“It Doesn't Flee. It Withdraws.”
The beast should have had them.
Eliara’s mana was waning. Dorian’s sword hand was slick with blood. Even the air around them had turned sour—thick with copper and curses, where breathing felt like swallowing teeth.
And still, the monster moved.
Even slowed.
Even cracked.
It hunted with the focus of a god that had forgotten mercy.
Then—
The wind stopped.
Not died.
Stopped.
As if something larger had pressed a finger to the sky and said:
"Quiet."
The beast froze mid-lunge.
Muscles coiled.
Mouth open.
And in its eyes—wide, obsidian, gleaming with rage—
Fear.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
A presence fell across the battlefield.
Not loud.
Not explosive.
Just… suffocating.
Like every shadow suddenly bent at the wrong angle. Like time hiccupped.
And far, far off—
A bell rang.
Once.
Twice.
Then silence.
Dorian’s knees buckled.
Eliara gasped, hands trembling as her last spell crumbled into sparks.
Even the phantom shadow guarding Samuel flickered.
But it didn’t disappear.
It simply… watched.
The beast backed away slowly, never breaking eye contact with the boy lying unconscious beneath the dark cradle of his magic.
It didn’t retreat like a beast.
It withdrew like a soldier following command.
As if the battle no longer mattered.
As if something higher had said:
"Not yet."
And then it was gone.
One breath.
One blink.
Gone.
No roar.
No warning.
Just vanished into the tree line, its echo leaking through the trees like a forgotten scream.
> [Codex Response: External Pressure Source Detected]
[Category: Divine Remnant – Dormant]
Classification: UNKNOWN]
Note: Beast withdrew in response to “Layered Signature Emission.” Source: Proximity unknown.
Eliara collapsed beside Samuel, gasping.
Dorian stood over both of them, sword still raised, shaking.
No one spoke.
Because in that silence, something else had spoken first.
And whatever it was…
The beast feared it more than death.
“We’re Still Here. But Something Isn't.”
Smoke drifted across the broken fences.
The fires hadn’t started.
No one had lit them.
It was just residual heat from spells.
From whatever that thing had been.
From whatever Samuel had become.
No one spoke.
Even the children didn’t cry.
The beast was gone, and not a single villager could say why.
Dorian stood like a statue, sword still unsheathed, gaze locked on the treeline like it might come back just to finish the job.
Eliara sat beside Samuel, cradling his unconscious body in her lap, brushing sweat-dampened hair from his forehead with shaking fingers.
Every breath he took reassured her—
And hurt her.
Because he hadn’t woken up.
Not yet.
And when he did…
Would he even remember her?
Ferent—the village elder—walked to the center of the road, pipe unlit in his hand. He stared at the deep claw marks gouged into the earth, the fragments of shattered mana stone, and the long, bleeding crack that now split the center of the village in two.
> “He did that?” one of the younger hunters whispered.
“That child?”
Another shook his head.
> “That’s not a child. That’s a weapon dressed like one.”
“We should’ve—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
Dorian’s voice cut through like frost. Cold. Sharp.
Not angry.
Warning.
The hunters stepped back.
No one pushed the point.
But the air had changed.
Before today, Samuel had been a mystery.
Now?
He was a myth with a pulse.
A loop-touched shadowborn boy who had bent magic like a blade and faced something that shouldn’t exist.
And lived.
But Ulaz didn’t cheer.
They just stood in the silence.
Because none of them could shake the feeling that something had shifted in the bones of the world.
The forest was still.
The sky was clear.
But peace didn’t feel real anymore.
Not when they’d seen a boy collapse from power no child should hold.
Not when the shadows had moved without wind.
Not when the monster had left—not beaten, but called away.
One of the farmers muttered to no one in particular:
> “Something’s watching us now.”
“And it’s not the boy.”
