The forest was quiet, but it was the wrong kind of quiet. Vex Tracker moved through the trees, drawn by an energy spike that had made the hairs on his arms stand up from a kilometer away. It wasn't a flare or a surge—more like a deep pressure in his chest, as if the land itself had taken a sudden, strained breath. He moved with a hunter's grace, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his eyes scanning the clearing ahead.
He stopped dead at the edge of the trees. The scene was wrong. Utterly wrong.
A twenty-meter circle of grass and moss had been bleached to a brittle, dead grey. In the center, lying face-down in the dirt, was Leo. A few meters away lay the half-eaten corpse of the Stoneback Boar from the day before. But that wasn't what made Vex's blood run cold.
Scattered around the clearing were the bodies of three Ember Wolves. They were perfectly intact. No claw marks, no blood, no signs of a fight. Their fur, which should have smoldered with inner heat, was dull and faded. Their eyes were lifeless. They looked… empty. Drained.
Vex's hunter instincts overrode his confusion. He slid into the clearing, his blade half-drawn, and knelt by the nearest wolf. A quick, professional slice into its chest revealed what he was looking for: an intact Beast Crystal. He checked the others. All three had their crystals. The alpha's was the size of a plum, a deep, pulsing crimson.
His mind did the grim math. The alpha's crystal was worth at least twenty silver. The other two, maybe fifteen each. The boar's was still in its spine, another fifteen. That was over sixty silver coins lying here for the taking. A fortune that could feed the orphanage for a year.
But the crystals were already starting to cool. He had an hour, maybe less, before they degraded into worthless stone.
He looked from the dead wolves to Leo's unconscious form. The boy was bleeding from a dozen different wounds, his breathing shallow and uneven, each rise of his chest a question mark. Vex couldn't carry the boy, three wolf pelts, and the boar's carcass all at once. He had to choose—and every second he stood there was another coin bleeding out of the crystals.
Leave the boy. Take the coin. It's what a professional would do.
The thought was cold, practical, and utterly logical. Vex's jaw tightened. He remembered leaving others behind. He remembered the quiet that followed. He wouldn't do it again. Not for a kid who'd thrown himself in front of a wolf pack for nothing more than grit.
But he wasn't a fool, either.
He made his decision. His knife flashed, expertly harvesting the alpha wolf's crystal. He moved to the boar, cutting deep to retrieve the stone from its spine. He left the other two wolves. Speed and survival over maximum profit.
Vex sheathed his knife, the two valuable crystals warm in a pouch at his belt. He lifted the boy's surprisingly light body and slung him over his shoulder.
He moved through the silent forest, the weight of the unconscious boy a familiar burden. He didn't understand what had happened here. He only knew that the boy who went into the forest seeking a few coppers had come out of it at the center of something far more valuable, and far more dangerous.
He reached the village and kicked open the door to Old Maren's clinic without ceremony. The old healer looked up from his herbs, and his face went pale at the sight of Leo's broken, bleeding form.
Consciousness returned not like light, but like noise. A chaotic flood of sensation. The smell of antiseptic herbs was so sharp it felt like a blade in his nose. The low murmur of voices from the street outside was a deafening roar. Every sound was layered, distinct, and overwhelming.
Leo's eyelids fluttered open, then squeezed shut. The light from a single candle on the far table was blinding, a spear of white-hot intensity that made his skull ache. He could hear the slow, rhythmic drip… drip… drip of water from a basin across the room, each drop landing with the force of a hammer. The rustle of his own blanket sounded like grinding stone.
His own heartbeat was a frantic drum against his ribs, too loud, too fast. His muscles were coiled tight, every nerve screaming. He tried to take a deep breath, but it came out shallow and ragged. This wasn't healing. This was torture.
Then he felt it.
Something was wrong inside him. Low in his abdomen, a heavy, hot presence sat where there had been only emptiness before. It felt dense, unnatural, like a stone he'd swallowed that had settled deep in his gut. It wasn't a part of him. It was an intrusion, something installed without his consent. It pulsed with a contained energy that made his skin crawl.
