Darkness hadn't fled with the morning, it clung to the forest like it had roots of its own. A damp hush smothered the air, and every footfall on the mossy earth gave off the sound of breath held too long. Reid adjusted the leather strap on his shoulder, eyes sweeping the undergrowth ahead. He wasn't alone, but no one spoke. Not yet.
Behind him, Kaela moved like a shadow at twilight, silent, assured, but tense. She hadn't spoken since they'd left the camp, and Reid didn't blame her. The encounter with the Red Fang weapon still lingered in the backs of their minds. The unnatural void it left behind had not fully dispersed.
"Still tracking?" Lira's voice broke the silence from somewhere to his left. She crouched near a dead tree, inspecting a faint smear of ash that led deeper into the forest.
Reid nodded. "Still warm."
They weren't just chasing any rogue essence this time. The prey was Awakened, tainted by something older, twisted in ways Reid could feel in the marrow of his bones. He didn't need a system alert to confirm the danger. The Bond inside him stirred like a coiled serpent, unusually quiet, but brimming with tension.
Essence Signature: Unknown Class. Corruption Index, Unstable.
The message flickered across his awareness. He didn't need it. He could feel the wrongness in the soil.
"Whatever this is," Mara said quietly, falling in beside him, "it's not alone. I saw movement in the canopy."
Reid's grip tightened around his weapon. "Then we flush it fast, or we're walking into a trap."
Kaela broke her silence. "There's an old ruin east of here. My mother used to call it 'The Listening House.' Locals said you could hear whispers there even in your sleep."
Lira arched an eyebrow. "Sounds cozy."
"It's where this trail leads," Kaela finished, voice colder than before.
A flare of heat twisted in Reid's chest. The Bond wasn't speaking. But it was awake. Watching. As if recognizing something old.
"Eyes open," Reid muttered.
They reached the ruin just past midday, though the sun barely pierced the tangled canopy. The structure was more bones than building now, crumbling stone arches jutting from thick roots and tangled vines. A weathered spire leaned against the sky like a dying tree.
No one spoke as they moved into the perimeter. Even the Bond kept still.
Then the wind shifted, and Reid caught it.
Blood.
Not fresh, not old, somewhere in between. It coated the stones, thin and deliberate, like a ritual gone cold.
Kaela stepped beside him, bow drawn. "There."
A figure emerged from the far side of the ruin. Not cloaked, not armored. Shirtless, arms etched in a lattice of blackened veins and glowing sigils. His eyes weren't human. They weren't even animal. Just light, white, hungry, void of anything else.
Reid's Bond didn't whisper.
It laughed.
"Ah," the man said, voice smooth like silk dragged through gravel. "The hybrid comes. Late, but inevitable."
Reid advanced a step, heart hammering. "Who are you?"
The man's smile deepened. "I'm what your Bond will become, should you continue to pretend it isn't your master."
Mara drew in a breath, sharp. Lira's blade gleamed in her hand.
"Essence flare!" she warned.
Too late. The figure launched.
Reid's instincts flared, not from reflex but from the Bond, its will overlaying his own. He ducked just as the man's palm crackled with dark fire and missed his skull by inches. Mara and Kaela moved in tandem, one flanking, the other intercepting. The man danced between them, dragging a hand across the stone.
The ruin shuddered.
Roots tore up from the ground and lashed toward them like serpents. Lira severed two mid-strike, growling. "He's drawing from the ruin itself!"
Reid didn't respond. The Bond snarled at the edge of his mind.
Suppression Threshold Approaching. Instability High.
His breath hitched. Not yet.
"Reid!" Kaela's voice cut through the noise.
He turned, too late.
The man's palm aimed at Kaela's chest.
Reid moved. No thought. Just will.
The fire wrapped around him.
And detonated.
The world came back in fragments.
Smoke. Pain. Heat.
Kaela knelt beside him, blood streaked down her arm. "Stay still."
He coughed. "Did I stop him?"
"No," Mara said, blade still raised. "He vanished into the ruin. There's more below."
Lira stood at the edge of a descending passage. "Fresh glyphs. Recently activated."
Reid pushed himself upright, every muscle screaming. "Then we go. Before he escapes again."
Kaela's hand caught his. "You nearly crossed the line."
Reid met her eyes.
For once, the Bond was silent.
They descended into the stone belly of the ruin, one cautious step at a time. Each stair pulsed faintly with runes barely visible beneath the moss, as if awakened by their presence. The air cooled with each meter, and a pressure pressed at their thoughts.
"Don't touch anything," Lira muttered.
"No problem," Mara answered.
Reid moved just behind Kaela, scanning the walls. The stairwell opened into a wide chamber. Alcoves lined its edges, each one housing contorted skeletal remains, some fused with the walls like the stone had swallowed them.
The scent of copper hung thick.
Reid felt it more than saw it: the Bond was thrilled. Not for blood.
For recognition.
A low groan echoed.
They advanced into a broader antechamber. At the center lay a blackened pool, essence pulsing at its surface like an inverted star. Vapor streamed upward.
The figure stood waiting.
"You brought them all. How considerate."
Kaela raised her bow.
"Too late," he whispered.
He stepped into the pool.
And vanished.
Dimensional Breach Forming. Essence Surge Incoming.
"MOVE!" Reid bellowed.
The pool erupted.
Light. Screaming tendrils. Air shattered.
Kaela hit the floor, Reid's arms over her. Mara and Lira dove behind pillars. The chamber convulsed.
When silence returned, a gash hovered above the pool. Twisting. Broken.
Inside it… whispers.
Reid stared into the tear.
And the Bond wept.
The wound in reality pulsed like a heartbeat, distorting the air around it. For a moment, no one moved. Even the Bond seemed reverent, whispering soft incoherencies that crawled through Reid's thoughts like vines in his skull.
Kaela pulled herself up, eyes locked on the tear. "What in all the hells is that?"
"A gate," Lira said grimly, stepping toward it. "Or a warning."
Mara kept her weapon raised. "That thing he used to disappear, it didn't just move him. It broke something."
Reid stepped closer, the pulse of it thrumming in his chest like a drumbeat synced to his Bond.
Then a voice slithered through the tear—not the man's, not the Bond's. Something else.
"Come closer, hybrid..."
Kaela raised her bow again. "Reid, don't..."
But he was already within reach of the edge.
The tear didn't burn. It didn't pull. It simply offered. And the Bond inside him responded not with rejection, but hunger.
Reid blinked. The chamber shifted. He was somewhere else.
Floating.
Memories poured through him, not his own: fields burning under violet skies, cities built from bone and song, a sky split open by a screaming god.
The Bond drank it in like rain after drought.
Then, it stopped.
The voice returned. "You are not ready. But soon, you will bleed for us."
Reid gasped and stumbled back into his body. Kaela caught him.
"You disappeared," she whispered. "You were gone."
"I saw... things," he murmured, shaking. "A place where essence dies. And something waits."
Lira turned from the tear. "We can't stay. If it's a breach, others will come. Worse than him."
Reid nodded, forcing his legs to move. "Seal it if you can."
"I'll try," Kaela said, voice tight.
Mara stepped forward, drawing a rune into the air. "Let's make sure no one follows us back."
The tear pulsed once more, then faded.
But the memory of its call lingered.
And the Bond... smiled.