was too late.
Three creatures. Three distinct classes. One single master.
Elara was officially Rank B. Unofficially, many believed she had already surpassed that threshold, restrained only by protocols that didn't know how to classify her without causing institutional panic.
She was not merely a D-Master.
She was the balance point between human control and digital savagery.
That night, beneath an artificial sky illuminated by circuits projected onto the clouds, Elara adjusted her sniper rifle with the precision of someone who had done it thousands of times before. The wolves positioned themselves beside her — white on the left, black dissolving into shadow — while the owl landed silently behind her, eyes glowing with a muted violet light.
The city below pulsed. Data. Blood. Seeds yet to awaken.
Elara took a deep breath.
Somewhere in that world, new D-Armillas would be activated. New seeds would be born. Some would fail. Others would become monsters. Some… would change everything.
And without anyone realizing it yet, the system that governed the D-Animals was about to be tested.
Not by an error.
Not by a war.
But by something far more dangerous.
An exception.
And thus begins D-Animal.