A faint current stirred within the foreign object. It wasn't a thought or a decision; it happened on its own. The energy, thin and sharp as a wire, began to move.
It didn't flow. It scraped.
The sensation was agonizing, a raw, grinding friction as the energy forced its way through tissue that had never known its like. He could feel its path, a burning line tracing its way from his abdomen up toward his chest. Every inch of its journey was a fresh wave of agony. He bit back a cry, his teeth grinding together. This was power? This felt like dying all over again.
The door to the clinic creaked open.
"Leo? You're awake."
Old Maren's voice, usually a gentle rasp, landed like a physical blow. Leo flinched, his whole body recoiling on the cot before he could stop himself. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his muscles to relax, forcing his breathing to even out. He had to be normal. He couldn't explain this. How could he?
He opened his eyes, blinking against the candlelight until the world resolved into a blurry shape. "I... I think so," he managed. His own voice sounded distant, alien.
Maren came closer, his familiar, kind face a mask of concern. He placed a cool, dry hand on Leo's forehead. "Your fever's broken. Good. You were burning up when Vex brought you in."
The old healer's gaze was too sharp, too knowing. As Maren's fingers moved to check the pulse in his neck, a primal, cornered-animal thought flashed through Leo's mind.
He'll think I'm a monster. He'll cut me open to see what's inside.
The fear was so absolute, so real, that Leo instinctively tried to clamp down on the foreign energy inside him, to hide it. The scraping sensation in his meridians intensified, a hot wire twisting in his gut. He winced, a low sound escaping his lips.
"Still in pain?" Maren asked, his brow furrowed. He felt the pulse. "Strange. It's stronger than I expected. Your breathing is... steadier than it should be."
Leo didn't answer. He just stared at the ceiling, his face a careful blank. He couldn't let anything show. Not the pain, not the fear, not the impossible thing burning in his belly.
Maren watched him for a long moment, his expression a mixture of confusion and relief. "Vex said you were attacked by a pack. An Ember Wolf pack, from the looks of it. How you survived... well, you're lucky to be alive, boy. Truly lucky."
Leo just nodded. He knew luck had nothing to do with it. Whatever had happened in that clearing, it hadn't asked. Something had taken hold of him, and he could feel the weight of it sitting in his gut now, dense and patient.
Maren gave him a sip of water and left him to rest. The silence that followed was a relief, but the scraping energy inside him continued its slow, agonizing journey.
A few minutes later, the door opened again. It was Matron Elara. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with a worry that went deeper than just concern for his health.
She came to his bedside and sat on the small stool Maren had left. For a moment, she said nothing. Then, she opened her hand.
Resting in her palm were two Beast Crystals. One was the deep, angry crimson of an Ember Wolf alpha. The other was the rough, earthy brown of the Stoneback Boar. They pulsed with a faint energy that Leo could now feel, a low thrum that resonated with the stone in his own gut.
"Vex brought you back," she said, her voice a low whisper. "He... he also brought these. He said they were yours."
Leo stared at them. His mind, still reeling, did the grim math. Twenty silver for the alpha. Fifteen for the boar. Thirty-five silver. It was an impossible number. It was enough to fund the orphanage for half a year. Enough for real medicine, new clothes, and food that wasn't just watered-down porridge. It was a miracle paid for in blood.
He looked up at her, and the relief in her eyes was real. But beneath it was something else. Something heavier. It wasn't pity. It wasn't even gratitude. It was expectation.
She didn't ask how. She didn't have to. The question hung in the air between them, heavy and dangerous. How did you, the boy with nothing, come back with a fortune?
He was no longer just a mouth to feed. He was no longer just a burden to be endured. He was a potential asset. A resource.
The weight of that expectation settled on his shoulders, colder and heavier than any poverty he had ever known.
He lay back, the scraping energy inside him a constant, dull torment. Elara eventually left, taking the crystals with her, leaving him alone in the quiet dark.
