The forest had changed.

  Not in shape or size—but in weight. Nine could feel it pressing against his skin, like the trees were watching. Like the roots remembered every drop of blood spilled into their soil.

  But he walked on.

  Each step was more confident than the st. Not fearless—never that—but measured. Determined. The stone sword at his side was heavy, but familiar now. An extension of him. The bruises on his arms had faded, and though his wounds still ached, they weren’t open anymore.

  Whatever was keeping him alive in this pce… it worked fast.

  Too fast.

  But he didn’t question it—not yet.

  His stomach growled low, a rumble more like a warning than a compint. Food. That was the mission.

  He moved through thickets and branches like a ghost, eyes scanning every patch of brush, every flick of movement. The forest pulsed with life, strange and unfamiliar. Flowers that breathed. Trees that shimmered faintly in the light. Insects that made no sound but left glowing trails in the air.

  Then he saw it.

  A creature hunched over a patch of wild grass, snout twitching as it sniffed and chewed.

  Nine froze.

  It looked like a rat—at least in shape—but rger. Much rger. The size of a dog, with a hunched back and wiry hair. Its cws were long, thick, and dull—but dense enough to tear flesh. It twitched occasionally, jerking its head up to sniff the air.

  Nine crouched low behind a bush, steadying his breath.

  "No mistakes. I can’t afford them."

  He didn’t feel good about attacking like this—from hiding—but survival didn’t care about honor.

  He gripped the sword with both hands, moved into position, and waited for the rat-thing to turn just slightly—

  Then he struck.

  He burst from the brush with a grunt, swinging the bde from overhead in a wide arc. The dograt barely had time to lift its head before the bde connected with a sickening crunch.

  Its skull cracked open under the force, its body twitching once—then went still.

  He stood over it, chest heaving.

  Got one. It felt good. Not just relief—victory. A clean kill.

  He wiped his forehead and gave the corpse a gnce before lifting it by its tail and dropping it into an old woven basket he’d salvaged from the mansion. Cracked and worn, but still usable.

  And he wasn’t done.

  The hunt continued.

  He found more of them—scattered across the forest, always grazing, always unaware. Maybe they weren’t smart. Maybe they were just beasts.

  It didn’t matter.

  He killed them. Quiet. Efficient. Over and over.

  By the time the light above began to shift—though it never quite turned to night—his basket was full. The weight of it dragged against his shoulder as he trudged through the trees, blood spttered across his legs and hands.

  He looked down at the heap of dead creatures.

  Fifteen. Maybe more. His arms ached from swinging. His legs from crouching. His back from carrying.

  But there was something else.

  Strength.

  He could feel it—subtle, but real. The weight of the sword didn’t bite into his grip the way it used to. His muscles responded faster. His bance steadier.

  "I’m changing."

  He didn’t know how. Didn’t understand it. But he wasn’t the same weak, starving wreck that had crawled into this forest days ago.

  And he’d earned his food.

  The mansion greeted him in silence, just as it always did.

  No wind stirred the garden. No leaves rustled. The statues lining the path remained frozen, locked in their final moments of terror, watching him with bnk, stone eyes as he passed.

  But Nine didn’t flinch anymore.

  He was getting used to being watched.

  Basket slung over one shoulder, sword in the other hand, he made his way through the grand front door and down the familiar corridors. The creaking wood beneath his boots was less unnerving now—just part of the rhythm.

  He descended the hidden stairwell into the basement.

  The warmth met him immediately.

  Down here, beneath the dead air of the mansion, life still pulsed. The forge fire still burned—eternal, magical, silent. It cast long shadows against the stone walls, illuminating the training equipment and worn dummies lined up in the corners.

  This pce didn’t just keep him safe.

  It felt like his.

  He dropped the basket with a grunt and stretched his sore arms. Muscle pulled under his skin—not tight, not bulky, but growing.

  He noticed it now when he moved.

  His arms were firmer. His legs didn’t tremble with every exertion. Even his reflection, glimpsed occasionally in the forge’s metal, looked… different.

  His cheeks weren’t as hollow. His colrbones weren’t quite as visible. There was definition beginning to rise beneath the grime and bruises. A build. A frame.

  Not strong yet. But getting there.

  Slow and steady. He id out a few of the cleaner dograts, skinning them quickly. The fur was tough, the smell sharp, but he was getting better at it. His hands didn’t tremble like they used to. His cuts were smoother.

