The battlefield still hissed beneath their feet.

  Lightning scars ran across glasslike stone. Smoke curled around broken muscle and cracked bone. The three beasts lay motionless—silent now, but far from forgotten. And in the center, the heat of Jarek’s last strike still pulsed faintly, like the world hadn’t finished reacting.

  Then something moved.

  From the treeline—what remained of it—a figure stepped into the ruin.

  Not a beast. Not a soldier.

  A man. Clad in worn leather armor traced with dull metal, half-burned from travel. A hood pulled low, and over his face—a mirror.

  Not polished. Cracked. Smudged. Warped.

  It showed a reflection of Jarek as he was now—sword still drawn, blood streaking his cheek, violet lightning crawling across his shoulders.

  Reiner grunted, raising his axe. “Don’t like the way he walks.”

  Cyrille dropped into a defensive stance beside Jarek, blades half-raised.

  But the man didn’t stop. He walked past the corpses without flinching. Without reverence.

  When he reached the first fallen beast, he crouched and ran gloved fingers gently across its shoulder.

  The reaction was immediate.

  Jarek’s chest tightened. A familiar pull stirred beneath his ribs. The Hunger—silent for moments—twitched awake again. Sharper this time. Curious. Like a hound sniffing a familiar trail.

  The stranger looked up slowly.

  “The thing inside you felt that, didn’t it?”

  Jarek’s grip tightened on his blade.

  “How do you know what’s inside me?”

  The mirrored mask tilted, catching firelight in broken reflections.

  “I don’t know what it is. But I’ve seen what it leaves behind.”

  The stranger rose to his feet and stepped over the predator’s corpse like it was nothing.

  “They weren’t yours to kill,” he said.

  “They tried to rip our throats out,” Reiner growled.

  “They were echoes,” the man replied. “And you silenced them before they finished their song.”

  Jarek took a slow step forward. “You’re not from Halvark.”

  “No one worth listening to is.”

  The stranger removed his hood.

  His face remained hidden—just that cracked mirror.

  “I’m called Sarn.”

  Cyrille narrowed her eyes. “You a scout? A rogue?”

  “Neither.” His tone stayed flat. “I walk the places where names don’t hold weight.”

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  He nodded toward the massive corpse at the center of the crater—the thing that had once tried to transcend.

  “That thing wasn’t a Sovereign,” Jarek said.

  “No,” Sarn replied. “It was more. And not enough.”

  They turned toward the ruin together. The air around it was heavy, coiled. Like thunder hadn’t left—it had just gone quiet for a while.

  “It burned out trying to evolve,” Sarn said softly. “Didn’t die in battle. Didn’t bleed out. Its body rejected the path halfway through.”

  Cyrille’s voice lowered. “So those things—”

  “Descendants,” Sarn said. “Or derivatives. It left more behind than bones.”

  Reiner frowned. “We’ve seen monsters. Those weren’t just monsters.”

  “No,” Sarn agreed. “They were pulled toward places like this. Points where the world folds too tightly. Places where rules bend and break.”

  He turned toward Jarek.

  “And you showed up too.”

  Jarek’s lightning flared. His hand twitched slightly at the grip.

  Sarn raised a palm, not in surrender—but recognition.

  “You’re not one of us. Not yet. But you’re not one of them anymore either.”

  The silence crackled. Ozone still hung heavy.

  Jarek finally broke it. “So what were those things doing here?”

  “They weren’t scouts,” Sarn said. “Not for someone else. They were searching by instinct. Drawn to the resonance of this place.”

  “Because of that corpse?”

  “Because of what it almost became.”

  Jarek exhaled. “Transcendent.”

  Sarn nodded once.

  “But it failed.”

  Cyrille looked back at the crater. “Why did it feel like it was still watching us?”

  “Because its evolution didn’t die with it,” Sarn said. “Power doesn’t just disappear. It waits.”

  Reiner’s voice was low. “What the hell kind of system allows for things like that?”

  Sarn’s stance didn’t change, but something in his voice sharpened.

  “No system allows for it. That’s the point.”

  He took a step forward, and though he had no weapon drawn, the air tensed like he’d just unsheathed one.

  “You come from Halvark. Their people measure strength by chains. Feral. Predator. Apex. Sovereign. Tiers carved from fear, so no one tries to look higher.”

  He paused.

  “You know what Sovereign means in their system?”

  Jarek said nothing.

  “It means: stop climbing.”

  He walked slowly toward them, passing the corpses again, boots crunching over glasslike dirt.

  “Halvark made a tier system to convince people they’d reached the summit. They tell you there’s nothing above it. That pushing past it is madness. That you should stay where it's safe—where you're useful.”

  He turned slightly.

  “But the truth bleeds through in places like this. In corpses like that one.”

  Jarek’s jaw flexed. “So what’s beyond Sovereign?”

  Sarn faced him again.

  “I don’t use their names. I don’t believe in cages made from numbers.”

  Cyrille tilted her head. “Then what do you believe in?”

  He looked at her—and the mirror of his mask showed only her expression back at her.

  “We call them Bound. Unbound. Ascendant. Wakened. Sealed.”

  Reiner raised a brow. “Sounds like a cult.”

  Sarn ignored the jab. “You stop measuring how much power you hold. You start becoming the power itself.”

  Jarek narrowed his eyes. “You talk a lot for someone who didn’t step in.”

  Sarn’s tone didn’t change. “Why would I interfere? I came to see who would walk away from the crater. You made your choice. The world will respond.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you didn’t just kill them. You tangled with something bigger. Something older. And now? You’ve left a scent.”

  He turned again toward the corpse at the crater’s center.

  “The thing inside you responded because it knows. It’s seen this kind of thing before. It wants to evolve. And this place—it whispered something it understood.”

  Jarek’s voice was quiet. “And what did it say?”

  Sarn’s head tilted, almost amused.

  “More.”

  Cyrille crossed her arms. “So what now?”

  Sarn started to walk again. “Now, you go to Gravemarch. Pretend you know nothing. Don’t speak of Apex, or Predator, or Sovereign.”

  He looked back over his shoulder.

  “Speak your purpose. That’s all they’ll care about.”

  Jarek’s lightning flared again, but softer this time. Controlled.

  “You keep talking like I’m something special.”

  Sarn didn’t stop walking.

  “You’re not special.”

  He paused.

  “You’re just early.”

  A gust of wind blew across the field, scattering ash and steam. When it cleared—

  Sarn was gone.

  No sound. No flash.

  Just empty space.

  And the mirror was still.

  Jarek stared for a moment longer, then looked at his hand.

  The lightning obeyed. Wrapped around his fingers like silk, smooth and alive.

  He exhaled.

  Cyrille approached. “He was creepy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You believe any of that?”

  Jarek didn’t answer right away.

  He looked at the crater.

  Then down at the corpse.

  Then east.

  The Hunger stirred faintly.

  Not pushing.

  Not consuming.

  Just waiting.

  Jarek whispered, “We keep going.”

  Reiner grunted. “Gravemarch?”

  “Gravemarch.”

  And this time, the world felt like it might already be watching.