The guards gave Reven an escort. Four guards who walked him to the Ironpeak Vanguard compound in silence.
The guild hall looked exactly as he remembered—stone and timber construction, the forge building attached to the eastern wing, the training yard where he'd sparred with Von and Garret and a dozen others. Home.
Except it wasn't.
The guards waited outside while he entered the storage building. His belongings had already been packed—a single crate containing his spare clothes, some personal items, and a note.
SORRY. -D
That word again.
Sorry.
Reven sorted through his personal crate. Most of his equipment was missing—redistributed to other guild members, probably. His backup armor. His hunting knives. The expensive enchantments he'd saved for years to afford.
Gone.
All that remained were the things nobody else wanted: old clothes, a worn journal, a few books on smithing techniques, and at the very bottom, wrapped in cloth—
His master's hammer.
Not the one he'd consumed in the forest. That had been his own hammer, the apprentice work. This was the master's hammer—the tool his teacher had given him five years ago upon completing his training. A symbol. A passing of knowledge.
Reven picked it up. Feeling everything that made it it. The familiar weight, the exceptional balance, the particular wear patterns from decades of use from the masters that came before him.
Then he activated his Calamity Sight.
[MATERIAL: MASTER CRAFTSMAN'S HAMMER]
- QUALITY: EXCEPTIONAL
- ESSENCE: FORGE MASTERY (SIGNIFICANT CONCENTRATION)
- HIDDEN PROPERTIES: ENHANCED PRECISION, MINOR DURABILITY REINFORCEMENT
Significant essence. That would be enough to feed him for days.
Enough to silence the hunger that had been gnawing at him since he'd entered the Aegis.
Reven stared at the hammer for a long moment. Then wrapped it carefully, placing it in his pack.
Not yet. Not this one.
The guards escorted him back to the entrance of the maintenance gate.
They didn't speak or meet his eyes. Just walked him through the underbelly of Highcrest like he was refuse being removed.
As they passed through the administrative quarter, Reven heard voices. Torven and two others, speaking in the casual tones people used when they thought they weren't being overheard.
"—confirmed the payment?"
"Half up front. The Eternal Throne Guild transferred two hundred thousand gold yesterday."
"And the other half?"
"Upon verification that the target was successfully redirected. Their scouts are heading to the Obsidian Trench now. If Vyraxes really did wake up, and if the spatial distortions match their projections for the Shadowpeak territories..."
"Then Ironpeak Vanguard just earned themselves another two hundred thousand and eliminated their primary competitor for northern contracts. Clever."
"Clever and ruthless. Using one of their own as bait? That's cold even for—"
One of Reven's guards coughed loudly. The conversation stopped.
Reven kept walking.
But the words burned themselves into his memory.
Two hundred thousand gold up front. Another two hundred thousand on completion.
Redirected to Shadowpeak territories.
Using one of their own as bait.
So that was it. That was the calculation.
Dravin hadn't just betrayed him. He'd sold him. Sold his life to a Titan Guild in exchange for enough money to elevate Ironpeak Vanguard's status and eliminate a rival.
Clean. Efficient. Profitable.
The kind of decision a good guildmaster makes.
They stopped at the maintenance gate. The same narrow tunnel he'd entered through. One of the guards unlocked it.
"Your one hour started when we left the council chambers," he said. "You have forty-two minutes remaining. I suggest you use them."
Reven stepped through the gate. He didn't need a want to stay a second longer.
All four guards were watching him with expressions he couldn't quite read. Not hostile. Not sympathetic. Just... wary. Like they were watching a wounded animal that might still bite.
"Tell Dravin," Reven said quietly, "that sorry isn't enough."
The guard who'd spoken shifted uncomfortably. "We'll pass along the message."
The gate locked behind him..
And Reven stood outside Highcrest Summit's walls—outside his home, outside his guild, outside everything he'd built over six years of loyal service—and felt the last tether to his old life snap.
He walked.
Not toward any particular destination. Just away. Down the volcanic slopes, into the pine forests that surrounded Highcrest's territory, until the walls disappeared behind the trees and the only sound was wind and his own footsteps.
The sun was setting. The sky painted in shades of orange and purple that would've been beautiful if he'd been capable of appreciating beauty.
His crimson veins pulsed in the gathering darkness. His heart beat in seven rhythms. His hands—when he looked at them—no longer seemed entirely his own.
You're not part of the guild anymore, kid.
Dravin's voice. Empty. Final.
What happened down there—whatever you think happened—isn't my concern.
But it was Dravin's concern. Dravin had made it happen. He'd orchestrated every step. He'd positioned Reven exactly where he needed to be, when he needed to be there, to serve as the sacrificial lamb that would wake a Calamity and aim it at his enemies.
And now Dravin got to walk away clean and collect his payment.
SORRY. -D
Reven's hands clenched into fists.
The crimson veins flared brighter.
And for the first time since the blood had merged with him, since he'd become something other than human, he felt the hunger shift. Becoming something that wasn't just about consuming essence.
It was about consuming everything that had led to this moment.
Dravin. The guild. The entire system that let people like him sacrifice people like Reven and call it business.
He would burn it all down.
Not quickly. Not recklessly.
But thoroughly. Completely. Until there was nothing left but ash and the memory of what happened when you betrayed someone who refused to die quietly.
Reven began walking even if it was in the middle of the night. Day, night, it was all the same to Reven now, being able to see beyond what normal humans could see.
He had no destination. No plan. No allies.
But he had time.
And he had something Dravin didn't know about yet—something growing in his chest, in his blood, in the spaces between his thoughts.
He had potential.
The kind that came from surviving the impossible.
The kind that came from integrating with a Calamity beast and living to understand what that meant.
The kind that would let him become strong enough to stand before Ironpeak Vanguard one day and make them answer for what they'd done.
Not today. Not tomorrow.
But someday.
Behind him, Highcrest Summit's lights flickered on. Eight thousand people settling in for the evening, safe behind their walls, protected by their hunters.
Protected by people like Dravin Kross, who'd proven that loyalty was just a word and lives were just currency.
Reven turned his back on the lights and walked into the dark.