And just like that… days passed.
He counted them—barely.
He wandered the Unseen Forest, hiding, surviving… hiding again.
Each day bled into the next, soaked in despair. His hopes, once fragile, were now crushed completely.
But he lived.
Not because he was strong.
Not because he fought back.
But because he refused to stop.
He wasn't a predator.
He didn't kill.
He simply ran—ever since the day that Awakened Titan tore through him like mist.
He remembered the power… the effortless cruelty. That wasn't even a true Terror.
And yet, out here, in this vast and eldritch forest, there roamed hundreds—maybe thousands—of great beasts. Many worse than the one that almost ended him.
He was nothing.
Just prey.
Hopeless.
Helpless.
A hollow scrap of soul running from the faintest vibration in the ground. His instincts no longer felt borrowed—they were his now. Animalistic, twitching, blood-wired things. The body flinched before the mind could think.
He was almost insane.
Almost.
But not quite.
Because, in all the madness… he was still too calm.
There was something wrong in that calm.
And he knew it.
And so, he spent his days like a scavenger—gnawing on half-eaten beasts already claimed by other predators. The meat was sour, tainted with fear, sometimes rotting before he could finish.
He foraged like a starving ghost, hunting strange fruits beneath twisted branches and dreaming of the impossible.
Maybe… just maybe, he'd find a divine fruit.
One overflowing with essence.
Enough to Awaken him.
And then?
Then, perhaps, he could search for a Citadel.
A bastion of light.
Of safety.
But that too… was just a dream.
A whisper.
Hope, once more.
And just like all the others, it withered.
Because no forbidden fruit—no divine awakening—was waiting in some cursed grove of an unnamed forest.
Not for him.
Not here.
Not in a place even the Sovereigns dared not enter.
Then it came—a mad, absurd encounter. One that almost made Silias believe he had some hidden [Fated] thread stitched into his soul.
It wasn't salvation.
It wasn't doom.
It was something in between.
Dark… Sinister… and yet strangely kind.
A Gate.
Not one of radiant promise, nor gilded might—no.
A faint thing. Forgotten. Half-dead. Whispering.
He could tell some kid had died here. Someone like him.
Someone who hadn't made it.
And yet… Silias smiled.
Not in dread. Not in fear.
But relief.
Joy, even.
A Gate. Real. Tangible. Calling.
Its call was weak—probably a Category 2 at most. It wouldn't draw anything stronger than minor horrors. Nothing above Fallen.
But for him, even that was death.
Still, he prepared. He crushed all the glow fruits he'd hoarded, smearing the essence over his skin in layer after layer until not a trace of human scent remained. The faint shimmer dulled, blending him into the forest shadows.
He had to be lucky—maybe he'd stumble upon one glowfruit in a week, two if he was blessed. But he used them all.
Tonight was worth it.
Now, he looked like a wraith. Bloodless. Scentless. Vanished into the wild.
He crouched by the Gate, heart pounding, breath slow.
Then he did something he hadn't done in months.
He closed his eyes…
…and fell asleep.
Willingly.
Calmly.
Welcoming the call.
And for the first time in what felt like eternity, Silias rested.
Even as sleep took him, Silias's mind wandered.
Were there more like him?
Anyone else, trapped here?
Anyone still alive?
But it was too late for thoughts. Too late for doubts.
He had already made his choice.
The moment he felt that Gate's pull, he had chosen to leap—to claw his way out of this godforsaken land of bones and silence…
Out of a sky that bled ash,
Out of a forest that breathed like a beast,
Out of the nightmare.
And so, in stillness, in the quiet calm of surrender,
He left.
Not with hope.
Not with triumph.
But with peace.
Then—he opened his eyes.
The world swam, blinding and wrong.
A sharp stench of iron flooded his nose.
Above him, a ragged old man roared, his voice wet and guttural like a dying beast. Beside him, a woman stood still, gaze cast down, distant yet terrifyingly close.
They were speaking.
To each other?
To him?
Silias couldn't tell. The words were warped, like echoes underwater.
He tried to move.
No, he writhed. Every muscle burned like fire.
The old man flinched—then snarled—and with a twitch of muscle, drove the blade down again.
Wait.
Again?
Pain, sharp and absolute, flooded his senses.
Then it hit him—
His hand.
His hand was gone.
Not wounded. Not broken.
Gone.
Sliced clean off at the wrist.
Jagged bone jutted from torn flesh, like a white dagger trying to escape. Arterial blood sprayed from the stump in rhythmic spurts, warm and steaming in the cold air. It painted the stone floor in sick crimson arcs, spattering onto his neck, into his mouth.
He choked.
There were other wounds—deep gouges crisscrossing his chest, his ribs visible beneath flayed skin. One eye was sealed shut by a swollen welt. The other barely worked, half-blinded by the blood flowing from his temple where a flap of scalp hung loose, swinging with every shudder of his breath.
