The screen flickered once before stabilizing.
A crescent moon hung above a blue horizon, framed by steel scaffolds and orbital stations. A calm voice spoke over the broadcast—measured, rehearsed, optimistic.
"The United Planet Coalition officially announces the successful expansion of permanent lunar habitation. Civilian migration will begin in three months. Mars follows."
Cheers erupted somewhere offscreen.
The age of borders had ended quietly after the Genetic Shift. Nations realized too late that division was inefficient in a world where evolution itself had gone rogue. The United Nations dissolved into something larger, something planetary.
The United Planet.
Technology and shifters together had pushed humanity forward faster than any war ever could.
Someone turned the screen off.
The room went dark.
Metal footsteps echoed.
The Organization
They called themselves AXIOM VEIL.
A name chosen deliberately—because axioms were truths that did not require proof, and veils were meant to be pulled back.
They believed evolution was a mistake.
Not because it was dangerous—but because it was uncontrolled.
Genetic Shifts had introduced randomness into humanity's future. Power without design. Growth without intent.
AXIOM VEIL rejected that.
Their doctrine was simple:
Evolution should be engineered.
Not inherited.
Not random.
Not alive.
Most of their members were Artificial Shifters—humans with minor or dormant genetic shifts, augmented far beyond necessity with cybernetics, neural implants, synthetic organs, and weaponized exoskeletons.
They did not deny the Shift.
They enslaved it.
And they hunted those who embodied it too well.
A circular table illuminated as holograms sprang to life—crime scenes, blurry footage, medical scans.
One image froze.
A body on a stretcher.
Dead.
Then alive.
Still classified as Unawakened.
"Subject designation?" a distorted voice asked.
"Bor-Aegis," another replied. "Resurrected without manifesting a Shift."
"That's impossible."
"Yes," came the calm response. "Which makes him valuable."
AXIOM VEIL had experimented before. In the early days, they were reckless. Public. Inhuman.
Now they were invisible.
Embedded in corporations. In research institutions. In planetary infrastructure.
And they wanted Aegis—not to kill him.
To dissect the Living Law itself.
The First Law's Retaliation
When humanity began creating Artificial Shifts, the First Law reacted.
Not with punishment.
With expansion.
Evolution was no longer exclusive.
Plants adapted.
Animals ascended.
The planet itself awakened.
And Earth became dangerous.
Danger Zones of the Shifted World1. The Verdant Maw (Amazon Basin)
The rainforest no longer behaved like an ecosystem.
It hunted.
Plants moved. Vines constricted. Trees migrated. Entire biomes responded to intruders with coordinated hostility.
The Verdant Maw is the largest source of relics on Earth—and the deadliest.
Even Tier 7 Shifters avoid it.
2. The Eternal Gale (Sahara–Egyptian Expanse)
A sandstorm that never ends.
Gravity fluctuates. Time dilates. The sand itself restructures.
Cities swallowed whole.
People enter during calm windows.
Few return.
3. The Shattered Trench (Pacific Ocean)
An abyss where water pressure no longer obeys physics.
Gigantic lifeforms roam freely.
Entire islands have disappeared.
4. The Black Canopy (Congo Basin)
A forest where shadows persist independently of light.
Predators do not need bodies.
5. The Frozen Choir (Antarctica)
Glacial formations that emit harmonic frequencies capable of rewriting biological structures.
Listening too long causes mutation.
6. The Red Scar (Central Australia)
A massive tectonic fault where reality fractures intermittently.
Creatures emerge altered.
Some never stop changing.
7. The Skyfall Chain (Himalayas)
Floating landmasses orbit the peaks.
Air currents act like solid surfaces.
Gravity is optional.
Shifted Fauna — Evolution Without Restraint
Animals do not have tiers.
They have Stages.
Each stage represents survival escalation.
Stage II (Emergent Threats)Ironhide Boar — dermal plating that regenerates under fire
Whisper Owls — sonic perception capable of inducing vertigo
Pulse Frogs — bioelectric shock bursts on contact
Stage III (Territorial Predators)Glassfang Wolves — crystalline bone structures
Thermal Vipers — internal combustion venom
Abyssal Crocodiles — pressure-adaptive muscle mass
Stage IV (Apex Variants)Skystriders (Cheetahs) — air-walking velocity hunters
Pyro-Tusk Elephants — volcanic internal reactors
Tidebreak Sharks — adaptive scale-shields, island-level predators
Stage V (Regional Dominators)Verdant Kings (Jaguar Variant) — biome command organisms
Graveback Tortoises — walking fortresses, city-level mass
Stormwings — avian weather manipulators
Stage VI (Imperial Beasts)Ash Leviathans — continent-scale serpents
Crystal Matriarchs (Spiders) — relic-weaving predators
Deepmind Whales — gravity-warping songcasters
Stage VII (Myth-Class)Sun-Drakes — evolved reptilians with stellar metabolism
Night Sovereigns (Panthers) — shadow-dominion hunters
Colossi Ants — hive-minds capable of urban assimilation
Stage VIII–IX (Cataclysm Entities)Worldroot Titans — planet-binding organisms
Void Mantas — atmosphere-exiting predators
Chrono-Stags — localized time fracture beings
Stage X (Known Only by Name)The Verdant Emperor — ruler of the Amazon
The Drowned God — something beneath the Pacific
The Sky Serpent — last sighted circling the upper stratosphere
No confirmed kills.
Only retreats.
Back to Aegis
Before any of this—
Before the resurrection—
There was a highway.
A genetic shifter lost control.
Fire. Metal. Screaming.
His mother never made it out.
His father survived—but something inside him didn't.
Silence replaced warmth.
Grief replaced presence.
And Aegis learned early what it meant to be unprotected in a world where power decided everything.
Now—
AXIOM VEIL was watching.
The world was evolving.
And Aegis stood unknowingly between technology's rebellion and evolution's will.
The first hunt had begun.