It was bone-chillingly cold. Whatever mom was doing, it had a very creepy effect on me. The hair on the back of my neck–assuming I had any–stood on edge as the darkness turned material, and I could feel the darkness physically like a mist all around me.

  I tried to see, focus my eyes and use the primal power of this world, however, neither could I see, nor could I siphon any kind of power. How could I, after all?

  Amidst the growing darkness, mom's voice cut so sharp that the darkness' slimy tendrils that were coalescing around me suddenly receded. However, it still didn't change the fact that I couldn't even look at my own hand, even though I was holding it right next to my face.

  "Hone your senses, Ragnar." Mom said suddenly, her voice distant, like standing somewhere way far away than me. "Strength and mana, they both can be aided. Body strengthening herbs, and mana quantity aiding shrooms, they can be artificially facilitated." She continued to speak.

  A low rumble filled the air as I turned around.

  "Let your senses expand. Use them. As a physical manifestation of your body. Your sense of smell shouldn't just be a part of what makes you up." She spoke as the rune on her arm shone so bright that the darkness' wisps were all burned.

  My sight came back to me and a hot wave of dread washed over me. Mom was standing to my side, and a few steps away from her was a bear…no, not just any bear. It only looked like a bear in the most rudimentary way. It was an abomination of a bear.

  It looked like a creature dragged from a nightmare—massive, hunched, and warped. The fact that its eyes were on the front made it look even more terrifying since it had lowered its long snout and was looking straight at me.

  Its black, tar-like skin oozed and writhed, swallowing the light oozing out of mom's rune.

  The head was elongated and split too wide, filled with jagged, golden teeth.

  Its eyes were small, socketed deep inside the skull.

  Its claws scraped faintly against the foliage, leaving deep, curling gouges.

  Mom turned towards me. "Do you recognise this fiend, Ragnar?"

  I felt my lips quiver, the name refusing to come out of my mouth. It shouldn't be here. It was said to reside only in the inner sides of The Fallow.

  "But it shouldn't be here…"

  "Why do you say that?" She asked.

  Suddenly the creature roared and the wind whipped up from that single action. It growled, the sound making waves ripple in my chest. It lowered back on its hind legs and then…it bolted forward like an arrow.

  It was no less than 8 feet tall! How can he move this fast!?

  "Mom!" I called out, worry and morbid fear welling up in my chest.

  She spared a glance at me and then swung her arm.

  'Huh?' was all I could muster to speak as the head of the fiend went flying back while its gargantuan body rolled down on the dense foliage underneath our feet. Its body rolled two times before stopping right before my feet.

  Honestly, my legs were weak at this point and not gonna lie, I almost shat my pants. Because, HOLY SHIT! That was scary as fuck!

  "Mom…are you…"

  I was about to ask her how she was but given what she had done, I broke off my sentence midway. The rune on her arm was moving, two perfect squares rotating in opposite directions.

  "Your own individual pathway is something you guard with your life on the line." She began talking as flexed her hand. "The outcome of a battle between two 'Marked' people relies solely on the intel and compatibility." She smiled and extended her hand.

  A white streak of light flicked above her palm and a thin fencing sword materialised in her hand."Pathways aren't simple," she continued. "They're messy. Unpredictable. A Sequence 5 might take down a Sequence 4 if their pathway is better suited for that specific fight. It's rare, but it happens."

  She paused, turning the sword over in her hand like she was inspecting it. "One small edge can make all the difference."

  The sword shifted into a ball, as if it was made out of clay."That's why most people hide their pathways," she said, her tone harder now. "Even from the people they love. Couples, families, friends—it doesn't matter. No one's exempt. Knowing someone's pathway is like holding their life in your hands."

  I frowned, confusion and morbid unease bubbling inside me. "Then… Why are you showing me this?"

  Her eyes met mine, and for a moment, she didn't say anything. The silence stretched suffocatingly before she finally spoke.

  "Because I don't want you to be blindsided one day," she said, her voice quieter now, but laced with an edge of something I couldn't quite name—anger? Sadness? Both?

  "This world doesn't care about fairness. It's cruel, and it's unforgiving. One day, you're going to have to make choices whether you like them or not. Real ones. Hard ones. Choices that will stay with you for the rest of your life."

  She stepped closer, the sphere in her hand dissolving into faint motes of light. Before I could say anything, she pulled me into a tight hug. I froze, caught off guard, but her warmth was grounding, steadying.

  "You're going to hate it," she murmured, her voice thick with emotion. "The things you'll have to do. The things you'll have to live with. But that's how it is. No one gets through this unscathed."

  She breathed shakily. "You have my blood running through your veins as well. Nothing will ever be so easy." She gently rubbed my back.