Every breath hurt. Like knives dragged across raw nerves.
He tried to scream but vomited instead—blood, bile, and something black like oil.
The woman said something softly, almost gently.
And then the knife came down again.
The old man stood tall—muscular, broad-shouldered, built like a smith who had spent decades forging steel by hand. His arms were layered in corded strength, veins like iron cables beneath weathered skin. But there was something naive in his face. His wide eyes held a boyish confusion, a softness that should have been comforting—if not for the blade soaked in fresh blood shaking in his grip.
Strong. Lovable, perhaps.
But not to Silias.
Not now. Not ever.
Beside him was the young woman—far too young to be paired with this mad butcher. She couldn't have been older than twenty, and yet her beauty felt wrong. Ethereal. Dreadful. Eyes like polished obsidian, lips tinged with something redder than blood. Her expression never changed. Calm. Cold. Calculating. As though she'd seen this scene a hundred times before and never once flinched.
Together they were harrowing—one the storm, the other the silence after.
Then, at last, a sentence reached him clearly, like thunder cracking the fog in his mind:
"Why won't this damned wraith die?! Isn't he a mere Awakened beast?"
Silias gagged.
No!
The scream rose in his chest, burning with desperation—but no voice came. Only a dry rattle, followed by a gush of dark blood from his throat.
He couldn't speak. He realized it then—they'd taken his voice. His vocal cords were gone.
He didn't know when. He didn't know how.
Panic and pain warred in his chest as he fell forward, forehead striking the cold stone. His only hand shook, trembled, reached.
Think.
Blood spilled from the open stump of his severed wrist like ink. He dipped trembling fingers into the puddle and wrote.
One crooked letter.
Then another.
Desperately.
"HUMAN. I AM HUMAN. PLEASE. PLEASE—"
The words smeared. Desperate. Childlike.
A final plea scrawled in agony, as the world tilted around him like a spinning wheel of blades.
They both froze.
The moment their eyes fell upon the desperate message scrawled in blood, something shifted in the air.
"HUMAN. I AM HUMAN. PLEASE. PLEASE—"
The old man staggered backward, his boots scraping against stone. His expression cracked—no longer a hunter's fury but horror and disbelief.
The young woman's perfect composure shattered for just a breath. Her dark eyes widened, her lips parting. She took a single step back, as if something foul had been unmasked before her.
And then… the stench lifted.
The glow-fruit's masking rot faded, like a veil ripped away by wind. The illusion of hollowed, lifeless flesh peeled off Silias in slow, invisible strands. They saw him—not a wraith. Not a beast.
A human. Bloodied. Broken. Breathing.
Their panic returned like a rising tide.
The old man cursed.
The girl whispered something harsh and ancient.
Then they stepped forward.
Silias felt it, felt everything.
The disguise unraveling.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, too human, too loud.
The foreign magic frayed and snapped inside him, its threads whipping like hot barbed wire.
He shrieked.
A sound born of raw pain and helplessness—one no throat should ever make.
His single remaining hand flailed wildly.
Tears poured from his wide, bloodshot eyes.
And then—he flung his severed, mutilated wrist toward them, spattering blood in wide, sharp arcs.
A savage barrier.
A silent scream.
'Stay away!'
He was enraged, sobbing, shaking.
Paranoia burned behind his eyes.
Fear choked him.
And helplessness sat on his chest like a beast.
They flinched again.
For a moment, neither side moved.
The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
And Silias, wild-eyed and soaked in blood, trembled like a dying thing clinging to something far worse than life:
Hope.
Sleep came not like a gentle tide, but a venomous fog creeping beneath his skin.
Silias's body sagged.
His hand, slick with blood and trembling from exhaustion, dragged one final message into the stone. Not a plea. Not a scream.
"I'll come back."
The letters were shaky. Uneven.
Written not with urgency, but with spite—a bitter promise, creeping like mold between madness and clarity.
He smiled, barely. Not from hope.
But from the cruel knowledge that even now, something still awaited him.
Then came the echo—twinned, distorted like overlapping nightmare bells.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
The words pulsed like iron brands in his skull.
And as the spell took hold—again—Silias collapsed.
Eyes wide, mouth gaping in a soundless scream.
He writhed.
He clawed at his face, at the ground, at nothing.
Tears, blood, and spit poured freely.
His voice broke.
His mind buckled.
Not because of the pain.
Not because of fear.
But because he knew.
He knew where he was going.
Back.
Back beneath the bone-scabbed skies.
Back to that cursed, whispering forest.
Back to the beast's corpse—rotting in silence where he had left it.
Back to the god-forsaken dream he never escaped.
He screamed louder than ever before.
And no one heard him.