The first thing Leo did after Old Maren patched his leg was find Matron Elara. He didn't say a word. He just opened his hand and presented the ugly, grey-white Razorwing crystal. It was still sticky with his own blood.
Elara's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, a rare crack in her tired composure. Ten silver. It was more coin than she'd seen in a month. She took the crystal from his palm, her touch careful, almost reverent.
For a moment, Leo felt a flicker of triumph. He had done it. He had brought something back.
The feeling didn't last. Elara's relief immediately sharpened into purpose. She turned, her movements quick and efficient, and went straight to the small, nearly empty medicine jar. She measured out a dose of the fever-reducing tincture, her hands steady. The sick child would get their medicine tonight.
But after the tincture was administered, the energy seemed to drain from her. Her gaze drifted from the now-empty jar to the barren food shelves, then to the fresh, white bandages on Leo's leg. The ten silver was already spent. The crystal had bought them another day, maybe two, but it hadn't solved anything. The hunger remained. The cold remained.
Leo watched her shoulders slump, the brief hope extinguished.
Something inside him twisted, sharp and sudden. Not anger. Not despair. A cold realization that this—this—was what winning looked like for him. Bleeding for scraps that vanished before the day was done.
As Elara returned to the sick child's cot, dabbing their forehead with a cool cloth, an ugly thought coiled in Leo's gut. My blood paid for that. Don't you dare waste it. Don't you dare die anyway.
The thought was so sharp, so possessive, that a wave of revulsion washed over him. He wasn't disgusted with the world. He was disgusted with himself.
He turned and limped out of the orphanage, the cold morning air a welcome shock. The village commons was already more active than usual. The militia presence was heavier, their leather armor creaking in the quiet dawn. Voices were low, urgent.
He saw Vex Tracker speaking with the militia captain, his face grim. Vex's hand gestures were sharp, emphatic, pointing toward the Ironwood Forest. Leo kept his distance, his senses straining to catch the words.
"…pack of at least ten…" Vex's voice was a low growl.
"…moving together, coordinated…" the captain replied, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
"…not just wandering. They're hunting something specific."
The pieces clicked into place. The heavy tracks Vex had seen yesterday. The organized attack on the boar. This wasn't random Beast activity. This was something worse.
The forest was more dangerous now, not less. Even the professionals were worried.
Leo looked from the armed militia, their faces set with grim purpose, back toward the orphanage. He pictured the empty shelves, the pale face of the sick child, the despair in Elara's eyes.
Another crystal would mean food for a week. The logging camp wouldn't take him back with his leg like this. Time was running out. Paths were closing.
He knew it was suicide. He knew going back into that forest now was the act of a desperate fool.
And worse—once he did it, there would be no pretending he still belonged on the safe side of the line.
But desperation was all he had left.
He turned away from the militia, pulling his hood up to hide his face. He slipped into a side alley, his limp worsening for a moment before he forced it down through sheer force of will. He wasn't just disobeying a foreman's orders anymore.
He was choosing a path that didn't lead back.
The forest was different today. The silence was heavier, pressing in on him from all sides. Leo moved slowly, every snapped twig under his boot sounding like a cannon shot in the unnatural quiet. His injured leg throbbed with a dull, insistent ache, a rhythm of pain that dictated every careful step. He wasn't afraid. Not yet. This was the tension of the hunt, a state of hyper-awareness he was beginning to understand. He was looking for signs of a lone Beast, something he could ambush. Something manageable.
Then he found it.
Fresh hoof-gouges in the soft earth, deep and heavy. A Stoneback Boar. He crouched, his fingers tracing the edge of the print. A Basic-tier threat, but a tough one, known for its charge and its hide that could turn away steel. Alone, it was a gamble. A stupid one.
But its crystal was worth twelve, maybe fifteen silver.
Enough. Enough for medicine. Enough for a week of food. Enough to make the risk worth it.
He followed the trail, using the terrain to his advantage, keeping downwind as Vex had taught. He moved along a shallow slope, the brush providing cover. He found the boar near a stream, its massive head buried in the dirt as it dug for roots. Its back was a rugged plate of grey, stone-like armor, glistening with morning dew. It was huge, bigger than he'd expected, and seemed completely unaware of his presence.