  It was dizzying. I couldn't make sense of anything she was saying anymore. Breaking the hug, she looked at me, her eyes as beautiful as ever. The ever-intoxicated look in her eyes reflected on her features as well as I stared at her.

  "Anyways," she gently tapped my cheeks before turning around. "You were saying something. Why shouldn't this fiend be here?"

  I swallowed hard, my mind scrambling to refocus. The unease and the confusion at her words was still there, clawing at the edges of my thoughts, but I composed myself. Seeing how I was silent and gaping at her, she spoke again, the look in her eyes softening.

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  "Do you know what this is?" She asked, putting her foot on the severed head.

  I shook my head, and got rid of all the thoughts. I can't let her see myself so rattled. Of course, I should've expected all this. I am not on Earth anymore. It's a mediaeval world with fantasy elements. Of course people's morality and values are much different, and so are the creatures inhibiting it.

  Eat, or be eaten.

  Biting back the bile that pressed at the back of my throat due to the metalling tang of the blood and rancid smell of the fiend's flesh, I looked up at mom. "It's Nyctian Stalker."

  I tried to recall from the few little books I had read. "Standing in the middle of the wild food chain. They're called stalkers because they have padded feet, hence making no noise when they walk. Solitary creatures that thrive in dense forests, caves, or regions of perpetual twilight…" I paused and mom lowered her head at me.

  "Keep going."

  I huffed out a tired breath, not directly looking at its head. "Highly territorial. Can communicate with other Stalkers of its herd using low, rebounding growls that can be felt more than heard. But…"

  I paused, the oddity of our current situation dawning at me.

  "But?"

  It seemed like an exam.

  "They are not mindless killers and prefer to hunt only when necessary. Local folklore describes them as creatures who are manifestations of cursed lands or punishment for greed. Their pelts can hypothetically create cloaks that can render the wearer invisible in darkness if it is skinned as soon as it is hunted." I spoke, feeling my brows furrow.

  "However…"

  "However?"

  "Their homeland is inside 'The Fallow.' The unexplored lands. Since they are highly territorial, they never leave their own place unless someone is hunting them."

  Hannah clapped her hands together, smiling and then directing a finger at the dead nyctian stalker. "You were not merely seeing the pictures, after all." She chuckled, tucking the loose strand of her hair behind her ear.

  "Then why are they here…?" The question lingered for a while, before the answer—which should've been quite obvious—formulated inside my mind. "...because a fiend is breaking the balance of predator and prey…a new apex predator perhaps?"

  Hannah bobbed her head a few times, like half-proud, half-disappointed by my answer. The body of the fiend was already disintegrating.

  Unlike normal humans and other monsters, fiends which are found in the fallow disintegrate after being killed. It's not as though their bodies disappear atom-by-atom as I had read in novels, but rather the decomposition system was extremely fast.

  The fiend was culled just a few minutes ago and by now the smell of its flesh rotting had spread so much that it was hard to just stand there. Rigor Mortis had set in long ago and the flesh around its neck had a small maggot-like infestation.

  Bending down, a small dagger made out of pure light materialised in Hannah's hand. "Your thought process is not wrong, but you need to think out of the box." She said as she started to skin the fur of the nyctian stalker. "You—pretty much everyone—fails to see the full picture because we have been hardwired to think in a certain manner."

  She looked up, her bright red eyes focusing on me. "Think Ragnar. Why do you think they can't be found here?"

  She spoke and masterfully used the light dagger to move and remove the fur from the skin. Since fiends disintegrate so rapidly, one has to be quick with their reapings.

  "Because that's what is written in the most trustworthy book in the whole province?"

  It was rhetoric. But I know Hannah would've guessed it. She was smart, scarily so. And something about her felt so warm but cold at the same time.

  "If the fiends never leave their home, and we only 'protect' the scar—the boundary between the fallow and drakensfjord—, persè then…"

  Suddenly things started to make sense. "...how do we have such detailed reports on everything…from their habitats to their social lives and hierarchy…."

  She looked up at me, her lips curling into a knowing smile as she nodded and went back to removing the fur.

  A wave of nausea overcame me as I took several steps back.

  "How do we know, indeed?" She spoke, seemingly unfazed by the smell. "Stay there, I'll be done in a bit." She commanded as I took more steps back and slipped against the tree bark.

  She was right about it all. How do we know? That would mean that either the villagers or the army who was sent from the capital of the Northern Kingdom had been going inside the fallow, even though the law states that no one is allowed to go in due to it being a cursed place.

  I mean, why lie about it? Intel is a good thing. Going inside with more people and uncovering the mystery can work well in our own favour. Since the first people who arrived in the northern empire were the people who survived the fallow, it could help everyone understand the ancient culture and secrets.

  Awhh man, just when I was thinking this world is simple as fuck, something like this had to happen.

