1 Prologue

On a dark night, a group of men in bedraggled clothing ran through a grassy field. Some distance behind them, the tall grass swished as if something were moving through it at a high speed.

"Captain, we're not going to make it at this rate!" one of the exhausted men yelled.

"Even if only one of us makes it, we must keep running," the captain huffed.

The man in the lead was only doing slightly better than his companions. They had already discarded all of their heavy metal equipment and fled as fast as possible. Even so, only ten of them managed to reach this far out of his hundred man troop.

"Ah-"

Suddenly, one of the men tripped and fell, spraining his ankle in the process.

The captain stopped and threw the man over his back before running again. There were now many shifting trails in the tall grass behind the men and they were swiftly gaining ground.

"Captain you should've left me behind..."

'He's right, one of us has to make it back to the stronghold, and we won't make it at this rate! If we fail to deliver the warning, who knows what calamity humanity will face in the future!' the captain thought.

"Listen up, men! We all know there is only one way out of this situation. Swift, you will have to go on ahead without us... because you have the best chances of survival out of all of us."

Swift was by far the youngest member out of their party, being only 16 years old. He was only brought along to help carry the troops gear and had no combat experience. But, he did have incredible stamina, which he had displayed when transporting the heavy gear.

"Captain, you don't mean to-"

"Silence, boy! This is an order, don't let our deaths be in vain! We all knew this day would come eventually when we joined the militia..." As he said so he tossed a small pouch to the skinny young man, Swift.

"He's right lad... we're only slowing you down and we can't go on much longer. Better to turn around and fight while we still have the energy."

"Go on, kid. Let the older generation show you how real men face their death on two feet," another man chimed in.

Swift clutched the pouch and said, "I will avenge you all one day, believe me."

The grass beside the group of men began to rustle as the creatures slowly began to encircle the men.

"There's no more time, GO!"

"Men! Spread out and engage the enemy, we must break the encirclement!" the captain thundered.

Swift ducked his head and plowed through the tall grass before him. He couldn't see even three feet ahead of himself, but he had to trust that he was headed in the right direction and his comrades would hold the enemies back long enough for him to get by.

He heard the tearing sounds of flesh behind him and the pained roars of his friends as he ran onward.

Swift couldn't help but look back and the only thing he could see was blood flying through the air and the occasional swish of a large reptilian tail over the tall grass.

Several minutes later, Swift could hear the rustle of grass beside him again as the creatures closed in.

A cold sweat formed on his brow, and he had to dig deep to find the last dredges of his energy. His efforts were soon rewarded, the rustling grass beside him began to gradually recede and he realized the creatures were likely exhausted as well.

The human body was designed for long distance running and Swift couldn't help but thank the gods for their thoughtfulness.

______

An hour later, a guard was patrolling the wall of Fort Hinder when he noticed a dark object leave the forest.

"What is that?" he murmured while pulling out a small binocular.

"A boy? Wait, he is wearing one of the militia uniforms!" the guard was surprised because a militia troop had left to investigate several strange phenomenon at the border two days ago.

When the boy reached the gate the guards yelled, "Hold! What is your business in Fort Hinder at this late hour?"

But rather than reply, the boy directly fainted.

______

Some time later, Swift slowly opened his eyes.

He took note of the wooden ceiling and the faint glow of a fireplace to his right.

'I must've made it back to the stronghold...' he thought.

During the last segment of his run he had moved forward on autopilot, his body seemed to move on its own. Then the extreme exhaustion had finally caught up to him and he fainted.

*Creak*

Suddenly, the only door in the room was pushed open and a maid walked in with a bucket of water and some rags. But, when the maid saw that Swift was awake she quickly left the room and returned with a tall burly man who had a scowl on his face.

The burly man approached the bed Swift was lying on and said, "My name is Dalton Foreman, but you can just call me Commander Dalton, my guards are the ones who found you. Consider yourself lucky your heart didn't give out on you, boy. If you hadn't reached us when you did I'm afraid you wouldn't have made it."

Swift tried to sit up but found his body was sore all over from overexertion. Finally, the boy lowered his head and nodded.

"How long have I been unconscious?"

"Four days," Dalton replied.

"Now, I have an idea of what happened already, but I would like a first hand accounting from you."

As the man said so he held up a small pouch in his hand.

"Inside this pouch your commanding officer left a daily log of the troops journey to the border. Your mission was to investigate the strange lights seen descending from the clouds and the monsters reported to appear near those lights. So, tell me what happened to the others?"

"They... didn't make it... the only reason I survived was because they chose to sacrifice themselves so that I would have an opportunity to escape."

His voice quivered as he remembered their dying screams and how they didn't hesitate to face the enemy knowing their fate.

"The mission was going according to plan until we got to the shore and looked out at the Dark Continent. We decided to camp for the night near the shore and observe the continent to see if we could see the lights like the reports stated. However, we never expected that when the lights finally came an island would fall into the ocean causing a massive tide to strike the shore. The flooding alone caused half the troop to drown because of their heavy armor."

Swift took a deep breath and then continued,

"While we were trying to rescue any survivors, scaly monsters began to swim across the ocean from where the island fell, except the island had now completely disappeared below the waves."

He began to describe the monsters he had seen. The most threatening of the monsters appeared to be bipedal reptiles. They were about the size of a man when standing fully erect and could rival a horse in speed. They also had long tails, an elongated snout, and sharp teeth and claws.

"They slowly picked us off as we retreated from the flood... after a day and nights continuous travel there were only a handful of us left."

Swift's eyes started to become wet so Dalton decided to end the conversation here.

"It's alright son, your safe now. You did your comrades proud by returning alive, we have already notified the surrounding garrisons. Once the news has spread, counter measures will be taken to destroy this foreign enemy. You should get some rest."

Afterward, Dalton left the room and returned to his office to send out additional information on their new enemy. As he entered his study, he paused before a bookshelf. On the bookshelf was a dusty book. This book was common enough throughout the kingdom as it contained many entertaining myths and legends, but Dalton, as a well read man, felt that the book wasn't so simple.

No one knew where the book came from or who wrote it. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence in this era because reading wasn't a common skill and information was easily lost over time. The only information known about the book was its contents, which spoke about the creation of this world and the powerful beings responsible for it. At one time, the beings described in the book were viewed as gods, but gradually they had faded from memory. If the book spoke the truth, then his ancestors fell from the sky into this world several hundred years ago... which should be impossible.

It was no wonder few people believed the contents of the book were true.

Dalton grabbed the book and placed it on his desk. Then, he slowly read the title, "The Collectors."