His plan was simple. Terrible, but simple. Wait for it to turn, exposing the softer flesh of its side. Then, a desperate charge. He'd have one chance to drive his axe deep enough to sever something vital. If he failed, the boar's tusks would gut him.
He knew it was a bad plan. It was the only one he had.
He waited, his heart pounding a frantic beat against his ribs. A bead of sweat ran down his temple, stinging his eye. He shifted his weight to wipe it away—
A pebble skittered down the slope with a soft, betraying click.
Leo froze.
Just as he steadied himself and prepared to move, the boar froze too. Its head snapped up, dirt flying from its snout. It sniffed the air, a low growl rumbling in its chest.
It wasn't looking at him. It was looking past him, deeper into the Ironwood.
Not good.
Leo's stomach sank. He hadn't been detected. Something else was here. Something that could make a three-hundred-kilogram beast of living stone this nervous. The sound in the forest, which had been quiet before, now seemed to dull even further.
A cold, opportunistic thought flickered through his mind. Maybe they'll kill it for me. I can take what's left.
The thought was so ugly, so predatory, that a wave of self-disgust washed over him. What was this hunger turning him into?
Before he could process it, the forest went dead quiet. Not just the birds. The insects, the rustle of leaves, the very whisper of the wind—all gone.
From three different directions at once, they emerged. Ember Wolves. Not one or two. A full pack. Eight of them.
They didn't snarl or rush. They moved with a calm, coordinated grace that made the hair on Leo's arms stand up. The largest, its muzzle scarred and its fur smoldering with a deeper red, took a position directly opposite Leo. The others fanned out, forming a perfect, inescapable circle. This wasn't a chance encounter. This was a planned kill zone. The boar was the bait.
And he had walked right into the trap.
The Stoneback Boar, realizing its fate, roared in a final act of fury and charged the nearest wolf. It was a fatal mistake.
The targeted wolf sidestepped with fluid ease. At the same instant, two others darted in from the flanks. Their fangs, coated in a shimmering, supernatural fire, sank into the boar's thick legs.
It wasn't just a bite. It was an ignition.
Flesh and fur erupted in flame. The boar screamed, a sound of pure agony and confusion as its own powerful legs were consumed by fire. Its charge faltered, its strength turning against it as the burning wounds gave way. It crashed to the ground, kicking and writhing.
The scarred alpha approached the downed beast. There was no savagery in its movements, only efficiency. It placed its massive paws on the boar's shoulders, leaned down, and with a single, brutal crunch, snapped its neck.
The forest fell silent again.
Then, as one, the eight wolves turned their burning orange eyes on Leo.
There was no rush. No snarl. Just a collective, intelligent focus that was more terrifying than any display of aggression. They spread out, their movements calm and deliberate, sealing off every possible escape route.
Leo's breath caught in his throat. He backed away slowly, his axe held tight in his trembling hands. One step. Then another.
His injured leg buckled for half a heartbeat, a sharp spike of pain shooting up his thigh. He barely caught himself, the motion sloppy, off-balance.
That was all the confirmation they needed.
His back hit something hard and unyielding.
An ancient, gnarled Ironwood stump. Solid. No retreat.
The alpha wolf took a step forward, its gaze unwavering. Its eyes weren't filled with hunger. They were filled with an unnerving, chilling intelligence.
They knew he was trapped. They knew he was injured. They knew he was weak.
This wasn't a fight. It was an execution.
This is it. This is how it ends. The thought was surprisingly calm. Sixteen years of fighting, and it ends here, as food for monsters. The alpha wolf lunged.
Instinct, not courage, made Leo swing the axe. It was a clumsy, desperate arc, all shoulder and no power, his feet tangled and his balance already gone. The alpha dodged it with an effortless dip of its head, a fluid motion that was almost beautiful in its lethality.
At the exact same moment, another wolf struck from his blind spot.