  Now I would've said that I should keep my nose out of it and live a peaceful life, I don't think I will be able to restrain my curiosity anymore…heh.

  This means that The Fallow is not cursed. Someone is hiding something there. The Area 51 of this world.

  But unlike Earth, there is no army of bald-eagles stopping me from going there!

  But not now.

  As of right now, I have no powers. And without powers I can't even kill a normal monster, let alone a fiend found in the mana rich environments of The Fallow.

  After a while of waiting and thinking over what had happened until now, I tried to recall everything I had studied in books so far. Other than the geographical position of Drakensfjord, I had studied the two major religions as well.

  There are two schools of thoughts around which this entire world revolves: The Gods and The Source.

  The one who believes in Gods are like pretty much what was the case back on Earth. The various Gods who were present since time immemorial shaped the entire universe, made galaxies, our world and other worlds which we do not have the knowledge of yet.

  Unlike earth's rigid form of belief, there are too many gods in this world. And all of them are equally respected. However, it is said that there are always extraterrestrial threats for our universe. Since Gods could either run the universe or fight the threats, they made "The Source"

  The source is an autonomous system which operates this world instead of God's now. The rising and setting of the sun, the ebb and flow of time, the very laws of fate and karma—they are all under the jurisdiction of The Source. Blessings, retributions, powers—each are dispensed according to its own 'programmed' will.

  However, people believe it to be just another gods' gadget.

  99.99% of Drakensfjord population believes in this school of thought. The power that is siphoned through the gods is done via Rune Praxis. It is a ritual where one meditates until the source thinks that a particular god would've taken a fancy to this human and then that awakened person would walk on the same path as the god. The Gods Pathway.

  The second school of thought refutes the first one, posing a simple question. If people were to walk a pathway the specific pathway god once did, doesn't that imply that they were once normal humans? And if so, who was the one who granted them enough divinity to ascend?

  They believe that the source is an entity, not just a gadget. The entity who is the actual protector of this universe and has helped worthy humans to ascend.

  Since this school of thought is considered as utter blasphemy, there are no books that state how they derive their powers. Well, at least in a religious outpost like Drakensfjord.

  I've always been curious. Growing up in a home steeped in devotion, I've been taught by Robert to trust in the gods' paths.

  And soon enough, I'll be part of that path myself. I'll undergo the Rune Praxis—become one with the god I'm meant to follow. It's a sacred thing. Everyone in Drakensfjord believes in it.

  Believing that when you're chosen, when The Source channels the gods' will through you, you'll walk the same steps as a god, that you'll embody their power.

  Robert seems to be proud that I'm about to take this step, that I'm about to receive their blessing and walk the divine path. He sees it as the ultimate honor, a chance for me to rise beyond the confines of 'being human'.

  But something has always felt strange in that household…

  "Ragnar." Hannah called me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  "Yes, coming!" I stood up immediately and ran after her.

  She had flung the fiend's hide on her shoulder which was wrapped in a small cloth. She was walking with a confident gait and I made sure to stick by her side. We walked in silence, for a long while.

  It felt like she wanted to tell me something. But couldn't find the right words to express those unsaid things. I could practically see her lips flutter as she did.

  I hesitated at first, and then slowly slipped my hand between hers and gripped her index finger.

  She looked down at me with a surprised look and then smiled. "Aren't you a bit old for this now, Ragnar?"

  Rolling my eyes, I scoffed. Letting out a girlish giggle, she patted my head. Although it did offend me that he patted me with the same hands that had been all over that dying fiend which was now nothing more than a decomposed pile of bones, this warm feeling everytime she patted my head or kissed me was too comforting for me to complain about.

  "There is something you want to say, don't you, mom?" I voiced out. I know it has been bothering her, and it has been bothering me as well. Because…

  "There is a lot to tell, Ragnar." She started to talk with a tired sigh. "So much. I want to tell you everything." She looked down at me, her red eyes darkening. "But too much information results in doom. I learned that the hard way." She breathed out, like reliving a horrible memory. "Time is always with you, my dearest son. It follows you—and us, everywhere."

  Adjusting the pelt, she talked again. "Everything will reveal itself, with time."

  I fell into silence for a brief moment.

  She has never looked so…depressed. Even the slightest vestige of the cheerful, role-model Hannah Valkknar who was one of the best hunters and fighters in the whole village, the one who tackled everything with a smile was absent. It was like she was a whole different person.

  However, the same smile that had warmed my heart ever since I was reincarnated in this body graced her lips as she tilted her head at me. "What do you want to eat today?"

  "BEEF! BEEF!" I spoke so loud and so abruptly that I placed my hands over my mouth and looked up at her with an embarrassed face.

  Damn this little growing body. I can't even control these emotional outbursts!

  Giggling to herself, Hannah pinched my cheeks. "Beef it is."

  *******************

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