The forest hadn’t changed.

  Tall, trees still reached like skeletal arms toward the sky. The wind still whispered through the leaves with voices only the lonely could understand. But to Harold Carvo, it all felt smaller, less threatening, yet heavier.

  He stepped off the trail, boots crunching softly over roots and moss. His black and silver cloak shifted with the breeze, the faint glow of an Aura weave sewn into its lining pulsing gently with each movement.

  He paused atop a familiar hill, eyes narrowing.

  There it was.

  The old house.

  Or what remained of it.

  Now just a skeleton of walls, half-swallowed by vines and time. The roof had collapsed, and the doorway, once a portal between safety and terror, hung broken on its hinges.

  Harold didn't move for a long while.

  His hand brushed over the moon crest on his collar, Lunaris’ mark, a symbol of the god who gave him a second life, or perhaps, a new purpose.

  "Ten years," He murmured.

  His voice, deeper now, carried no tremble. Only weight. Memory.

  He walked forward.

  Inside, the air was stale, filled with ash and rot and ghosts. He knelt by the scorched floor where the beast once stood, where his innocence had died. He closed his eyes.

  Not to grieve. But to listen.

  A sudden pulse echoed in Harold’s ear, sharp, clean, and rhythmic.

  He tapped the sleek obsidian shard embedded just beneath the skin at the back of his ear. The rune etched into it shimmered briefly, activating the Long Distance Communication Device Magic, LDCDM. It's a Lunarian innovation that allowed encrypted voice casting through stabilized mana channels.

  A familiar voice came through, clear but tinted with static from the mana interference in the woods.

  "Harold, this is Operator Sarah Noir. You copy?"

  He stood and turned instinctively toward the north, where the hills dipped into the far treeline.

  "I’m here. Go ahead."

  "We’ve got a confirmed sighting. Another corrupted beast, Medium class, but it’s near the outer edge of the village of Telna. Coordinates marked, 10 kilometers from your current position. No casualties yet, but villagers are evacuating."

  Harold’s brow furrowed. "That’s close. Too close."

  "Exactly why you're the nearest asset. Mission priority: Contain or eliminate. Extraction team on standby if things escalate. No mistakes, Harold. Copy?"

  He exhaled through his nose and started walking, the soft glow of his Aura cloak amplifying as he moved faster.

  "Copy that, Operator. Engaging route to Telna. ETA—less than thirty minutes."

  "Good. And Harold—" Sarah’s tone shifted, just slightly. "Watch your soul levels. Don’t push the Aura bleed again."

  "I know."

  He cut the line and ran.

  The tree line broke just ahead, revealing the outskirts of Telna Village—quaint stone cottages, a narrow well path, and fences now shattered. But there were no bodies. Just silence and shadows.

  Harold crouched near a thick grove on the village’s edge, pulling a satchel from his side.

  From it, he retrieved two bundles of iron spikes—each sharpened and etched with tiny spiraling runes. He uncorked a small glass vial filled with glowing, purified liquid soul—a bluish-white alchemical essence drawn from stabilized soul energy.

  He dipped each spike’s tip in the liquid, the metal briefly humming with light before settling to a dull glow. Then, working fast, he embedded the spikes in two choke points along a narrow corridor between a crumbled fence and a barn wall—perfect for baiting and ambushing the beast.

  His traps set, Harold stood and moved to the open ground between them. He closed his eyes.

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  Focus. He breathed in deeply and then released his Aura.

  A soft hum filled the air, the grass beneath his boots trembling. The aura radiating from his body was a pale silver-blue, sharp-edged and tightly controlled, like a blade drawn halfway from its sheath. It wasn’t his full power, but it was just enough to broadcast his presence like a beacon.

  Any corrupted beast nearby would feel it.

  And it would come.

  He slid his stance low, one hand near his saber hilt, the other hovering by the pouch where a second soul crystal waited, just in case.

  And then, from the forest beyond Telna, came the sound of something moving.

  No… charging. Branches snapped. The earth rumbled.

  The corrupted beast burst from the treeline like a cannonball of flesh and fury.