  He skewered the meat on salvaged metal rods and held them near the forge’s fire. It burned hotter than any normal fme, so he had to keep his distance, constantly turning the skewers.

  The meat sizzled. Fat dripped and hissed into the coals.

  He licked his lips.

  He’d eaten worse.

  When they were ready, he pulled one free, bit in.

  Not as bad as I thought. It was stringy, wild, but rich. Enough fat to feel satisfying. It filled his stomach, warmed his blood.

  He sat on the floor and devoured two more pieces, letting the fire’s heat soothe his sore body.

  This was the first day he hadn’t run.

  The first day he hadn’t hidden.

  He’d hunted. Fought. Killed.

  And now he was eating what he’d earned.

  I can survive here. It wasn’t a boast. It wasn’t hope. It was a realization. A truth being hammered into him like a bde on the anvil.

  His eyes grew heavy.

  He meant to move—maybe climb up to the hollow in the tree, maybe just shift over to the training mats in the corner—but he never made it.

  He fell asleep right there.

  Back against the forge wall. Sword across his p. Half-finished meat skewers still beside him.

  And once again—the nightmares came.

  The days began to blend.

  There were no suns. No moons. No rising or setting light.

  Only the glow.

  Only the routine.

  Nine had carved out a rhythm for himself—not out of peace, but necessity. He woke with aching limbs and clenched teeth, always from dreams soaked in blood and fear. He stretched the pain from his joints, dressed the wounds that hadn’t yet healed, and stepped into the training room like a soldier stepping into war.

  Because it was a war.

  Every single day.

  He started slow at first—repeating basic movements with the stone sword until his arms burned and his fingers blistered. He practiced footwork across the cold floor, carving invisible circles and pivots into the stone. He used the forge’s dummies as targets, swinging again and again, adjusting his grip, shifting his weight, learning when to strike and when to step.

  There was no coach.

  No guide.

  Just him. His instincts. And the voice in his mind screaming:

  "If you don’t get stronger, you’ll die."

  By the fourth cycle—however time passed in this pce—his hands had calloused over. The shakes had stopped. His swings grew heavier, faster. The bde felt less like a foreign object and more like an extension of his arm.

  He found weights in the corner of the room—oddly shaped, made of dark metal, impossibly heavy. They were clearly not of his world.

  He lifted them anyway.

  At first, his arms trembled. His shoulders screamed. But he kept going.

  He did pushups until his arms colpsed under him. He swung until his fingers couldn’t grip the hilt. He ran the length of the mansion’s long halls, over and over, until his lungs burned and his knees buckled.

  He ate sparingly. Slept lightly.

  And trained.

  Every. Single. Day.

  His body changed. Slowly, but visibly.

  His chest filled out. His stomach, once concave and skeletal, began to harden. His legs grew thicker. More stable. His movements lost the wild desperation of prey and took on the rhythm of someone learning control.

  The sword no longer dragged behind him.

  He carried it.

  He no longer looked like a victim.

  He was becoming something else.

  But it wasn’t just the physical that changed.

  His eyes changed too.

  They no longer wandered in fear.

  They watched.

  Calcuted.

  Prepared.

  He kept hunting in the hours between training. More of those dograts, strange avian beasts, once even a bloated frog-like creature that spat acid when cornered. He dodged it. Killed it. Ate what he could. Took notes—mental records of how each beast moved, what made it tick, how it died.

  The forest was teaching him too.

  Painfully. Unforgivingly.

  But he learned.

  And every time he dragged his wounded body back to the mansion, bloodied but breathing, he whispered to himself:

  I’m still here. Then one day—everything changed again.

  He had followed a new trail.

  Deeper than he had ever gone.

  Where the air turned still and heavy. Where the trees no longer shimmered. Where the light above dimmed, just slightly.

  And there it was.

  The mouth of a cave.

  Dark. Unnatural.

  And the smell—iron, rot, fur.

  Wolves.

  This was their pce.

  He didn’t need to step inside to know it.

  Corpses y scattered around the entrance—mangled, stripped. Some animal. Some… not.

  Blood soaked the earth.

  He crouched low behind a fallen tree, staring at the cave’s entrance, heart thumping with the rhythm of battle drums.

  "I’ve gotten stronger. I can take one. Maybe two."

  But that thought twisted. Soured.

  Because it wasn’t him setting a trap.

  It was them.

  A sound behind him.

  Another to the side.

  He turned slowly.

  His instincts whispered the truth before his eyes confirmed it.

  He was surrounded.

  And this time—they were waiting for him.