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Jollivans travels

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Synopsis
The world was broken long before he was born. He just didn’t know it yet. Seventeen-year-old Jollivan Marr thought survival meant crossing the border and escaping the rotting forests. But when a rogue Nyrian tears through the refugee line, everything changes. Left for dead and spiraling toward the heart of the dreaded Forest of Nightmares, Jollivan awakens to an ancient presence clawing its way into his soul. To survive, he bonds with a dying Nyrian general—Valerian, a being twisted by the Velcrid Strain, a disease that turns his kind into monsters. The bond grants Jollivan inhuman strength, heightened senses… and a shadow that hungers for more than just light. But the power comes at a cost. Cast out as an abomination, hunted by soldiers, feared by cities, Jollivan is forced onto a path no sane man would walk: that of a Withered Hunter—one who tracks and kills the very monsters he is becoming. In a world torn between fractured kingdoms, corrupted spirit domains, and a coming war no one understands, Jollivan must master his bond, survive deadly trials, and confront the echoes of a forgotten war between Earth and a lost alien race. Because the monsters aren’t just out there. They’re inside him. The world was broken long before he was born. He just didn’t know it yet. Seventeen-year-old Jollivan Marr thought survival meant crossing the border and escaping the rotting forests. But when a rogue Nyrian tears through the refugee line, everything changes. Left for dead and spiraling toward the heart of the dreaded Forest of Nightmares, Jollivan awakens to an ancient presence clawing its way into his soul. To survive, he bonds with a dying Nyrian general—Valerian, a being twisted by the Velcrid Strain, a disease that turns his kind into monsters. The bond grants Jollivan inhuman strength, heightened senses… and a shadow that hungers for more than just light. But the power comes at a cost. Cast out as an abomination, hunted by soldiers, feared by cities, Jollivan is forced onto a path no sane man would walk: that of a Withered Hunter—one who tracks and kills the very monsters he is becoming. In a world torn between fractured kingdoms, corrupted spirit domains, and a coming war no one understands, Jollivan must master his bond, survive deadly trials, and confront the echoes of a forgotten war between Earth and a lost alien race. Because the monsters aren’t just out there. They’re inside him.
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Chapter 1 - Chapter 1- THE FALL

The line stretched like a dying serpent, winding through the scorched valley toward the barricade ahead. Hundreds of boots shuffled across cracked soil, the sound too uniform to be natural. Tired eyes stared ahead, not daring to glance too long at the dense forest that loomed on either side. The Forest of Nightmares.

No one spoke above a whisper anymore. They all knew where they were.

Jollivan kept one hand tight around his sister's wrist, guiding her as they moved with the crowd. The other hand hung near his hip, close to the half-blunt knife he'd stolen from an abandoned caravan days earlier.

The air stank of sweat, smoke, and something fainter—like rotting flowers. A scent the old called omen-sweet.

"Don't look at them," his sister said, voice low and close. "Keep walking." He glanced sideways. Along the ridges, armed soldiers paced the cliffs, silhouettes against the dying sun. Some watched the crowd, others watched the trees. None looked comfortable.

Jollivan adjusted the scarf around his mouth and nodded. They hadn't eaten in nearly a day. The checkpoint ahead—Horn's Gate—was the last route before the wilderness turned hostile. If they could get through, there might be food. Water. Shelter. A border official who didn't treat every refugee like rot waiting to spread. They passed a rotted cart half-buried in the mud, its wheels snapped, dried blood blackening the frame. No one acknowledged it. The wind changed.

That was the first sign. The second was the silence. The birds, insects, and distant wind all seemed to disappear in one breath. Jollivan turned to look at the trees.

They were still. Then came the scream. It wasn't from a child. It wasn't panicked. It was ripped from someone's chest—raw, sudden, and final. A moment later, a ripple of motion tore through the crowd. Not from panic—yet—but from a presence.

Something fast. Something wrong.

A flicker of light—violet and jagged—burst from the front line. People scattered. Others fell. Some simply dropped, their bodies limp before they hit the ground.

Jollivan shoved his sister down.

"Stay low!" he barked, trying to push her behind a crate as the world exploded around them.

He turned just in time to see it.

A shape moving through the air like smoke and bone—arms too long, skin glowing with lines of corrupted spirit. A Nyrian, its mind long gone. A Withered One.

He didn't have time to move.

A blast of force slammed into his back, tearing him from his sister's side. He flew through the air, over the edge of the cliffside road. Branches cracked. Rocks scraped skin. The world spun—

And then there was only the fall.

Cold earth.

It was the first thing he felt when he woke.

Then pain.

Not sharp. Not clean. Just… total.

His ribs ached. His mouth tasted of iron and ash. His body had landed between the roots of a half-dead tree at the bottom of the gorge. Above him, the cliffside loomed like a wall of broken teeth.

He blinked.

No screams. No movement.

Had anyone followed?

He tried to sit up. His left side protested, something inside shifting the wrong way. He hissed but pushed through the pain, crawling toward a tangle of stones for cover.

Leaves moved behind him. He turned. Nothing.

But something was watching.

The forest didn't breathe like a forest. It felt like it listened.

Jollivan looked up once more, toward the road he'd fallen from. No sign of his sister. No sound of the convoy.

He was alone.

And the Forest of Nightmares was waking.

The first hour was the worst. Every shadow looked like a predator. Every tree leaned too close. His thoughts spun in circles—Where is she? Is she alive? How do I get out?

But beneath the fear, something else tugged at him. Not just instinct. Not just survival. Something in the forest whispered to him—not in words, but in pressure. A weight against his bones.

He passed old bones half-buried in mud. A broken wheel. A cracked mirror. All signs of people who'd come before and never left.

His vision blurred once—then again.

By the time he stumbled into a clearing, the sun had dropped below the trees, casting the world into deep, shifting shadow.

That's when he saw it.

Not a structure. Not a building.

A ruin.

Sunken into the earth, as if some ancient force had tried to swallow it whole. Metal twisted into unfamiliar shapes. Stone columns fused with roots. Spirit veins ran like capillaries through its walls—dim, pulsing, wrong.

He should have turned back.

Instead, he stepped forward.

There was something at the center.

Slumped against a tree grown through the heart of the ruin, a figure lay impaled by a splintered root the size of a spear. Jollivan froze.

Not human.

The shape was too tall, too thin, too still.

And glowing.

Lines of dull violet pulsed beneath darkened flesh. Its armor, once regal, had cracked and fused with its body. A deep gash split its jaw. One eye was missing.

The other opened.

"You're human," the voice rasped, dry and old and furious.

Jollivan stepped back. The figure lurched.

Even skewered through the chest, it moved fast—one broken arm lifting toward him. A tendril of spirit-forged bone snapped toward his throat.

He dropped.

The attack missed by inches, cleaving through air with a sharp hiss.

It fell back—but not dead. It didn't need to move again. The ground beneath Jollivan pulsed.

The forest reacted.

Something exploded within him—a surge of cold, tearing energy that wrapped his insides in spiraling fire.

He screamed.

The Nyrian screamed.

And then the bond began.