Orion was now perched behind a large bush on the edge of a clearing. In that clearing was a small pond with a pink flower tree on its bank. Drinking from that pond was the Gristleback he had spotted earlier.
Orion's body reacted before his thoughts could catch up. His stance lowered, muscles tightening, fingers outstretched.
A current ran through the ground.
Shadows rippled beneath his feet, gathering with intention. Ferrofluid oozed up from his palms, black and gleaming, swirling like a storm trapped in glass. The mass twisted and compressed, hardening into two sleek daggers that hovered just above his hands—matte black with hints of dark steel down the spines.
The small creature lifted its head up from drinking in this moment, for a moment Orion had thought the beast noticed him. But as it took another sip from the pond that doubt flushed away.
It looked like a miniature boar—low to the ground, tusked, thick with matted fur and patches of dull green scales across its flanks. Its eyes were orange, dull and twitchy. The thing grunted and nosed through the roots, oblivious to the hunter already watching it.
Ajax spoke in a hush. "That's a Third Grade Lesser Gristleback. Ugly little things. Not much fight in them. Decent meat. It's nape is its weak spot."
Orion didn't need more than that.
He lunged.
The right-hand blade flashed, arcing downward with precision. It cleaved into the Gristleback's neck just behind the ear. The beast gave a brief, startled grunt—and then collapsed. No struggle. No sound. Only the thud of its body hitting the dirt.
Silence returned.
Then—
[You have slain: Third Grade Lesser Gristleback]
Something glimmered beside the corpse.
Orion stepped forward and crouched, brushing aside a few dead leaves. There, resting in the grass, was a faintly glowing shard—small, crystalline, with an irregular shape like cracked amber. Its light pulsed faintly, as if it held something breathing inside.
He picked it up.
The shard was warm. Not hot. Not magical. Just… alive, in a way he couldn't explain. Like a piece of something's will had been compressed into a solid form.
"This is a Soul Shard?" he murmured.
"Yup," Ajax said. "That's what you trade, eat, craft, and curse your life over in the Tower. Welcome to the economy."
Orion turned the shard between his fingers, then slipped it into the side pouch of his bag. No sooner had it clicked shut than a new screen opened before him, like a shadow with purple highlights.
[All prerequisites met.]
[Activating Trait: Sovereign of the Hollow Crown]
[Beast Essence Acquired: +1]
[Passive Aspect Extracted: Tough Skin]
[Rank: Common]
[Effect: Endurance +5%]
Orion blinked.
The shard hadn't done anything. He hadn't done anything. And yet—his body felt different. Like something unseen had thickened beneath his skin. A slight tension at the base of his neck. A heaviness in his stance. His breath didn't hitch like it usually did in cold air. The endurance boost was real.
He opened his system window.
Passive Aspects:
Tough Skin [Common] — Endurance +5%
Beast Essence: 1
"So that's what it does…" Orion whispered. "The ??? Trait just—triggered itself."
Ajax gave a low whistle. "That's not normal. Traits don't activate themselves. Then again, unknown rank traits aren't normal either. Whatever that Sovereign thing is, it's doing more than we thought."
Orion stared down at his hands. They didn't look different. But they felt different. Like they remembered something he didn't. Like they had taken the kill and learned from it.
He dismissed the window.
"Alright," he said, walking toward the carcass. "Let's get you cleaned and cooked."
He bent to grab the Gristleback by its hind legs and slung it over his shoulder. It wasn't light, but it wasn't as heavy as he'd thought it would be. Not anymore. Not with Tough Skin pulsing softly through his bones like a second skin.
The sun dipped lower behind the mountaintops, painting the forest edges in orange flame. The forest had fallen into a kind of hush. Even the wind had lowered its voice, brushing gently through the tall grass as Orion made his way back to the Tree Castle.
He reached the base of the great tree just as the last fingers of sunlight slipped past the mountains. The long shadows of dusk stretched across the clearing. Without a word, Orion knelt and lowered the carcass to the ground with a soft thud, brushing the sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve.
It's been a while since Orion had felt this weak.
"Water?" he asked aloud.
"Left side of the tree," Ajax replied. "There's a catch basin tucked into the roots. Should be clean."
Orion followed his directions and found it—a bowl-shaped depression carved into the base of the tree itself, filled with rainwater clear as crystal. He washed his hands, then drew one of the twin blades from his side. The dagger shimmered in the fading light, matte black and silent, as if even the weapon understood it was time to work.
He got to it.
Field-butchering wasn't glamorous, but it was something he'd done before—during campaigns, after raids, when meat was scarce and nights were long. The Gristleback's hide was thick, tougher than he expected, and the patches of dull green scale across its back deflected even the Fangsteel Requiem at first. But Orion adjusted his angle and pressure. Once the hide was punctured, the rest came easier. The skin peeled away in strips. The flesh beneath was a pale, ruddy color, streaked with sinew and dark marrow.
Ajax didn't speak for a while. Just watched in quiet approval, letting the labor do the talking.
Orion trimmed the fat, slicing off thick edges and separating organs with practiced care. He wasn't about to let Tower meat go to waste—not when he didn't know what tomorrow would bring. He bundled the offcuts into cloth and set aside the prime cuts. Then he began to prep the firepit.
There was already a shallow circle of stone on top of the tree's platform, packed with dry moss and curled kindling. Clearly Ajax had done this before.
"You built all this?" Orion asked, after he reached the fire pit and began flicking sparks from flint onto the bedding.
