The wind had returned.
It carried with it the scent of ash and something darker — the stench of things that had burned too completely to leave a trace.
Every gust moaned through what remained of the great bones, the hollow ribs of a fallen giant.
Orien opened his eyes.
His lashes were caked with dust and blood, but the pain was gone.
What replaced it was worse — a silence so vast it felt alive.
Around him stretched an endless expanse of gray.
Once, this had been the Bone Bastion — the proud fortress built inside the remains of a slain Leviathan.
Now it was nothing more than a graveyard of cracked ribs and molten stone.
The creature's colossal skeleton, which had endured for millennia, was split open, its spine shattered.
Even the bones — once thought indestructible — had melted into black glass.
There was no city anymore.
No alleys.
No markets.
No sound of forges or laughter or life.
Only wind, dust, and the echo of what used to be.
He took a step forward.
Ash rose beneath his boots, swirling around his legs like pale smoke.
The world crumbled beneath him — fragile, weightless, dead.
Every step woke a memory.
The old tanner, asleep at his bench.
The cries of merchants beneath the arches of bone.
The golden sunlight filtering through cracks in the creature's ribs.
All of it erased.
Gone in a single breath of flame.
The Dragon's Breath.
A fire so pure it hadn't left bodies behind —
just shadow outlines burned into the stone.
He stopped near the heart of the ruin.
That was where the Great Arch had once stood — the pulse of the Bastion, its heart and symbol.
Now there was only a crater.
A smooth, circular wound of obsidian, wide as a temple.
Orien stared into it.
His reflection was swallowed by the darkness.
He wanted to scream.
To curse.
To weep.
But all that came out was a whisper.
"There's nothing left…" he murmured, his voice raw.
"Even the sky forgot what we were."
He knelt, scooping a handful of ash.
It sifted through his fingers slowly, soft as silk.
In the pale light, the dust almost looked alive — like it wanted to remember.
He let it fall.
And when it touched the ground, the silence deepened.
The wind rose again.
Ash spiraled upward, brushing against his face.
He lifted his gaze to the horizon.
No stars.
No clouds.
Just a white sun, distant and cold, hanging in a lifeless sky.
He stood.
His instinct — that new, alien pulse under his skin — told him to move.
To leave.
To hunt.
But where?
He had lived his entire life inside these bones.
Beyond them was nothing but myth —
the Golden Desert, the wasteland said to stretch beyond sight.
"There must be another city," he said to no one.
"Someone… somewhere."
His words vanished into the wind.
Only the desert answered, whispering against the glassy remains.
He began to walk.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Each step heavier, more certain.
Something pulsed in his chest — a rhythm, steady and primal.
It guided him, whispering in the silence.
He closed his eyes.
And in that stillness, he felt it.
Vibrations.
Tiny, distant.
A heartbeat — faint but real — beneath the sea of ash.
His Sense of Prey had awakened, unbidden.
Somewhere to the east, far away, something lived.
One heartbeat.
Maybe two.
Weak, fragile, trembling.
Survivors?
Or something else?
He didn't know.
But it was a direction.
And in a world with no map, that was enough.
"East, then," he whispered.
"Let's see what's still breathing."
The white sun hung still in the sky.
The wind wailed through the shattered bones.
And alone in the wasteland,
a young hunter began to walk,
dragging behind him the ashes of a vanished world.
***
Orien had been walking for hours.
The white sun had drifted toward the horizon, dimming but never softening.
The light turned gold, then red, then pale —
and now, the desert had fallen into an amber dusk thick with dust.
The wind, once fierce, was gone.
Only the dry rasp of his boots against the sand remained,
and, at times, the faint moan of the dunes as the grains shifted in the cooling air.
Before him stretched an endless expanse.
No silhouettes.
No stones.
Not even a single bone left behind by the world.
Just an infinite ocean of sand beneath a sky dissolving into darkness.
---
Fatigue crept into him like a slow poison.
His legs trembled.
His throat burned.
The day's heat had given way to a sharp, merciless cold.
"Perfect…" he muttered, his voice cracked.
"Burn by day, freeze by night. The perfect place to die."
Still, he kept moving — half-blind, half-asleep —
until a faint shape appeared in the distance.
At first, he thought it was a mirage.
A gray shadow half-buried in the sand,
like the bones of a long-dead building.
He picked up his pace.
The structure revealed itself piece by piece.
Weathered stone, eroded walls,
the broken frame of what might once have been a watchtower or outpost.
A ruin swallowed by the desert.
Orien slipped inside, grateful for the faint shade.
The air smelled of dust and time.
A hole in the roof let in a thin beam of moonlight, pale and cold.
He searched the ruins methodically,
hoping for anything — a flask, a blade, even a scrap of cloth.
But there was nothing.
Just debris, fragments of bone, and the ashes of an ancient fire long dead.
