He hadn't slept.
Instead, Veyr moved silently away from the hut, slipping deeper into the gray expanse of dead grass until the faint glow of the hearth behind him had become no more than a hint of warmth against the darkness.This stretch of land was considered quiet — far from the major rifts, rarely disturbed by anything worse than flickering anomalies.
Tonight, however, the air felt wrong.
Roughly three hundred paces away he stopped beside a split, blackened stump. Ash coiled over the ground in slow, deliberate spirals despite the still air. A dull pressure gathered at the base of his skull — not sound, not movement, more like gravity deciding to twist sideways.
He recognized it instantly.
Shadow Wanderer.He had felt its presence before — today, distant, watching him from somewhere he couldn't pinpoint. Now, it had dared to step closer.
At first, he thought it might be a feral one — instinct-driven, reckless, common near open Riftlines. But even before his fingers curled around a single short blade, the truth emerged from the dark:
Tall. Distorted. Its movements slow and considering.
A Type Three, he registered — a leader.But alone. And far from any Rift.
Type Threes never appeared without their pack. They commanded. Drove. Chose direction. The fact that one had stepped this deep into his territory — unaccompanied — sent a chill thrumming down his spine that had nothing to do with fear.
The creature stood there, like a question formed from absence. Light vanished inside it, leaving no reflection, no mark.
Veyr drew his right blade in silence.
"You know you don't belong here," he said calmly, voice barely more than breath.
No answer. But the edges of the world flickered — just slightly — as if reality struggled to keep its shape around that thing.
Then it moved.
Not walking — advancing, pulled by intent. Veyr slid sideways and attacked with a quick slash, angling the blade at what might pass for an arm. The steel slipped halfway in... but couldn't cut cleanly through it.
Too dense for a single blade…
He drew the second. His stance shifted sharply. With both blades crossing, the next strike split through the limb — and this time the Wanderer responded. Its arm disintegrated into dark motes that scattered like ash.
The earth trembled softly. Not like the start of a Rift — but as if something acknowledged him.
Then came the real attack.
Two clawed limbs shot forward in a sudden fluid strike. Veyr dropped low and crossed both blades in a tight arc. Black fragments burst outward — noiseless — melting back into the Wanderer's body even as he severed a second limb.
Its form recoiled a single step. Not in pain. In thought.
Why show yourself? Why alone?
Veyr pressed forward with cold precision — three rapid slashes, placed exactly where joints should be — until the Wanderer's torso began unraveling in chunks. He advanced without hesitation, a hunter, each cut peeling away more of that impossible body.
Within moments, nothing remained but flickering distortion. Then even that faded, leaving only a sharp, metallic tang in the air.
He stood perfectly still. Barely breathing.
Too easy, his mind whispered.A Type Three should not fall so quietly, so far from the rifts that birthed them.
He wiped both blades across his coat, sheathed them, and stared long into the treeline from which it had come.
Why here? Why now? Had it been sent — or drawn? Perhaps not by Rift energy at all… but by something humans carried within themselves?
There was no clear answer waiting for him.
Only then with the creature gone and silence pressing in did a darker thought settle in his mind — unsettling, unfamiliar.
His boots were alredy pounding across the dead grass before the thought fully formed — running hard, fast, back toward the distant thread of light where the hut waited.
What if it hadn't come for him after all?
What if it had simply tried to lure him away.... to reach someone else.
someone softer.
someone tastier.
His pulse tightend.
Ellie was in danger.