Chapter 9
The night deepened around them.
Rynn sat with his back against the rock, eyes scanning the darkness, fingers tracing idle patterns of grey light. The fire had died to embers—deliberate choice, since flames attracted things with eyes to see. Better to sit in near-darkness, letting his newly sharpened senses do the work.
[Chaos Sight: Rank 2]
[Current range: 8 meters]
[Grey Lightning control: 5.1%]
The numbers comforted him. Progress was progress, however slow. He'd spent the first three hours of his watch practicing in secret, not wanting to wake Maya with the light. Small exercises. Making the lightning dance between his fingers. Shaping it into rough forms—a sphere, a line, a net that dissolved almost instantly. Each attempt taught him something.
Each attempt increased control.
5.3%. 5.7%. 6.2%.
The serpent hummed with satisfaction, finally being used the way it wanted. Not forced. Not suppressed. Just... expressed. Channeled. Allowed to exist in the world through him.
By midnight, his control reached 7.8%.
By 2 AM, 8.4%.
By 3 AM, when Maya would normally relieve him, he was so deep in practice that he almost didn't notice her stir. Almost didn't notice the grey light bleeding from his palms had grown bright enough to illuminate the overhang.
Almost didn't notice the eyes.
He felt them first.
Not saw—felt. A prickle at the back of his neck, the ancient instinct that warned of predators. His Chaos Sight flared automatically, and then he saw them.
Eight meters. The exact edge of his range.
Wolves.
But not wolves.
[Death Wolves detected]
[Tier: 0 (Bloodless)]
[Pack size: 7 individuals]
[Threat level: Moderate-High (pack tactics)]
[Warning: Death Wolves are drawn to concentrated energy signatures]
[Warning: Death Wolves do not tire]
[Warning: Death Wolves do not retreat]
Rynn's heart stopped, then hammered double-time.
Seven of them. Large—each the size of a pony, with fur the color of old shadows and eyes that burned faintly green. They stood at the edge of his perception, perfectly still, watching him with an intelligence that had nothing to do with ordinary wolves.
Watching the grey lightning still dancing between his fingers.
Drawn to concentrated energy signatures.
He'd been so focused on control, on progress, on the beautiful dance of probability-made-light, that he'd forgotten the most basic rule of the new world. Power attracted attention. And he'd been sitting here for hours, broadcasting his location to anything with eyes to see.
The lead wolf took a step forward.
Rynn moved.
He was on his feet in an instant, knife in one hand, the other hand reaching for Maya. She was already awake—the sudden change in his breathing must have triggered something in her survivor's instincts.
"What—"
"Wolves. Death Wolves. Seven of them. Don't move."
Maya pressed herself against the rock, her vial clutched in white-knuckled fingers. "Can you fight them?"
Rynn looked at the pack. They'd spread out now, forming a loose semicircle around the overhang. Intelligent. Coordinated. They knew exactly what they were doing.
[Combat assessment: 7 Tier 0 hostiles]
[User Tier: 0]
[Grey Lightning control: 8.4%]
[Estimated survival chance: 12%]
[Recommended action: Evade]
"Running's not an option," Rynn said quietly. "They're faster. They'll run us down before we get fifty feet."
"Then fight."
"Fight seven wolves with a kitchen knife and lightning I can barely control?"
Maya's voice was steady. Terrified, but steady. "You fought that thing in the barn. You won."
"That thing was one corrupted human. These are seven coordinated predators that have probably been hunting since the integration started." Rynn's mind raced through options, discarding each almost instantly. "I need time. Time to build up enough control to actually use the lightning offensively."
"How much time?"
"Minutes. Maybe."
The lead wolf took another step. Then another. Its green eyes never left Rynn's face, measuring, calculating, waiting for the moment of weakness that would trigger the charge.
Maya moved.
Before Rynn could stop her, she'd stepped past him, placing herself between the wolves and their shelter. Her hands were empty—no weapon, no defense, just the vial she clutched like a talisman.
"Maya, what are you—"
"They want energy, right? Drawn to it?" She didn't look back. "Then give them something else to look at."
She uncorked the vial.
"Maya, no—"
Three drops. That's what she had left. Three chances to cheat death. She'd already used one on him, a stranger who'd done nothing but drag her through a nightmare. Now she was about to use another.
She tilted the vial.
One drop fell to the ground.
The effect was immediate. Light erupted from where it landed—not grey, not green, but pure silver, bright as a star, visible for miles. The wolves flinched, their green eyes widening, drawn to this new, brighter signature.
"Run!" Maya screamed. "Get away from here! Follow the light!"
The wolves didn't move.
Their green eyes shifted from Rynn to Maya to the glowing silver drop, then back to Rynn. Calculating. Always calculating. The light was bright, but Rynn's light was theirs. He'd been broadcasting for hours, marking himself as prey. They weren't going to abandon that for a single silver distraction.
The lead wolf growled.
It was the first sound they'd made—a low, rumbling threat that vibrated in Rynn's chest. The pack responded, shifting position, tightening the semicircle. They were done waiting.
[Combat imminent]
[Grey Lightning control: 8.4%]
[Time to critical threshold: Unknown]
Rynn made a decision.
He stepped past Maya, putting himself in front again. "Get back to the rock. If I fall, use your last two drops to hide. Make yourself smell like something they don't want to eat."
"Rynn—"
"Go."
She went.
The wolves watched her retreat, but didn't follow. Their attention was fixed on him. On the grey light that still flickered at his fingers, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. On the prey that had been signaling its location for hours.
The lead wolf charged.
Rynn's body moved before his mind caught up—throwing himself sideways, rolling, coming up with the knife extended. The wolf's jaws snapped where he'd been, close enough to feel the wind of their passage.