"I had help," Ajax said with mock pride. "From desperation. And boredom. I stole the design from a survival show back in my world."
Orion hesitated, then asked, "What was your world like?"
It was evident in the long pause that Ajax was considering the question, but still he said, "Not important."
The fire caught, rising in slow, licking fingers that reached out to greet the underside of the iron plate mounted above. As the flames took hold, Orion placed the first slab of meat onto the hot rock. It sizzled instantly, spitting oil and steam into the air. The smell hit him hard—wild, earthy, tinged with something like pine and metal. Not entirely pleasant, but not awful either.
The shadows thickened around the Tree Castle as night settled in. The moon crept over the grassland in the east, brilliant like a diamond.
But beside it—there were no stars.
Just darkness. A skyless dome of black stretching in every direction.
Orion leaned back against the spine of the tree, staring upward. The fire crackled beside him, throwing red light across the walls of woven branches.
"…There aren't any stars," he said.
Ajax's voice was quieter now. "Yeah. I know."
"Why?"
"No one really knows. The Tower doesn't show a real sky. Never has."
"So what is this then? A projection?"
"Could be. Could just be darkness." A pause. "They say the Tower was created at the dawn of time. Built between worlds. Like it sits in the space between realities, where rules start to unravel."
Orion turned the meat with a dagger, letting it sear evenly. "That doesn't explain the sky."
"Nope," Ajax agreed. "But it's the best I've got."
The silence that followed wasn't empty—it was full. Of thought. Of smoke. Of tension unspoken. The firelight danced across Orion's face as he leaned forward, listening to the crackle and pop of the cooking meat, the only sound in a world that felt like it had forgotten how to breathe.
This place was strange.
Impossible.
Alien.
And yet, as the scent of roasted Gristleback filled the clearing and the warmth of fire bled into his chest, Orion felt—just for a heartbeat—like himself again.
Not a Drifter.
Not a failure.
Just a man who was hungry after a long day. And that feeling came with comfort. Comfort for the first time in a very, very long time.
Then the meat was done.
Orion eased it off the iron plate and onto a large leaf he had stripped from the lower boughs of the tree. The surface hissed where the juices hit, and steam curled upward in slow spirals, catching the light of the dying fire like strands of silver.
He sat in a homemade, wooden chair, legs stretched out, and took a bite.
The Gristleback wasn't bad. A little tough, faintly gamey, but satisfying. The flavors were strange—smoky and sharp, with an undercurrent of something he couldn't quite place, like a root herb soaked too long in steel. He didn't care. It was warm. It was food. It was his.
He hadn't realized how hungry he'd been until the second bite.
Ajax didn't speak. For once, he gave Orion silence. Not the hollow silence of the Veil, but the kind that let a moment breathe—companionable, patient, alive.
The night deepened.
The fire crackled lower, throwing shorter shadows. Orion watched the orange glow flicker across the bark, the leaves, his boots. It felt almost like sitting beside a campfire with comrades again, just missing the laughter. The firelight made the inside of the Tree Castle feel smaller than it was. Cozy. Tucked away.
He chewed slowly, forcing himself not to rush.
Time had stopped meaning much in this place, but he could still savor the difference between being hunted and being fed.
"Not bad, huh?" Ajax finally said.
"It's edible," Orion replied around a mouthful.
"High praise. Coming from a man who stabbed a Gristleback in the face without blinking."
Orion wiped his fingers on his pants and leaned back, gazing up through the gaps in the tree canopy.
Still no stars.
No moon. No clouds. Just a blanket of black that pressed down like velvet.
"It's strange," he murmured. "This… quiet. Like the whole world's gone to sleep."
"It has," Ajax replied. "Out here, at least. No monsters at night on Floor Zero. Tower's mercy."
"Why?"
"Don't know. But if I had to guess? It gives you this one floor to catch your breath. Before things get harder."
Orion didn't answer. His mind had already begun drifting.
The fire had dropped to embers now. Soft and red, like the last pulse of something ancient and tired. He reached for one of the coals with a stick and stirred it, watching it glow briefly, then fade again.
He thought of the shard in his bag.
He thought of the system message.
He thought of the name of his trait—Sovereign of the Hollow Crown.
A title that meant nothing.
A rank no one could explain.
A crown without a throne.
"What do you think it means?" he asked suddenly.
Ajax didn't respond immediately.
"Which part?"
"That name. My trait. Sovereign of the Hollow Crown."
A long pause.
Then, softly: "I think it means you've got a rough future coming for you."
Orion glanced sideways. "That's not comforting."
"Didn't say it was." Ajax sighed. "But sometimes being the thing that doesn't belong? That's the thing that breaks everything open."
The fire gave a last, crackling breath.
And then silence returned.
Orion pulled his coat tighter and lay back on the straw bed. The woven branches beneath him were surprisingly firm, though not uncomfortable. He let his head rest against a fold of cloth, his arms crossed over his chest.
Still no stars.
Only the moon.
Why would there be no stars if there was a moon?
"I don't like it," he murmured. "The sky."
Ajax said nothing.
Orion's eyes drifted shut, though he didn't mean them to.
His breathing slowed.
The last thoughts to cross his mind were fragmented—half-memories of fields back home, the cold edge of steel in his hands, and a voice laughing through the trees.
He didn't know if the Tower would let him dream.
But he hoped, for just a few hours, that it would let him rest.