Clara's first sign was the pain. It didn't creep in slowly—it slammed into her ribs like a hammer, doubling her over before she could even breathe. The fire in the canyon flickered violently, reacting to the sudden surge of aura bleeding from her skin.
"Clara!" Evelyn grabbed her by the shoulders, but the girl barely heard. Her eyes rolled back, her mouth parted, and a sound came out that wasn't hers. A laugh. Smooth. Measured. His.
Damien was on his feet instantly, his sword half drawn. "He's inside her. Now."
Zeke's hand twitched toward his talismans, his jaw tight. "No—wait. Look."
Clara's body jerked as if yanked by unseen strings. Her pupils dilated until her irises vanished, and a sudden wash of crimson light spilled from them, painting the canyon walls. Evelyn recoiled, her blade unsheathed in an instant, but Clara wasn't attacking. She was… showing.
The world bent.
For Clara, it was like being flung face-first through a storm. She wasn't in her body anymore. She wasn't even in the canyon. She stood on a battlefield that stretched for miles—smoke rising, fires consuming villages, rivers clogged with corpses. Armored soldiers marched in synchronized lines, their weapons gleaming in the blood-soaked dawn. Above them, banners unfurled, each marked with the crimson sigil of the Outer Legion.
Clara screamed, but the sound was drowned by Yurin's voice, low and echoing through her chest. This is what awaits, Clara. Do you smell it? The iron, the ash? This is the weight of inevitability.
Her hands trembled. She tried to close her eyes, to block it out, but her body refused her. She was walking through the carnage, stepping over bodies, hearing the crunch of bones beneath her feet. The worst part was that she could feel the heat of the flames, the sting of smoke in her throat—it was real, too real.
Back in the canyon, Evelyn and Damien saw it too. The crimson glow leaking from Clara's eyes bent outward, projecting faint, nightmarish images into the air around them—villages burning, children crying, rivers running red. The group wasn't merely watching Clara hallucinate. They were being dragged into the vision themselves.
"Damn it," Damien hissed, his voice ragged. "He's not just whispering anymore. He's forcing her to channel him."
Evelyn gritted her teeth, steadying Clara even as her hands burned from the energy radiating off her. "Then we break the link."
"Break it?" Zeke snapped. "That tether's carved into her soul. You try to sever it now, and she dies before sunrise."
Clara stumbled through the vision, tears streaming as she fell to her knees in the middle of the burning field. She covered her ears, but the screams only grew louder, rising into a chorus that seemed designed to shatter her will.
And then she saw him.
Yurin Crimson. Standing at the heart of the battlefield, his cloak dragging through the ashes, his pale hand raised as if conducting the entire scene. His gaze locked onto her instantly, sharp and merciless.
He didn't need to speak, yet she heard him. Do you still think you can resist me? Do you still believe you are more than my shadow?
Clara's lips trembled. "I… I'm not yours."
Yurin smiled. His hand extended, palm open. Then prove it. Stop me.
She reached for her dagger—the real one, the one at her belt—but when she gripped it, it melted in her hand, turning into black smoke. Yurin's laughter rolled across the field, deep and endless.
Back in the canyon, Clara's body convulsed violently. She fell back against the stone, her fingers clawing at the dirt as if she were drowning in it. Evelyn swore and pressed her blade against the spiral on Clara's palm, trying to disrupt the energy flow. Sparks hissed, but the mark only glowed brighter.
Damien's voice was ice. "If we don't find a way to ground her soon, she won't just be a vessel. She'll be his doorway."
The air around them thickened, the smell of smoke seeping into the canyon as if the vision was bleeding into reality. For the first time, Evelyn's hand trembled against her sword. "And when that door opens…" she muttered.
"…he walks through," Damien finished.
Clara gasped, her body arching as Yurin's voice thundered through her one last time:
You are not a witness anymore. You are the battlefield.
The flames around the camp roared to life, blue and violent, before collapsing into silence—leaving Clara sprawled on the ground, shaking, her breath ragged, her eyes still faintly glowing red.