The fog behind Elias thickened, rolling across the metal floor like a living tide.Aria's words turned to ash in her throat.She stared over Elias' shoulder—eyes widening, breath slowing.
She finally saw it.
Two golden lights.Suspended in the fog.Unblinking.Silent.Too steady to belong to anything human.
Jarek's legs buckled behind them.
"No… no way… not again…"
Kellan lifted his staff with both hands, teeth bared.
Rowan—hidden near the corridor wall—froze entirely, his ambition crushed beneath pure instinctive terror.
Elias turned slowly.
The golden-eyed figure stepped out of the fog.
Still quiet.Still composed.Still terrifying.
The metal beneath its feet didn't ring or echo.It walked like weight didn't apply to it at all.
Aria whispered:
"That's what marked you."
Elias said nothing.
He recognized the creature's aura immediately.Cold.Dense.As if the air grew heavier just by existing near it.
But something was different.
Sharper.More attentive.
Hungrier.
The creature looked at him and spoke softly—its voice like two metallic tones pressed together.
"You approach the threshold."
Aria tightened her grip on her weapon.
"Don't talk to it," she hissed."Ward—step back."
The creature tilted its head slightly toward her.
For a moment—only a moment—Aria's body locked up, as if invisible needles pinned her in place.
But then the creature looked away again.
Toward Elias.
"You are not ready."
Elias kept his voice calm.
"What do you want from me?"
The golden eyes brightened.
"To see if you survive."
It stepped forward.
Not fast.Not sudden.
Just one deliberate step.
Kellan moved instantly—rushing forward, swinging his staff in a brutal downward arc meant to crush bone and metal alike.
The impact never landed.
A single finger touched the staff's shaft—barely a tap.
Kellan was hurled across the chamber like a rag doll.
He hit the ground on all fours, coughed blood… and then something changed inside him.
Bones shifted beneath his skin.His back hunched.Black veins crawled across his neck.
Aria's expression turned cold.
"Not here… Kellan—stop—"
He didn't.
The staff-wielder rose slowly, breathing in ragged, animalistic bursts.
He had entered his "Beast-Spine".A forbidden, half-controlled state cultivated by certain bloodlines—where a person's strength surged at the cost of reason.
Kellan roared and lunged again.
The golden-eyed figure dodged without moving its feet.Its upper body swayed a single inch to the left, letting Kellan's corrupted strike cleave only air.
Elias whispered:
"Kellan. Stop."
Kellan didn't hear it.Or refused to.
Rowan, still crouched in the shadows, realized what he was witnessing.
Not just a monster.
Not just a cadet losing control.
A catastrophe.
And an opportunity.
He began inching away, deeper into the chamber, reaching for an exit hatch on the far wall.
Aria saw it.
"Rowan—DON'T—"
But Rowan wasn't listening.
He shoved the hatch open.
Inside the darkness, something moved.
Rowan froze, hand still on the handle.
The golden-eyed creature lifted its head ever so slightly, as if amused.
Aria whispered:
"Ward… we need to leave. Now."
Jarek tugged at Elias' sleeve, shaking violently.
"Please—Elias—we're going to die if we stay—"
Kellan attacked again in a frenzy.
The creature caught him mid-charge, one hand gripping his throat—calmly, almost gently.
Kellan's eyes bulged.The tendons on his neck stretched.Bones cracked faintly under the pressure.
Aria raised her weapon—
—but Elias stepped forward.
"Stop."
His voice didn't rise.
But it carried weight.
The creature froze.
Its golden eyes blinked once.Slow.Thoughtful.
"You speak with more clarity now," it murmured.
Elias stepped closer.
Jarek gasped.Aria tried to grab him.He slipped out of her grasp.
Elias faced the creature directly.
"Let him go."
The golden-eyed being studied Elias as if memorizing every breath he took.
Then—
It released Kellan.
The boy collapsed, gasping for air, the beast-state receding slowly, painfully.
Aria pulled him back, eyes darting between Elias and the entity with dawning confusion.
"What… did you just do?"
Elias ignored her.
The creature leaned closer to him.The air around them trembled.
"You resist," it murmured."You adapt.""You break what others cannot."
Its voice shifted, softer.
"You will come to me soon."
Elias' jaw tightened.
"Why?"
The creature almost smiled.
"Because you have no choice."
Before Aria could strike, before Kellan could stand, before Rowan could escape—
The golden-eyed being dissolved into mist.
Gone.
Aria staggered forward and grabbed Elias' collar, dragging him toward her.
Her breath shook—not from fear, but from fury.
"You're going to tell me what this is."
Elias met her gaze, steady and cold.
"No."
"Ward—"
"No."
Aria's grip tightened.
"Then I'll make you."
Elias' eyes darkened.
"You can try."
The moment stretched—thick with confrontation,unspoken truths,and danger neither of them fully understood.
But then Jarek screamed.
Everyone turned.
Rowan had finally fled into the darkness beyond the hatch—straight into something with claws hooked into the metal.
A shadow rose behind him.Twice his size.Silent.
The last thing Rowan saw was golden eyes.
Not the creature's.
Another pair.
A different hunter.
Then the hatch slammed shut.
Jarek collapsed, sobbing.
Kellan wiped blood from his chin.
Aria slowly released Elias, expression unreadable.
And Elias felt it again—the Sovereign stirring deeper, stronger.
A new System message cut through his mind:
Threshold Veins — Stage Two approachingInstability risingControl required
His pulse slowed.
The world blurred.
The Iron Descent was no longer just a trial.
It was a crucible.
And something inside him had begun to wake.