As he lay there, the weight of thirty-five silver coins pressing down on him more than any injury, he felt a pull. A faint, rhythmic hum from the Dantian, a resonance with something outside. It wasn't a sound. It was a feeling. A deep, resonant pressure tugging at him from the direction of the forest.
It wasn't asking. It was waiting.
The pull grew stronger, a silent song that only he could hear. It was coming from the stump in the forest, he was sure of it. The Dantian in his gut vibrated in time with it, a low, insistent thrum that urged him to move.
His body screamed in protest. Every muscle fiber ached from the wolves, his leg was a ruin of torn flesh and grinding bone, and the fresh burns on his hands and face felt like they were peeling away from his skull. But the pull was louder than the pain.
He pushed himself to his feet, a grunt of agony forced from his lips. He stumbled, his wounded leg nearly giving out, and caught himself on the doorframe of the clinic. He had to see.
Then came the sound.
It wasn't a sound for the ears. It was a noise that bypassed them entirely and went straight to the bones, a feeling like a giant was tearing a sheet of silk right behind his eyes. It was a high, thin rip that vibrated in his teeth and rattled his chest.
Across the village, everything stopped. A woman carrying a basket of laundry froze mid-step. Two men arguing in the commons fell silent, their heads snapping upward. The rhythmic thump-thump of the blacksmith's hammer ceased. The windows of the Iron Hearth Tavern rattled in their frames.
Leo followed their gaze, his eyes drawn toward the Ironwood Forest.
Three hundred meters from the village, directly above the spot where he'd been attacked, the sky began to fracture.
A hairline crack of pale blue light appeared against the grey morning clouds. It was impossibly thin, a scratch on the world. Then, slowly, it widened. It didn't look like a hole. It looked like the world itself was wounded.
The Dantian in his gut pulsed, a hard, throbbing beat that locked onto the light in the sky. The pull intensified, no longer a gentle tug but a demanding summons.
The crack expanded, stretching into a vertical oval of shimmering, beautiful, and deeply unsettling blue energy. It was four meters tall, humming with a power that made the air feel thin and cold. Leo's breath fogged in front of his face. A low, resonant hum layered itself under everything, a constant pressure against his eardrums.
"A Blue Gate—!" someone screamed, their voice cracking with terror.
For a second, the village was held in stunned silence. Then, the silence shattered.
Chaos erupted. Doors slammed shut. A mother shrieked her child's name, dragging him from the street and into a house. The perimeter warning bell, which had fallen silent after the wolf pack's retreat, began to clang again, its frantic, uneven rhythm a sound of pure terror.
This wasn't wonder. It was dread. A Gate meant wealth, but it also meant death.
As people scrambled for cover, Leo saw a woman yanking her daughter away from a window, her voice cracking with fear. "Wasn't the forest enough? Now the sky wants to kill us too—"
But while everyone else ran away, Leo felt an undeniable pull toward it. The Rune, the Dantian, whatever was inside him, didn't fear the Gate. It recognized it. It felt like a part of himself had been torn out and was now hanging in the sky, calling him home.
The realization sent a spike of panic through him. His feet were moving before he told them to. He tried—just for a heartbeat—to stop, to turn back toward the clinic.
His body ignored him.
He stumbled out of the clinic, ignoring the fresh wave of pain from his leg. He had to get closer. He had to understand.
"Leo!" Vex's voice, sharp with alarm. "Get back inside! Now!"
He heard other shouts, other names, but they were distant, muffled, as if coming from underwater. The only thing that mattered was the shimmering blue tear in reality. His attention locked onto it, and the world became background noise.
He stumbled through the emptying commons, a lone figure moving against the tide of fleeing villagers. His limp worsened with every step, but he forced himself onward, his eyes fixed on the impossible blue rift.
He didn't know why. He didn't know what it was or what it meant.
But he knew with absolute certainty that the answers he'd been searching for his entire life were on the other side of that light.
And he was walking toward it.