Jaws clamped down on his already wounded leg. The pain was absolute, a white-hot explosion that erased all other thought. He felt teeth punch through muscle and grind against bone. A scream tore from his throat, raw and involuntary. His leg collapsed completely, and he slammed back against the hard, unyielding surface of the Ironwood stump.
His left hand scrabbled for purchase on the rough, moss-covered bark, trying to push himself up, away from the descending jaws of the alpha. Blood from his torn palm smeared across the wood, a slick, dark trail that seeped into a nearly invisible crevice in the ancient trunk.
As the alpha's fangs, shimmering with faint heat, filled his vision, a single, defiant thought burned through the agony.
I will not die here.
I refuse.
The world went silent.
The alpha's snarl cut off mid-breath. The whining of the other wolves vanished. Even Leo's own ragged scream was choked into nothingness. The silence was a physical thing, a pressure that pushed against his eardrums, more noticeable than any sound had ever been.
The wolves were frozen, statues of fur and fang, their lunge arrested mid-motion.
Then, a new sensation. A low hum, not heard but felt, vibrated up his left arm from where his bloody hand touched the stump. It resonated in his bones, a deep thrum that rattled his teeth.
A stone-ring sigil erupted from the ground.
It exploded outward from the stump in a twenty-meter circle of interlocking grey spirals. The geometry was ancient, precise, and utterly alien. At its center, a tomb-spire of black, shimmering energy punched up from the Ironwood stump, a silent column of impossible power reaching for the canopy. Three distinct veins of light—one red, one blue, one green—pulsed within its dark form.
Leo didn't know what he was seeing. He only knew it was old. It was not meant for him.
The air inside the sigil grew thick, heavy, like trying to breathe water. The grass and moss at his feet wilted, their green life draining away into a uniform, dead grey. The Ember Wolves' fiery auras, which had burned with such menace moments before, now flickered and dulled. They whined, a sound that had no voice in the crushing silence, and staggered back as if fighting against an invisible tide.
In his pocket, the two Beast Crystals he'd collected—one from the bat, one from the boar—went utterly cold, their faint warmth extinguished. They were just dead rocks now.
The Rune didn't care who paid. It took from everything.
The hum in his bones became a roar inside his skull. A searing, white-hot force surged from his hand, up his arm, and into his chest. It felt like his bones were being hollowed out with heated pokers, his organs rearranged by a careless god. His veins were being carved open and rewritten.
He felt something form in his lower abdomen, a place that had always been an empty void. A knot of energy, dense and heavy, coalesced where there had been nothing. A solid presence.
Then, the energy exploded outward from that newly formed core.
New pathways were burned into existence inside him, routes for power that his body had never possessed. The agony eclipsed the wolf's bite. It eclipsed everything. This wasn't the pain of injury. This was the pain of creation.
For a terrifying, fleeting second, a single thought cut through the agony.
I wish they'd just killed me.
Panic followed instantly. The process wasn't stopping. It wouldn't stop.
Then, as quickly as it began, it was over.
The sigil on the ground faded. The black spire retracted into the stump. And sound rushed back in, a violent, deafening wave. The chirping of birds, the rustle of leaves, the distant call of the village bell—it all felt different. Sharper. Layered. He could hear things he'd never noticed before.
The wolves weren't attacking. They weren't even looking at him. They were trembling, their eyes fixed on the empty space where the spire of light had been.
They were afraid.
Leo tried to push himself up. His legs refused to obey, collapsing under his own weight. But he could feel it. A hot, dense core of power burned in his gut. It was heavy. It was real. It was present.
A Dantian.
He knew what it meant. After years of being told it was impossible, after a lifetime of being the boy with nothing, he understood. He could feel his own chi, a weak but steady current circulating through the newly carved pathways in his body.
The world swam, his vision blurring at the edges. The pain from his leg, the shock of the transformation, the impossible reality of it all—it was too much.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed face-first into the dirt, unconscious.
The Ember Wolf pack watched him for a long, tense moment. Then, slowly, cautiously, the alpha took a step back. The others followed, their movements hesitant, their gazes never leaving the still form of the boy who should have been their prey.