[Grey Lightning control: 8.4% → 8.5%]
Not now. Focus.
Two wolves attacked simultaneously, one from each side. Rynn saw them in his Chaos Sight before they moved—the probabilities of their attack paths, the ghost images of where they'd be. He dodged left, then right, the knife slicing air, barely missing fur.
[Grey Lightning control: 8.5% → 8.7%]
Another wolf. Another dodge. This one's claws raked his arm, drawing blood, the pain sharp and immediate. Rynn stumbled, caught himself, kept moving.
[Grey Lightning control: 8.7% → 9.1%]
The lightning. Use the lightning.
He tried. Reached for it, tried to shape it into something offensive—a bolt, a spear, anything. But his control wasn't there yet. The lightning flickered, sparked, died.
A wolf hit him from behind.
He went down hard, the weight of the beast pressing him into the ground. Jaws snapped at his neck. He got the knife up, jammed it into something soft—the wolf's throat, maybe—and was rewarded with a howl of pain. The weight lifted.
[Grey Lightning control: 9.1% → 9.4%]
He scrambled up. Four wolves were down—one bleeding, three circling. The other three were somewhere behind him, cutting off escape. They were herding him. Driving him where they wanted.
[Grey Lightning control: 9.4% → 9.6%]
"Come on," he gasped. "Come on, come on, come on."
The lead wolf charged again. Rynn saw it in triplicate—three probabilities, three attack paths, one that ended with his throat torn out. He moved into the path that didn't kill him, took a claw across the chest instead, felt blood spill hot down his stomach.
[Grey Lightning control: 9.6% → 9.8%]
Two more wolves. They'd learned from the first's failure, attacking together, coordinating their strikes. Rynn's Chaos Sight showed him the possibilities—most of them bad, all of them painful. He chose the least terrible, took a bite to the leg, screamed, kept fighting.
[Grey Lightning control: 9.8% → 9.9%]
The lead wolf circled back. Its green eyes gleamed with something that might have been satisfaction. The pack had him now. Bleeding, slowing, running out of dodges. It was only a matter of time.
[Grey Lightning control: 9.9% → 10.0%]
The world stopped.
Not literally—the wolves kept moving, kept hunting, kept closing in. But for Rynn, everything went still. The lightning in his hands, which had been flickering and dying, suddenly settled. Became solid. Became his.
[Grey Lightning control: 10.0%]
[Control threshold reached]
[New abilities unlocked]
[Grey Lightning may now be manifested as offensive projections]
[Grey Lightning may now be manifested as defensive barriers]
[Grey Lightning control may now be improved through combat application]
The notifications scrolled past, meaningless. All that mattered was the lightning, which no longer flickered but burned, steady and bright and completely under his control.
The lead wolf charged.
Rynn raised his hand.
Grey lightning erupted from his palm—not a spark, not a flicker, but a bolt, focused and directed and aimed. It struck the wolf mid-leap, lifted it from the ground, held it suspended for one frozen moment.
Then it unmade it.
Not killed. Not destroyed. Unmade, the way he'd unmade the void thing, the way he'd unmade the corrupted human. The wolf simply ceased to exist, its components returning to the Chaos from which all things came.
[Death Wolf eliminated]
[Chaos consumption detected]
[Chaos Capacity: 2.4 → 2.6 Units]
The remaining wolves stopped.
For the first time, those green eyes showed something other than hunger. Uncertainty. Fear. Their pack leader—their alpha—had just vanished without a trace, and the prey that should have died was still standing, still glowing, still looking at them.
Rynn looked at the nearest wolf.
It backed away.
He looked at another. It backed away too.
Then, as one, the pack turned and fled, disappearing into the darkness faster than they'd come.
Rynn stood in the blood-soaked grass, grey lightning dancing across his skin, and let them go.
---
Maya found him ten minutes later, still standing, still glowing, staring at nothing.
"Rynn?" Her voice was small. Scared. "Rynn, are you okay?"
He blinked. Looked down at himself. His chest was torn open—again—his leg was shredded, his arm was a mess of claw marks. He should be dead. Should have been dead five times over.
[Critical injuries detected]
[Estimated time to unconsciousness: 3 minutes]
[Estimated time to death: 8 minutes]
[Recommendation: Immediate medical attention]
[Recommendation: Chaos expenditure for self-healing]
[Grey Lightning control: 10.0%]
[Control sufficient for healing attempt]
[Warning: Healing with Grey Lightning is untested]
[Warning: Healing with Grey Lightning may have unforeseen consequences]
[Warning: Healing with Grey Lightning may—]
"Shut up," Rynn whispered. "I'm doing it."
He sat down—collapsed, really—and focused on the lightning. It responded instantly, no longer fighting him. He directed it toward his wounds, toward the torn flesh and broken vessels, and chose for them to heal.
The lightning flowed into him.
It didn't knit flesh the way Maya's medicine had. It didn't accelerate natural healing. Instead, it chose from infinite possibilities the version of his body where those wounds had never happened, and pulled that version into reality.
One moment, he was dying.
The next, he was whole.
[Self-healing successful]
[Chaos Capacity: 2.6 → 2.0 Units]
[Grey Lightning control: 10.0% → 10.3%]
Rynn stared at his unmarked arms, his healed chest, his perfect skin. Not a scar. Not a trace. Like the fight had never happened.
"That's..." Maya's voice trailed off.
"Yeah." He stood, testing his weight. Everything worked. "That's new."
They stood together in the darkness, surrounded by the blood of wolves that no longer existed, and for the first time since the wish, Rynn felt something he'd never expected to feel again.
Hope!
---