Day 35 — Evening
The moment Yuren laid his hand on the core, it wasn't electricity or visions he felt.
It was weight.
Like something had been holding its breath for a long time… and finally exhaled.
The air in the chamber turned hot. Not temperature—pressure.
He felt it behind his eyes. In his chest.
Then the walls around them shuddered.
Just once.
A long, deep vibration, like the earth clearing its throat.
Reika's voice cut through the thick air. "Yuren—move."
But he didn't. Not right away.
Because something below them moved first.
The floor beneath the core dipped.
A hiss of escaping air.
Then something knocked—a soft, hollow thud—from beneath the platform.
Not a system.
Not a message.
Just a presence. Something large. Something alive.
Yuren stepped back.
The light inside the ring dimmed, then vanished altogether. Like a fuse blown, or a door forced partway open, then shut again.
He turned to Reika.
"We need to go."
"Already moving," she said.
At Camp
It hit like thunder.
No lightning. No storm. Just a blast of wind and pressure that knocked over tents and cracked the northern firepit.
People screamed.
Mason fell on his side. Chloe stood up so fast her chair flew backward.
A distant roar echoed through the jungle.
Not human. Not animal. Not close.
But coming.
And then through the smoke—
Kaela returned.
Alone.
Her sleeves were ripped. Her jaw bruised. Her boots were caked in something dark and sticky.
And in her hand:
A severed human hand.
Burned black. Curled tight like it had died gripping something.
She tossed it into the dirt at Chloe's feet.
"This," Kaela said, "was the last person who tried to follow me."
Nobody moved.
Denzel swallowed hard.
Chloe stood in silence.
Reika and Yuren arrived seconds later, just in time to see the hand hit the ground.
Yuren scanned Kaela's face.
No pride. No anger. Just a calm kind of exhaustion.
Like she'd done a chore. Like she was tired of explaining herself.
"You killed him?" Chloe asked. Her voice didn't shake.
Kaela nodded. "He thought I was bluffing."
"And Lyra?"
Kaela shrugged. "Still breathing. For now."
That night, no one slept.
People whispered around the low-burning fire.
Some packed bags.
Some checked weapons twice.
Some just stared out into the trees, like they expected something to come crawling through the shadows and finish what Kaela started.
Yuren sat alone at the far edge of camp, his glyph in his lap, covered with the cloth again.
But he could still feel it pulsing.
Like it was waiting for him to do something.
Or worse—
Like it was trying to decide if he was still in control.
Day 36 — Early Morning
The sky turned red at the edges before the sound reached them.
A slow, distant cracking.
Like wood splitting.
Like trees falling.
Then came the deep, drawn-out rumble—steady, heavy, unnatural.
Something was moving.
And it was big.
Chloe climbed the watch rise.
She scanned the horizon. No shapes. No dust trail. Just wind moving faster than it should, and birds flying away from the east in thick, frantic clouds.
"It's not a beast," she muttered.
Mason stood below with the binoculars. "You sure?"
"No footsteps. No breathing. Just… pressure."
Yuren already knew what was coming.
He felt it.
His glyph hadn't stopped pulsing since last night.
He paced just beyond the perimeter, scanning trees with Trace Sense—movement trails flickering in pulses across his vision.
Everything was running from one thing.
Even the apex predators.
When it came into view, the air dropped five degrees.
First came the mist.
Then the shadow—thick as a building.
Then the head.
Long. Jawless. Covered in pale skin stretched too tight over bone.
It had no eyes. No nostrils. Just one long slit across its chest that seemed to breathe in and out like a second mouth.
Six legs. Broad shoulders. Massive weight distribution.
And at its center—
Something glowing inside its ribs.
Chloe shouted. "Hold formation!"
Archers on the ridge lined up. Reika flanked right. Denzel stood still for once.
Kaela was gone again.
And the beast charged.
Straight for the wall.
It moved faster than it should've. Yuren saw it in slow motion—those six legs sprinting like pistons, leaving trenches in the dirt.
The camp's eastern wall wasn't going to hold.
There were still twenty people inside. No time to evacuate.
No time to hesitate.
Yuren moved.
He ran straight to the front. Between the wall and the beast.
