He descended among the trees.
The ground softened. Moss glowed softly under his feet, cushioning each step. The air shifted from the cold bite of thin mountain wind to a milder warmth scented with ozone and the sweetness of unfamiliar fruit. Somewhere ahead, he heard gentle splashes and a light chiming sound—like water laughing.
He stepped out at the lake's edge.
Up close, the water was clearer than glass. The surface mirrored the sky perfectly, but just beneath it, life shimmered.
Creatures moved under the skin of the lake:
Fish shaped like koi, their scales painted in deep blues and soft pinks, with long trailing fins that left ribbons of light wherever they swam.
Others leaped from the surface in high arcs, their bodies completely transparent, filled with swirling galaxies that spun and changed with every flick of their tails.
Some skimmed just above the water on crystalline wings, their voices coming out as bright, tinkling chirps that sounded like fragments of broken bells.
A few small beings paddled close to shore on tiny webbed feet, their silver eyes wide and curious. When they blinked, sparks jumped across the water's surface. With a shake, they spiraled upward in brief columns of vapor, turning droplets into falling lights before vanishing back into the lake.
Noctis watched, unable to stop the tightness in his chest.
There was no lurking dread in this place. No smell of rot, no distant roar of things that only understood hunger. The entire scene radiated a peace he did not trust, but could not deny. It felt like a world built for someone who had been running for too long and needed, at last, to stop.
He found a hollow among a cluster of trees that leaned toward each other like pillars of a living cathedral. Branches arched overhead, woven together with vines that glowed faintly, outlining a natural dome in pale lines of light. The grass was thick and soft underfoot, dotted with countless small blue flowers that released a gentle, cool scent when brushed. Sunlight slanted in through gaps in the leaves, painting the ground in shifting patterns.
He let himself lie down.
Exhaustion did not hit him like a blow. It settled over him gradually, a long, slow tide he had been holding back without noticing. The scent of earth and living water wrapped around him. The gentle rhythm of waves against stone matched the slowing beat of his heart.
Above the tree-arches, the clear sky watched. The planets drifted along their silent paths, casting different colors across the lake and the moss: emerald, violet, faint gold, deep red. As they moved, the world around him subtly reshaped its moods, yet remained calm.
Time thinned, lost its sharp edges.
For a while, his sleep held no Gate, no wolves, no gods, no drowning cities. Only color swirled behind his eyelids. Only water moved, slow and steady. Only light unfolded and folded again, like a hand opening and closing. The lake sang low in the background, its tones shifting just enough to remind him he was not completely alone. Wind threaded through the leaves and curled against his skin, cool fingers tracing lines along his arms. The laughter-like splashes of the small monsters brushed the edges of his dreams without turning into threats.
He woke with the sense that something heavy had been lifted from him, even if he could not name it.
The air tasted fresh, almost sharp with promise. His muscles ached in a clean way, the kind that comes after finally resting instead of endlessly enduring. Hunger stirred, but this time it was simple: a need for food, for motion, for life. Not the old bitter craving for more strength, more power, just to avoid being erased.
He rose and moved on.
He walked between the silver-barked trees, their midnight leaves chiming softly when the morning wind touched them. The sound was delicate, like glass beads tapping together. Behind him, the lake shrank with each step, the mirror-surface and its playful creatures becoming only another glimmer among the mountains. Ahead, the land tilted toward rougher terrain—rocky slopes, broken ledges, narrow paths. Somewhere out there, game moved through the undergrowth, leaving faint tracks and quiet vibrations in the soil.
Birds flashed between the branches: some feathered in bright, stained-glass patterns that scattered colored shadows on the ground; others made of thin, luminous membranes that buzzed like strings when they flew. The ground vibrated occasionally with distant impacts—heavy, measured steps from unseen beasts keeping to their own paths.
Then, as he rounded a jut of stone, the world changed.
The air thickened. The cool scent of water and flowers faded under a stronger smell: musk, hot fur, and the metallic tang of fresh blood. The hair along his arms prickled. The lullaby of distant waves gave way to low, rumbling breaths and a faint scraping of claws on stone.
Shapes waited in the clearing ahead.
