The deeper Elias ventured into the starlit woods, the more the air changed. It began to smell of burnt sage and old parchment.
[WARNING: HIGH MANA DENSITY DETECTED]
Anomaly approaching.
Elias froze, his tufted ears swiveling 180 degrees. From behind a curtain of weeping willow branches, a figure emerged. It wasn't a monster.
It was a girl, perhaps no older than seventeen, dressed in a tattered cloak that seemed woven from moonlight. Her hair was a shock of snow-white, and she carried a staff topped with a cracked, pulsing crystal. She looked exhausted, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she stumbled toward the pond where Elias had first seen his reflection.
She collapsed by the water's edge, her staff rolling away.
"Just... a little further," she whispered, her voice trembling. She reached into a pouch at her waist, pulling out a small, jagged stone that glowed with a dark, suffocating purple light.
Elias watched from the shadows, his blue nebular eyes narrowing. The System began to ping frantically.
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
Subject: Lyra (Exiled Chronomancer)
Condition: Shadow Blight Poisoning (Critical)
Object: Void Heart Fragment (Dangerous Artifact)
Lyra groaned, the purple light from the stone beginning to creep up her arm like a web of bruised veins. She was dying not from a knife, like Elias had, but from a corruption far more ancient.
Elias felt a strange tug in his chest. Was it a lingering human empathy, or was the System nudging him toward a destiny?
He stepped out of the shadows. The silver-grey cat, glowing with a faint astral aura, walked calmly toward the dying girl.
Lyra looked up, her vision blurring. She saw a small, striped, and impossibly beautiful. But when she met his gaze, she gasped. Those eyes weren't the eyes of an animal. They were two infinite galaxies, swirling with a power that made her staff's crystal seem like a dim candle.
"A... Guardian?" she choked out, reaching a trembling hand toward him.
Elias didn't meow. Instead, he stepped onto her lap and placed a single, velvet paw directly onto the glowing purple stone.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: GALAXY CONSUMPTION (RANK 0)]
Targeting Void Corruption... Begin Digestion?
Yes, Elias thought.
A vortex of blue flames erupted from his paw, swirling around the girl and the stone. The forest lit up as if a star had fallen to earth.