Someone screamed, "Yuren, get the hell back!"
He didn't stop.
Instead, he planted his feet, clenched his fists—and pulled everything inside him up at once.
Titan Grip.
Telekinesis.
Not one, not the other.
Both.
He reached out.
Grabbed the charging beast with his mind—locked onto its neck, ribs, and one front leg.
Then braced.
Its momentum hit him like a truck.
But his arms held.
And so did the invisible force pushing back with him.
He didn't just try to stop it—he redirected it, crushed it against his own counter-force.
The beast skidded.
Its massive claws dug into the earth.
The whole camp shook from the force.
But it stopped—just two meters from the wall.
Panting.
Snarling.
Stunned.
Then Yuren roared.
He stepped forward, lifted his right arm, and brought it down like a hammer.
With it came a burst of psychic force—telekinesis compressed into one focused strike.
It hit the beast's chest—
—and caved in its sternum.
Silence.
The thing collapsed sideways.
Dead.
Instant.
People stared.
No one moved.
Even Denzel looked… smaller now.
Chloe stepped forward. "That's new."
Yuren didn't smile.
"Didn't plan on hiding it forever."
She nodded once.
"Good. Because we're going to need all of it."
Later that day, Yuren stood alone near the corpse.
Reika joined him.
"You could've told me," she said.
"I needed practice."
"You're getting it."
He nodded.
Then knelt.
Reached into the beast's crushed chest cavity—and pulled out something faintly glowing wedged between two ribs.
Not bone.
Not tech.
A fragment of glass.
Cracked. Etched with the same faint glyph markings.
He held it to the light.
It glimmered red.
And in his mind, he already saw the next idea forming—
Glassshot + Telekinesis
Turn it to dust.
Turn that dust into airborne knives.
Day 36 — Late Afternoon
The beast's corpse hadn't cooled yet.
Reika stood beside Yuren, both of them staring at the glass fragment he pulled from the ribs.
It wasn't just a remnant.
It was a map.
Reika traced the etchings. "These aren't symbols."
"No," Yuren said. "They're coordinates."
He turned it over in his palm.
The back shimmered when light hit it. A curved edge marked with a familiar flame shape.
The same sigil from his glyph.
Except now it wasn't alone.
There were three sigils.
Side by side.
One glowing. One dim. One… blinking.
They brought it to Chloe that night.
She didn't argue. She was tired of guessing games.
"We follow it," she said.
"And if it's a trap?" Mason asked.
Yuren answered. "Then we fight our way out."
Meanwhile — Far East
Kaela watched Lyra sleep.
They'd set up near the edge of the ruin trail, close enough to feel the ground thrum every few hours.
Kaela hadn't slept in three days.
She didn't need to.
Lyra twitched in her sleep.
The glyph stone glowed faintly beneath her hand.
Kaela stepped closer.
"Do you feel it pulling?" she asked the girl.
Lyra stirred. Didn't wake.
"I do," Kaela whispered.
She crouched down beside her.
Ran a finger along the side of Lyra's arm.
"You think this is about choosing. About fate. But it's not. It's about control."
She stood.
Reached for her belt.
And unsheathed one of her discs.
Back at Camp
Yuren sat outside his tent, the new glass map laid across a smoothed stone.
He began to shape the first prototype of what he would call blood glass.
He crushed it gently with both Titan Grip and telekinesis. Slowed the pressure. Created fine dust.
When he held it in the air, the particles floated like glitter—harmless.
Then he pushed them forward, shaped them into a spiral, and sent them cutting through a leather scrap.
The leather turned to ribbons.
He smiled.
Dust cloud. No warning. Cuts skin, eyes, and lungs.
Nobody sees it coming.
Chloe approached.
"You're changing," she said.
"I'm adapting."
She nodded. "Just don't forget who you are."
He didn't answer.
He was already staring east.
Far East, Just Before Dawn
Kaela's hand pressed down on Lyra's mouth.
Her eyes never opened.
The disc sliced into her throat without a sound.
Kaela held her until she stopped twitching.
Then, calmly, she lifted the glyph from her corpse.
It didn't resist her.
It flared once—then dimmed.
She looked up, toward the black horizon where the map pointed.
And whispered:
"Now it's just me and him."