When he opened his eyes, they gleamed faint silver, a thin echo of the power that had rebuilt him.
From the sky above, a soft chime descended into the stillness.
Command Notification: Survival Condition Active.
Objective: Survive one week in the forest.
Reward: Skill Selection Unlocked.
Choose one:
Feralsense, Predator's Calm, Bloodwake Reflex, Echo of the Hunt, Carrion Fortitude, Survival's Will.
The words burned gently in the air, like runes written in pale fire and mist.
Noctis studied them, face unreadable.
Around him, the world drew a slow breath. Crystalline trees brushed against one another with soft chimes, their surfaces glowing as silver mist flowed between their trunks. Every rustle, every heartbeat hiding beyond his sight came through to him as if the forest were made of nerves and he'd become part of them. He listened, not with fear, but with the cool focus of someone reading a battlefield before the first move.
He stood. The ground beneath his boots pulsed faintly with warmth. The wounds from the fight were gone, replaced by a thin, almost delicate scar. The Echoframe had not only restored him; it had honed him.
Distant cries echoed through the trees. Something large moved in the thickets. The coming week would not simply test how long he could endure. It would strip him down to whatever truth lay under his emptiness.
He turned back to the flickering menu of choices.
The words drifted steadily, patient.
Feralsense — instinctive awareness of unseen threats.
Predator's Calm — the stillness that comes before killing.
Bloodwake Reflex — speed born of death's breath.
Echo of the Hunt — mimicry of monsters fallen.
Carrion Fortitude — endurance against rot, toxin, decay.
Survival's Will — the relentless refusal to die.
The interface hummed in his mind, urging a decision.
Decision required: first evolution skill.
Noctis did not move. His gaze slid from one option to the next, cold and careful. Wind brushed his face, carrying the metallic tang of sap, the damp of moss, the faint iron of distant blood. The forest seemed to pause, as if waiting to see what kind of thing it had allowed to live.
His fingers twitched once. Pale light coiled faintly around his hand. Power—quiet, useful, lethal—ran just beneath his skin.
For a long while, he said nothing.
Then, in a flat, final voice:
"I'll survive. That's all that matters."
He reached out.
The world answered with light.
The first night came too fast.
The crimson lake dimmed to black, reflecting a white, hollow sun as it sank behind violet mountains. The forest fell eerily still. Every leaf shimmered faintly, as if whispering in a language built for shadows.
Noctis built his shelter beneath an overhang of twisted roots—a low hollow lit by bioluminescent moss. The moss pulsed softly, throwing a sickly glow over the ground, which crawled with translucent insects tunneling through flesh-colored soil.
In the distance, something screamed. Not in pain—but as if calling to something deeper in the world.
The Echoframe recorded in silence, its faint light ticking along the dark like a measured heartbeat.
For the first time, Noctis understood that "night" here was not the absence of light—it was inversion. Above, the stars burned brighter than any sun, swollen and alive, like a skyful of watching eyes. One of them even moved.
Then came the breathing.
Too low for wind, too deep for any human chest. It prowled just outside his perception, circling the edges of his awareness, always a hair beyond sense.
Noctis sat motionless, breath slow, body statue-still in the cold glow. Logic over feeling. Every instinct tore at him to react; logic told him to observe.
He waited until dawn—a dawn that did not brighten, only shifted the sky from violet to silver.
Night Two – The Mirror Beasts
Rain fell in colors. Droplets shimmered pink and gold, as if the heavens were bleeding illusions. On the forest floor, every puddle threw back not his reflection, but flickering shapes—echoes of beasts that were nowhere to be seen.
When he knelt to gather water, one of the reflected shapes moved without him.
Then it crawled upward.
Clawed hands made of light burst out of the puddle, seizing his arm with cold, brutal pressure. Noctis wrenched free, snatching up a shard of silver wood from his dismantled shelter. He struck the water.
The figure shattered into mist with a hollow shriek, vanishing as the ripples swallowed its form.
From the grass around him, eyes blinked to life—dozens, then hundreds—glowing points blooming like tiny stars across an endless field.
The Echoframe hummed:
"Cognitive hazard detected. Manifested predators linked to user perception. Maintain emotional neutrality."
He exhaled through clenched teeth, forcing his pulse back into rhythm. The world seemed to listen. Slowly, the eyes dimmed and retreated into the fog.
He survived by control alone—thinking beneath fear, moving like a machine until the thin, false dawn came and its pale light washed the reflection-born creatures away.
Night Three – The Hunger Wells
By the third night, his body ached from constant movement. Food was rationed; the predators that hunted him demanded he stay light, ready to run or kill at any moment.
Resting atop a crooked ridge, he noticed them below—pits glowing as red as magma. They pulsed with sound, heavy and slow, like buried heartbeats.
Drawn by reason rather than curiosity, Noctis descended. The Echoframe flagged subterranean activity but could not pinpoint a source.
Then the smell hit—hot, metallic, scorching the back of his throat.
From the nearest pit, tendrils hauled themselves into view—slick with black liquid, each one ending in gnashing mouths. Heat warped the air as the thing dragged half its bulk toward the surface, a predator that had long since abandoned any recognizable shape.
Noctis hurled two jagged stones into its glow, counting the seconds before it reacted.
Three.
Slower than it looked. Strategy would be enough.
He dropped to his knees, scooped a smear of molten earth onto a broad leaf, and whipped it at the exposed root of the creature.
The air ignited in a short, brutal flare. Black ichor sprayed, and a guttural hiss rattled up from the pit as the monster recoiled.
When the flames died, only bones lay scattered at the edge—bones that, for once, were not his.