The night slunk into stillness like a predator fat with blood, and the last ember of the inn's hearth sputtered into cold breath as Alna handed Icariel his five bronze coins again. No words this time. Just a tired nod, and then the groan of old wood as she vanished into the stairwell above.
Icariel sat unmoving, the coins heavy in his palm—more metal than money, more memory than mercy.
That mercenary… if he hadn't been drunk.
His breath stuck in his chest like a splinter. Too close.
"It's time," the voice whispered, deep and cold, like stone whispering to bone. "You've lingered long enough. If you want to live a life worthy then you raid the dungeons."
Icariel stood.
He didn't answer. He didn't need to.
A ragged cloak waited behind the barrels—forgotten, dust-laced, edges frayed by time's teeth. He threw it over his shoulders, hood low, and slipped into the sleeping city.
Lissus was a corpse at midnight. Its stone veins glimmered under the moon like open scars. The clink of his boots sounded too loud. Too alive.
"Toward the forest," the voice murmured. "Feel them before they feel you. Don't fight what you don't need to. Learn their strength from afar."
"I know," Icariel muttered. A whisper sharp as flint.
By the time he reached the southern gates, the guards were half-asleep, propped like broken dolls against the stone. Tired laughter. Loose swords. Cracked knuckles and slower reflexes.
He could've walked past.
But he didn't like leaving echoes.
Fwoom.
He kicked the ground once—and vanished.
A blur. A breath. Gone.
Not even the wind dared follow.
The forest stood before him like an open wound in the earth—black, pulsating, ancient. It breathed silence. A silence that watched.
He stopped just shy of the leaves.
There.
A presence. Subtle as a thorn beneath skin. Wrong in its patience.
"You've been following me," he said without turning.
The shadow stepped forward. Short. Dark-haired. Thin glasses catching the moon like a knife's edge. Blackened armor beneath a weathered travel-cloak. It was her.
The girl from the mercenary group.
"I'm here to collect a debt," she said, voice as brittle as frost cracking over water.
"A debt?"
"I kept your secret. The idiot with the Knol Eye? He would've screamed your name like a dying pig. I stopped him."
She knew.
He stiffened. Every muscle sharp with anticipation.
"Voice? Should I silence her?"
"No," the voice replied, quiet but firm. "If she meant harm, it would've come at the inn. Not in the dark, alone."
"Tch."Icariel's jaw tightened. "So all that posturing I did—pretending not to notice her tail—was for nothing?"
Silence.
He exhaled sharply through his nose. "What do you want?"
"Join my team," she said, arms folding across her chest. Her cloak fluttered. "You knocked out Knol without so much as shifting the table. That's not normal. That's dangerous. I like dangerous."
"That's your criteria for recruitment?"
"No," she said, taking a step closer. "That's why I didn't kill you."
The air stilled. Even the trees paused.
"I've never seen movement like that. No core. No circle. But mana—mana like it lives in your marrow."
"And the mercs earlier?"
"Temporary trash. I play guide for coin. My real team—the ones who matter—are called Black Ashes."
The name hissed like a dying flame. It tasted of smoke and sorrow.
"I'm Elis," she said. "Mage. Recruiter. Youngest member of Black Ashes."
"And what's in it for me?"
"Survival. A real team. I'm a mage. We've got two superhumans, one hybrid. Balanced. Sharp. You'll die in that forest alone. But with us... you might just outlive your nightmares."
Icariel tilted his head. "If you're a mage, where are your circles? I don't sense any."
She bristled—just enough to betray pride beneath the polish.
"I'm at the core stage. The youngest to be drafted into a ranked team. My first circle is weeks away. I've been told I'm... unnaturally gifted."
"Impressive," Icariel said.
She brightened.
"But I refuse."
"What?"
"I prefer being alone."
Elis blinked. Then her face closed like a door. "I thought I made myself clear. We need someone like you. You're stronger than the trash I humored tonight. But you said no. Didn't you?"
He nodded. Once. Like a guillotine.
"Then let me remind you," she said, voice low and icy, "the reason I didn't kill you before was because I wanted you on our side."
Mana began to shimmer around her—threads of spectral blue light, drawn from her core and winding like silver veins around her arms.
"Now I don't have a reason to hold back."
Fsshhhh.
Her spell bloomed—a lattice of mirrored light that encased her in a translucent dome, spinning with runes in silver fire. Her hand lifted, fingers pointed like a dagger toward his heart.
"I'll give you one last chance," she said. "Join me—or die here."
Icariel's hair fell over his eyes, shadowed.
"Die here…?"
His voice was almost amused—like a blade humming before it sings.
The world fractured. For a flash—an instant between heartbeats—he was back in the white room.
Bleached silence. A pale figure. Red lips parted in mourning.
Gone.
"I refuse," he said again.
She didn't wait.
"Bind and Shatter: Spiral Hex!"
The ground ruptured. Blades of condensed mana burst from below, arcing toward him like jaws made of glass and wrath.
But he was already gone.
The air cracked.
A ghost passed through the breath of time—
And Icariel stood behind her.
"What—?!"
Her words caught mid-breath as his hand closed around her throat like iron. The barrier collapsed with a crack, shattering into flakes of light and steam.
He lifted her with one arm, boots dangling, her mana screaming into nothing.
"Do you know what it means to kill someone?" he hissed. His breath was molten.
"To erase them from this world?"
A pause.
"To rip their name from the bones of time—And watch the roots bleed?"
Her hands clawed at his wrist, legs kicking uselessly. Her pupils shrank. She gasped—but no air came. Mana sparked from her skin, but it fizzled, aimless and choked by fear.
"Icariel."
The voice cut through the haze like thunder. "Release her. Now. She's dying."
His eyes burned crimson—then faded back to black.
He let go.
She fell like a corpse dropped from heaven, hitting the dirt hard. Coughs racked her body, lungs fighting to restart. She gripped her throat, red lines bruising across her pale skin.
He turned.
"This is your only warning," Icariel said, voice cold as a winter tomb. "Don't follow me."
He pulled the hood over his face—and vanished into the trees like a ghost carved from vengeance.
Elis lay in the dirt, breathless, staring at the sky through watering eyes.
Her fingers touched her neck. The shape of his hand was still there, like a brand.
"What is he…?" she thought, trembling. "No core. No circle. But he moved like a blade already drawn."
"He almost killed me without blinking."
Her breath hitched. Something primal twisted in her gut—fear, yes, but not only that.
A shiver of awe laced with instinct.
"That strength… That precision…"
"...He's perfect," she whispered—not with desire, but with the reverence of a predator recognizing the apex.
Far ahead, deep in the woods, Icariel paused. A chill rippled down his spine.
"You acted recklessly," the voice said.
"I don't know what came over me," Icariel muttered. "That white room appeared again—just like when the white lightning struck… but this time, it was different. It felt like it vanished. Like something was erased."
"I don't know what room you're talking about, but you need to get control, Icariel," the voice replied. "Still… I won't lie. That might've been for the best. She won't challenge you again so easily."
Icariel nodded.
His eyes narrowed, searching the darkness.
"I'm glowing like a target," he muttered. "Like prey."
His fingers curled into fists.
"I need to find a way to hide my mana," he said. "If everyone who can sense or see mana meets me, I won't last."
"I'm sorry—I can't help you through that path.
"Let's hope we find a way," the voice said. "Because right now, you shine like a funeral star in a sky that wants you dead."
The forest loomed.
And from within, something watched.
He stepped forward, silent as death.