They moved with coiled strength, tails flicking, limbs positioned to spring. Their silhouettes were wrong for anything gentle: shoulders too broad, jaws too heavy, muscles bunched under strange armor grown from their own bones. Eyes glowed in colors that meant hunger, not curiosity.
These were not the playful creatures of the lake or the quiet watchers in the branches. They were this world's trial by teeth and gravity—predators forged out of the same fierce magic that made the sky so beautiful.
Noctis' heart kicked once. Not in fear. In recognition.
This, he understood. Rest had sharpened him rather than made him soft. The brief peace by the lake had given his mind edges again. The new emotions settling in his chest did not make him weaker; they gave his focus a different weight.
He shifted his stance. His hand found the familiar grip of his weapon. Every sense opened fully—he counted breaths, tracked muscle tension, calculated angles and distances. The land itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see who would claim this space.
Noctis stepped forward, ready to meet this new world on its own terms.
From the torn shadows of uprooted trees, they emerged.
At first, there were only three of them, but three was enough. Each one was a walking mountain of layered muscle and corded sinew, as if the forest itself had decided to stand up and hunt. Their skin was patterned in shifting stripes of ash-black and bone-white that slid over their bodies as they moved, catching the sunlight and breaking it into moving bands. They stood at least three meters tall—perhaps more—with shoulders as broad as stone gates and limbs as thick as ancient trunks. Every step they took sent a low tremor through the ground, a dull drumbeat that Noctis could feel in his teeth. Their claws sank into the soil and carved long grooves behind them, turning the soft meadow into a field of scars.
But it was not their size that froze the blood.
Each giant had only a single, massive eye set in the center of its face. There were no brows, no second eye to soften the gaze—just one unblinking orb, shining with an alien intensity. Its surface was polished and faceted like a cut crystal, catching the sun and breaking it into a thousand shards of color that flashed across their broad chests and the torn earth. Beneath that eye sat a mouth so small, tight, and compressed that it looked almost harmless—a thin, straight line on creatures that otherwise radiated overwhelming power. The wrongness of that proportion made them more terrifying, not less.
Then the first monster caught his scent.
The tight line of its mouth split.
The skin tore downward in a vertical line, warping and stretching as though the face itself were being peeled open. Flesh parted with wet, tearing sounds until the mouth reached from the base of the eye almost to the giant's chest, becoming a vertical wound that never should have existed. Inside, row upon row of needle-thin teeth unfolded, emerging in layers from hidden pockets of flesh. They rose and spread like the petals of some abyssal flower—no, like the opening of a valve at the bottom of the sea, ready to swallow anything that fell into its reach.
The other two giants followed.
Their mouths yawned wide, skin splitting with unnatural ease. Each cavernous opening was large enough to swallow Noctis whole without slowing down. Saliva poured from those teeth, hissing faintly wherever it struck the ground.
The first creature reared back slightly. Its single eye fixed on him with a focus that made his skin crawl.
There was hunger there, deep and undeniable. But there was also something worse: thought. Assessment. A steady calculation, as if he were not just prey, but a problem to solve.
Noctis moved as the nearest titan lunged.
Despite its size, it came on with terrifying speed. The motion was not clumsy or slow. It was more like an avalanche that had learned how to aim. The ground shook as it crossed the distance in a heartbeat, its shadow swallowing him. He threw himself sideways. A huge arm slammed into the spot where he had stood, claws digging into the earth. The impact gouged a deep crater into the meadow, sending a shockwave through the soil. Dust exploded upward. Splinters of ancient roots and fragments of stone whistled through the air like shrapnel.
He hit the ground hard, rolled, and came up on his feet, lungs burning. His mind raced.
No weapon. No prepared trap. No allies.
Only instinct, memory, and whatever the Unknown Core was willing to unlock through sheer necessity.
Fight now. Think later. Survive, always.
The second giant released a roar.
It was not a simple cry of rage. It was a vibration that seemed to grab the air and twist it. The sound tore through him, making his bones hum and his vision shudder at the edges. The grass flattened in waves around the titan's feet. It swung its arm sideways in a broad sweep. Claws tore long, deep channels through moss and stone, ripping chunks of earth free.