  Twisted limbs, blackened skin marbled with glowing red veins, and soulless yellow eyes locked onto Harold with pure instinctual hatred.

  It was massive, easily twice his size. The ground trembled under its charge.

  Harold stood unmoving, waiting-bait.

  The beast lunged.

  The moment it passed between the two spike zones, Harold's fingers snapped in a tight circle, activating the rune hidden beneath the soil.

  The Gravitational Scroll.

  In an instant, the air thickened. A pulse exploded from the scroll, The beast’s momentum collapsed, slamming it into the ground with a bone-cracking crunch.

  It shrieked, limbs struggling against a force it couldn’t understand.

  Harold didn’t waste a breath.

  He stomped once, hard. His Geo magic surged through the earth. Mana lines flared from his boots into the soil, racing toward the embedded pikes.

  The ground shivered, then the spikes launched upward with deadly precision.

  "One. Two. Five. Ten—"

  Each iron spike, now burning with purified soul energy, tore through the beast’s body from below like punishing spears. The creature wailed, its corrupted flesh sizzling on contact.

  Harold’s gaze didn’t waver.

  "Seventeen."

  The final spike drove straight into the creature’s heart, stopping it mid-scream.

  For a moment, all was still.

  Then the beast’s body sagged, twitching once… and collapsed into ash, dispersing into the wind like smoke chased off by a coming storm.

  Harold stood over the fading ashes, breath steady. The corrupted beast was gone, purified and silenced.

  He opened his communicator with a tap.

  "This is Harold Carvo. Target eliminated. No civilian casualties. Corruption site purged."

  A pause, followed by Sarah Noir’s voice.

  “Confirmed. Any damage to your gear?”

  "Negative," Harold replied, already walking toward the trap sites. "Retrieving pikes. Still viable for reuse."

  Each iron spike, now dim but intact, was carefully pulled from the earth.

  The purify liquid had fully discharged, but the soul-steeled shafts were undamaged, Harold had reinforced their cores himself with trace runes and alloy threading.

  He wrapped each one back into their fitted rolls, sealing them in the satchel with practiced care.

  Sarah’s voice came back, laced with the hint of a sigh. “You’re the only field agent who builds for three threats when the mission brief only mentions one.”

  “I don’t like surprises,” Harold said, approaching his cart parked along a shaded trail outside the village.

  The cart was simple but reinforced, lined with aura-inscribed wood and bolted compartments.

  A folded tarp covered spare scrolls, soul vials, rations, and even emergency beacon shards.

  Everything had a place.

  Harold replaced the spike satchel, checked the Soul Crystal’s compartment again, and scanned his map. Telna Village was safe. For now.

  He mounted the cart bench and took the reins.

  “Returning to base. Unless you’ve got another anomaly to toss my way.”

  “Not yet,” Sarah said. “But I’ll keep an ear to the ground. Good work, Harold.”

  He flicked the reins. The cart rolled on.

  The wheels of Harold’s cart clattered against the worn stone road, tracing the rising cliffs that signaled his approach to Halzian City, a bustling port carved into the southeastern edge of the Republic of Vergaz.

  From afar, it shimmered like polished brass in the midday sun. Towering cranes arched over merchant vessels, steam ferries hissed along docks, and the sharp cry of gull-beasts echoed overhead. Traders, engineers, and soldiers moved through the city in dense flows, their uniforms and dialects a patchwork of cultures.

  Halzian wasn’t just a city.

  It was the only route to Leoric’s Point Island and by extension, Lunaris’ Central Base. No one reached the sacred island without first stepping through Halzian’s customs, clearing with Argaryx Corp, and boarding one of the three secured mana-powered vessels stationed in its private harbor.

  Harold guided the cart down a cobbled ramp leading to a military checkpoint. The guards, clad in black-and-emerald Vergaz armor, saluted as they recognized the silver insignia stitched onto Harold’s cloak: a crescent moon over a blade.

  Argaryx Corp.

  No one asked questions.

  He left the cart at the Lunar Outpost stable stationed specifically for field operatives and walked the rest of the way into the Lunarian Embassy Tower. The air here was cleaner, tinged with processed mana and salt.

