"Echo at the Ridge"
The wind shifted as Aria reached the ridge.
Varrin stretched wide above the valley — jagged rock, brittle soil, and a sky too gray to tell the time. She moved with quiet steps, boots pressing into cracked ground that hadn't seen rain in weeks.
The tremors had started days ago. Faint at first. Then stronger. No towns nearby. No witnesses. Just a single report sent to the Wielder Post: something in the ridge was stirring.
She kept walking.
Halfway up the slope, she found the ruins.
Weather-worn and hollow, nothing left but scattered stones and one broken slab of wall. Carvings flaked across its surface—shallow, ancient, nearly erased by time.
She paused.
Lines curled across the rock like the shape of a blade—or maybe a banner, or a tool. It was hard to tell. The details were too damaged. Whatever it had once shown was long gone.
Aria reached out, letting her fingers drift across the surface.
Not recognition.
Not memory.
Just... stillness.
Then the ground shifted again.
A low tremor. Deeper this time. It rolled through the soil beneath her feet like something breathing.
She stepped back from the ruin and turned toward the slope ahead.
A crack opened in the ridge.
And something began to climb out.
Not quickly — not like a beast hunting — but like a body dragging itself free from a nightmare it didn't want to be in.
Aria stood still. Her eyes narrowed.
It was already wounded.
Ash charred its right shoulder. Something had slashed its side — deep. But it wasn't slowing down. If anything, it moved like it had nothing to lose.
The creature turned toward her.
No face. Just a hollow groove where features should be, and cracks across its body leaking golden Nexis like a broken spine.
It roared. Charged.
Aria moved.
One pivot. One clean sidestep. Her blade caught the beast in the ribs and tore through its side. Dirt spilled. Smoke hissed.
It didn't fall.
It flared.
The Nexis inside it surged wildly, and a blast of pressure knocked the breath out of the air. Aria staggered back half a step, boots carving into the ground, eyes locked forward.
It was mutating.
The golden lines across its limbs grew darker. Streaks of black began to rise up its neck—as if the Nexis inside it was burning too fast, too hot. Its arms began to reshape mid-fight. Fused bone. Hardened stone.
It lunged again.
This time, it was faster.
Aria ducked low—barely dodging the jagged sweep of its arm—and slashed upward. Her blade caught it in the chest, carving across. A normal Wielder would've been knocked flat.
She didn't flinch.
Instead, she stepped into the recoil and shoved the beast back, shoulder-first. Her strength surged harder than it should have. Bones in the creature cracked from the force — her strike heavier than it should've been, the air around her arm momentarily compressed as if something unseen pushed with it.
Its body stumbled—then rebalanced.
Aria's blade blurred. She struck the shoulder. Then the leg. Then the head.
Fast.
Faster than anyone watching would be able to track.
But it still wouldn't fall.
The creature let out a low screech and slammed its fists into the ground, sending a tremor racing outward. Stones cracked. The edge of the ridge began to give.
Aria crouched low to stay balanced.
She'd fought Nexborn before. She'd fought things worse than this. But this one felt like something rushing toward death—like it knew it wouldn't survive and was trying to do as much damage as it could on the way out.
She gripped her sword tighter.
Then pushed.
She circled once, slow. Watching. Waiting.
The Nexborn's limbs crackled with every movement. Its spine spasmed like something alive was trapped inside it. Sludge-black Nexis pooled from its cracked chest and hissed where it hit stone.
It lunged again — not a full charge this time. A feint.
She didn't fall for it.
Aria leaned back just enough for its claws to miss, then rotated cleanly behind the creature and slashed at the knee. Her blade hit resistance. Not flesh. Hardened, fused bone — like stone forged under pressure.
The Nexborn shrieked, half-pivoted, then rammed its elbow backwards. Aria ducked under it and retaliated with a strike across its back.
No hesitation. No waste.
But something was wrong.
The Nexis wasn't just unstable. It was learning. Shifting. Like it wanted to survive her specifically. She could see its skin bubble. Ripple. Like the Nexis was absorbing her patterns and adjusting mid-fight.
That wasn't normal.
She moved again, this time faster. She struck at a weak point she'd already cut — just above the right rib. The blade connected. Cut deeper. But before she could retract——it caught her wrist.
Fast. Too fast.
Its claw wrapped around her arm like iron. Aria didn't wince. Instead, she twisted at the elbow, snapped her arm down at the joint, and drove a knee into the creature's chest.
A cracking sound.
The Nexborn let go.
Aria leapt back, breathing steady. No fear. No pain. But her grip was tighter now. Her stance, lower — and a thin outline of heat shimmer wavered briefly along her spine before vanishing into stillness. If anyone else had seen her face, they might've said she was... angry.
But that wasn't the word.
It was focus. Sharpened.
And beneath her coat, near the edge of her collar, a faint yellow pulse flickered.
She didn't notice.
Or maybe she did — and just didn't care.
She launched forward—unnaturally quick. The dirt cracked behind her as a soft pulse of pressure burst beneath her boots — silent, focused, her Essentia compressed and invisible but absolutely present. Her body blurred with movement, the air rippling faintly in her wake — like a pressure line barely visible — and she aimed high.
One final strike—straight for its core.
The blade arced down—
"Get back!"
A voice. Male. Sharp. Cutting in from above.