He sat down against the wall, tilting his head back toward the half-collapsed ceiling.
His breath echoed softly in the emptiness.
"Nothing," he whispered.
"Even the ruins here are dead."
Thirst gnawed at him.
His lips were cracked, his tongue like sandpaper against his teeth.
Hunger was there too, dull and patient,
but the dryness in his throat burned far worse.
He closed his eyes.
His body screamed for rest,
but his mind refused to let go.
Then — something shifted.
A faint tremor.
Distant at first.
Then closer.
The ground shivered beneath him, subtle but unmistakable.
He opened his eyes, heart pounding.
His instincts screamed.
The Sense of Prey had awakened again — unbidden, sharp, undeniable.
The sand in the center of the ruin began to move.
Slowly.
Like something breathing beneath it.
"Oh, no…" he muttered, backing away carefully.
The vibration grew stronger.
Dust fell from the ceiling, landing in his hair, down his neck.
Then came the sound — a deep, muffled roar rising from below.
The ground swelled.
Then burst.
An explosion of sand and heat.
A massive shape erupted from the earth — a nightmare of chitin and claws, blind and furious.
A giant mole, its mouth lined with jagged teeth,
its body covered in plates that shimmered like obsidian scales.
Orien barely leapt aside in time.
The creature surfaced exactly where he'd been standing,
its gaping maw sucking the sand around it into a roaring vortex.
He hit the wall hard, coughing, his lungs full of grit.
"Seriously…" he gasped between breaths.
"You things wait under the ground now?!"
The beast let out a sound halfway between a roar and a shriek,
a vibration so deep it rattled the stones of the ruin.
The ground trembled again.
Sand rained from the ceiling.
And in that instant, Orien understood.
He couldn't run.
He couldn't hide.
He would have to hunt,
or be devoured alive.
***
The ground shuddered again, trembling with a deep, muffled growl that crawled up through the stone.Orien lost his footing and fell hard, rolling across the cracked floor as a burst of sand exploded where he had stood.
The creature had gone underground once more.He couldn't see it, but he could feel it.The earth itself vibrated beneath him, pulsing with a slow, monstrous heartbeat.
It was circling him.Each tremor traced its path through the sand, deliberate, patient, waiting for the moment he would make a mistake.
Orien backed away, fists clenched, heart pounding.He had no weapon, no armor, no plan—only the raw instinct thrumming in his veins, primal and hot.
The sand bulged at his feet.A new rumble surged upward, closer this time.The beast was coming straight for him.
He didn't think.He just reached out, as if something inside him had seized control.
A burning light erupted in his chest.His vision flared white.And then a symbol appeared, glowing above the creature's head.
A circle of gold, split down the middle and traced by fine, shifting lines.The Mark of the Hunter had awakened.
The world changed.
Color drained from the desert, replaced by a living web of motion.Energy flowed in every direction, weaving through the sand like invisible rivers of light.And where the mole-beast burrowed, those currents shone violet.Vivid, fluid, and alive.
He could see its body through the ground, see the currents moving through it like veins of molten glass.Every pulse of that violet energy echoed in his skull.And deep within that maze of light, he saw it—the heart.A single blazing orb, beating slow and steady, radiating life through every thread of the creature's being.
The sight froze him.It was impossible, terrifying… yet perfect.He understood in that instant.
The Mark wasn't just a sign.It was a link.A bond between hunter and prey.Through it, he could perceive the enemy's life, its flow, its rhythm.He could feel the heartbeat not as a sound, but as a part of his own pulse.
His knees buckled.A wave of exhaustion struck him.The vision devoured his strength, drinking his energy like a leech.His breathing grew harsh, ragged, his muscles tight with strain.
But beneath the fatigue, another sensation rose.Power.His body felt sharper, quicker, stronger—as though the link had awakened something sleeping within his flesh.
Each heartbeat of the monster made his own chest vibrate.He could feel it move, dive, rise.And for the first time, he was no longer lost.
The predator was in his head,and he was inside its.
The ground stirred again.The beast dived deeper, circling.Orien closed his eyes, searching for the pulse in the dark.
There.He felt it beneath the sand, a swirl of violet fire rushing toward him.
He turned before it broke the surface.The creature erupted upward in a geyser of sand and air, its jaws wide, fangs glinting.But Orien was already moving.His body obeyed before his mind could command it.
He grabbed a jagged stone and struck hard—not at random, but at the one spot where that blazing heart shone brightest in his vision.
The blow landed.A dull, wet impact.The beast shrieked, sand exploding outward, its massive body twisting in pain.
Orien fell back, gasping, the stone slick with dark ichor.Every muscle screamed.The link between them pulsed violently, almost snapping from the strain.
And yet, through the haze of fatigue, he smiled.
"I can see you now," he whispered.
Above the monster's head, the golden mark still glowed faintly,beating in time with both of their hearts.
The hunt had only just begun.