Coming of age + animals
On the night the Age of Myth came to an end, a little rat named Jin swallowed the falling Authority of Calamity.
Clawing his way out of the ashes of scorched earth, he struggled to survive while bearing three opposing divine powers: corrosion that caused mutations, calamity that brought plague, and eternal life that bestowed vitality.
The gods had fallen, demons and monsters ruled, and humans had become a resource to be kept in captivity.
Jin infiltrated the monsters' lair, learned their language, and played by their rules.
As the demon kings slaughtered one another for the shattered divine fragments, this inconspicuous rat demon quietly spun his web:
He used plague to weaken city walls, mutation to corrode armies, then sowed new spores of life across the ruins.
A thousand years later, the histories of two worlds tell different tales:
Humans revere him as the “Sage Who Saves from Calamity,” while demons fearfully call him the “Plague Emperor.”
And Jin curls up on a young woman's lap, watching the statue he quietly fashioned of himself against the sunset.
A hint of green spreads from his claw, and a dead bonsai sprouts anew.
“I told you,” he says, flicking his tail helplessly. “I'm just a rat who's rather good at ‘keeping things in balance.’”
