The obsidian sphere in Silas's hand felt like a small, cold sun. After touching it, the world hadn't changed, but he had. The flashes of memory were no longer disorienting bursts of light and color. They were fragments of information, fragments of his past self. He understood the symbols on the altar now, not by reading them, but by an innate, terrifying sense of recognition. This place, this forgotten forest, was a failsafe, a repository of his knowledge.
He spent hours by the altar, the sphere pulsing faintly in his palm. He learned that he hadn't just cast aside his power; he had broken it into pieces, scattering them across the world. The anomolies were a result of his untethered power running wild. The sphere in his hand was the first piece he had to reclaim. It felt like putting a bone back into place. It was a fragment of Gor'rak, and now it was a part of Silas.
But the moment he had touched the sphere, he had sent a signal. He felt it now, a subtle ripple through the world's energy field, like dropping a pebble in a calm lake. He had announced his return.
The first sign came as a sharp, unnatural silence. The birds, which had been chirping just moments ago, went quiet. The wind stopped rustling the leaves. It was an unnatural quiet, the kind that precedes a storm. Silas's instincts, the same ones that had told him where to go, screamed in warning. He tucked the sphere into his pocket and stood up, his gaze sweeping the trees.
A moment later, they appeared. Three men in tactical gear, their movements precise and coordinated. They didn't wear dark suits like the men in his town. These were professionals. Their faces were grim, their eyes fixed on the altar. They were not here to talk. They were here to neutralize.
One of them held a device that hummed softly, a needle on a small dial pointing directly at Silas's pocket. The Collectors had found him.
"You're a high-priority target," the man with the device said, his voice calm and cold. "Drop the artifact and come with us. No harm will come to you if you cooperate."
Silas didn't answer. He was no longer just running. He had a piece of his past in his pocket, a new purpose. He wasn't giving it up. A wave of adrenaline mixed with a colder, more alien instinct. This wasn't a choice; it was a reflex.
He stood his ground as the men moved forward, their boots silent on the forest floor. When the first one lunged, Silas didn't move. He didn't have to. He just pushed with his mind, and the very ground beneath the man's feet shifted, twisting into an impossible shape. The man stumbled and fell face-first into the dirt, his helmet cracking.
The other two reacted instantly. One fired a high-frequency sonic weapon. The sound was deafening, a physical force that hit Silas like a wall of pressure. He gritted his teeth, his human body screaming in pain. But a deeper part of him, the part that was now connected to the essence of existence, laughed at the simplicity of the attack. Sound was a vibration. He just needed to change the rules of its travel.
With a thought, he made the air around him dense and heavy, a thick, unmoving jelly. The sound waves hit it and were instantly absorbed, turning the unbearable noise into nothing more than a faint hum. The men looked at each other, confused.
Silas took a breath. This wasn't a fight. It was a disagreement in physics. He held out his hand, palm up, and the very trees around him began to tremble. Roots tore from the ground, trunks twisted, and a hundred thick, thorny vines burst from the forest floor, coiling and snapping like angry snakes. They weren't a weapon; they were a manifestation of his will, a temporary change in the biology of the forest. The men scrambled, dodging the thrashing vines, forced to retreat.
The man with the device stared at him, his face a mask of shock and awe. "It's him," he whispered into his comms. "It's the Maker."
Silas felt a new surge of energy from the obsidian sphere, a new command to move. The fight was over, for now. He was victorious, but he knew what had just happened. He had shown them his face. The men of the organization had seen his power, and they had given him a name.
He turned and ran deeper into the forest, leaving behind the three men and the ruined woods. He was no longer a ghost hiding from the world. He was a beacon, a target with a name, and now, they would hunt him with everything they had. The quiet life he had built was a distant memory. His war had just begun.