  Inside, crystal conduits pulsed with information, and stewards in white robes moved between data stations.

  As Harold approached the inner terminal, an assistant intercepted him, a young man with square glasses and a mana clipboard.

  “Sir Carvo, we’ve arranged your transfer to Vessel IV: Dawnreach, scheduled to depart at midnight tide. You’ll arrive at Leoric’s Point Island by morning.”

  Harold gave a short nod. “Understood. I’ll check in before departure.”

  He moved to a quiet corner of the tower’s open deck, overlooking the ocean.

  he looked out over the darkening sea.As the sun dipped beneath the sea’s edge and Halzian’s sky turned from gold to deep indigo, Harold stood aboard Dawnreach Vessel IV, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the moon.

  Tonight wasn’t just transit. Tonight was the Night of Descent. The Lunarian’s sacred event, held once every year when the moon reached its lowest arc over Leoric’s Point Island.

  According to the Book of Celestia, it was the night when Leoric, God of Creation, first descended from his palace upon the moon and breathed soul into the world.

  Every Lunarian,soldier, priest, child, or citizen, honored it. Harold had returned just in time.

  The ship’s sails were laced with moon-thread, pulsing softly with silvery mana as they cut through dark waters.

  A soft chant began below deck. The Lunarian clergy, dressed in layered robes of white and obsidian, gathered on the central platform with scrolls.

  Harold stood among them quietly, unrobed but welcome. His status as an Argaryx operative granted him presence. But his past gave him something else.

  A reason.

  Ten years ago, this was the night he was first brought to Leoric’s Point. Half-conscious, trembling in a healing tank, his soul fractured by the Dark Beast of Deya.

  He looked up now. The moon was full. Pale. Almost close enough to touch.

  A Lunarian priestess near him began a recitation.

  "To the Moon, to Leoric, to the Breath of Creation... We return our soul, our will, our thanks."

  Harold closed his eyes and briefly allowed the silence to settle in his chest. The weight he always carried lightened, just a bit.

  He didn’t pray. But he remembered.

  The sacred chants faded into the wind, leaving only the sound of waves lapping gently against the hull of the Dawnreach. The moon had begun its slow ascent again, its blessing fulfilled for another year.

  Harold lingered near the observation deck, watching the waters turn silver.

  He heard the soft tap of a staff behind him.

  "You’ve grown."

  Harold turned, his posture stiffening at first, but then softening as he recognized the voice.

  The man approaching him wore formal officer’s attire trimmed in ceremonial lunar silver, a long coat bearing the Argaryx crest over his heart. His beard was thicker, his posture heavier, but the presence was the same.

  Valen Noir.

  The knight who once saved him in Deya Woods. Now older, walking with a crafted silverstaff, but his eyes were as clear and sharp as ever.

  There was a slight limp in his step—perhaps a cost from years past—but he carried it with pride.

  Harold gave a respectful nod, his voice quieter than usual. "Didn’t think you’d still be on duty."

  Valen chuckled, the sound worn and warm.

  "The body’s slower, but the mind’s still sharp. Besides…" he tapped the staff once on the deck, "Someone has to keep an eye on Sarah’s field reports."

  Harold smirked lightly. "She’s not easy to impress."

  "No. She takes after her mother," Valen replied, then his tone grew softer.

  "But she never stopped following your missions. Neither did I."

  There was a pause. Harold glanced back at the sea.

  "You never told me why you came that night… to Deya."

  Valen’s gaze followed the waves.

  "Because I was passing through. Nothing divine about it. Sometimes the Creator moves pieces, sometimes they fall into place on their own."

  He looked back at Harold.

  "But I saw something in you. Not just fear. Resolve. Most freeze in the face of a Dark Beast. You stayed standing."

  Harold’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.

  Valen stepped closer, laying a firm hand on his shoulder.

  "You’ve come far, Harold. But don’t think you’ve reached your limit. The world’s getting stranger. Darker. You’ll need more than what I taught you."

  Harold didn’t answer immediately.

  "Then I’ll keep learning."

  Valen smiled faintly. "Good. That’s all Leoric ever asked of us."