Ash coated his tongue like bitter dust. It clung to his breath, his throat, and his skin. The forest was no more—what once thrived as a lush green canopy was now a graveyard of cinders and bones. Sky dragged his boots through the ruin, each step leaving behind a faint footprint in the soot-covered soil. Every movement felt heavy, not from pain, but from exhaustion that clung to him like a second skin.
His muscles ached with a slow-burning throb, and though his body had hardened after absorbing Vulkran's core, the fatigue settling into his bones felt deeper than anything physical. The Weather Core hadn't given him instant strength or renewed energy. It refined what was already there, but his limits—the real, human ones—still existed. His throat burned for water, his stomach gnawed at itself, and every breath felt like dragging razors across dry lungs.
"All this strength," he rasped, voice dry and cracked, "and I'm dying from thirst."
He didn't laugh. He couldn't. His body wouldn't allow it.
Through the skeletal remains of the forest, he heard it—a faint trickle, almost drowned by the ghostly hush of the wind. Water. Hope. He staggered toward the sound, pushing his way past the scorched bark of what once might've been trees, until he reached the creek.
It was shallow and warm, more ash than clarity, but it flowed.
Sky dropped to his knees, plunging his hands into the stream. He drank without shame or hesitation, scooping murky handfuls into his mouth. The water tasted of metal and soot, but he welcomed it. It didn't matter what it was—only that it was wet.
He collapsed on the bank, water dripping from his chin, chest rising and falling with uneven rhythm. His core pulsed inside him, stable but dormant. His Dark Matter still whispered in the corners of his mind, but it too seemed exhausted, as if it had overfed and now slept beneath the surface.
He should rest.
But the air wasn't still. Not really.
A chill passed over his skin.
He opened his eyes.
There it was again—the feeling.
Something was watching him.
His hand slid slowly across the dirt, calling a blade of dark energy into existence. The construct shimmered with barely-contained mass, humming in sync with the thrum of his weakened heartbeat.
He turned sharply to his left.
Nothing.
He spun to the right.
Still nothing.
But the sensation didn't leave. It lingered in his gut, crawling across his skin, dancing at the base of his neck like a breath that never touched.
He shivered.
Not from cold.
From something primal.
Something wrong.
His dark blade vibrated lightly in his grip as he rose to his feet. Ash shifted underfoot. A branch cracked in the distance. Sky turned toward the sound, eyes narrowed, breath silent.
"Who's there?" he called out, voice low, cautious.
Silence.
But then—
A giggle.
Light. Feminine. Eerie.
It echoed through the blackened forest, soft and laced with amusement. Like someone who had watched him struggle and found it charming.
Sky's grip on the blade tightened.
"Show yourself."
No answer.
Only a shift in the air. A flicker of shadow.
He blinked—and in that blink, something moved beyond the tree line. Something tall. Cloaked in the broken angles of light and smoke.
He blinked again, and it was gone.
His heart raced. Not from fear. From instinct.
He was being studied.
She stood just outside the curve of his vision, perched effortlessly on a charred branch above the ruined creek, the ash untouched beneath her. Her cloak fluttered softly in the smoke, black and red like coiled silk, her carbon-black hair cascading down her back in obsidian waves that reached her knees. Burgundy eyes shimmered beneath her hood, watching him with feline interest.
He's better than the reports said, she mused.
Seraphina Nyx Elarion—known to the hidden world as the Black Seraph, or the Null Queen—smiled to herself. He was raw, bleeding from the soul, and still on his feet. That alone was impressive.
The weather had shifted unnaturally the moment Vulkran died.
She had felt it.
The Core hadn't just been destroyed—it had been devoured.
No flickering transference, no echoes of flame drifting to the wind. Vulkran's weather essence had ended, entirely erased. That only meant one thing.
Sky Wolf.
The one with a Core so natural and dominant, it consumed rather than inherited. She had watched him stumble, drink, fight against his own instincts. She admired the defiance.
She giggled again, louder this time.
Below, Sky turned again, blade raised. His expression tightened.
He can feel me, she thought, delighted. Good. Let him.
She stepped from the branch with the grace of falling snow and landed soundlessly onto the ground, still cloaked. Still hidden.
A few more moments.
Let him sweat.
Let him shiver.
Sky turned in a slow circle, blade humming with tension. His senses screamed, but his eyes found nothing. The forest was a skeleton, the wind hollow, and yet the feeling was undeniable.
He was being hunted.
Not by a beast.
Not by a Weather-Possessed.
But something else.
"You gonna keep hiding?" he growled, voice rough.
Another pause.
Then she spoke.
"You're not very polite, for someone who just murdered a man in fire."
The voice was like honey over a knife.
He turned toward it instantly, dark blade raised.
"You knew Vulkran?"
"Knew of him," she replied from the smoke. "Loud. Predictable. Overconfident. I had a bet he wouldn't last three minutes against someone like you."
"Someone like me?"
She giggled again, the sound closer now. Too close.
"You don't even know what you are yet, do you?"
Sky stepped back, eyes scanning the tree line. The voice bounced between the bones of the forest, directionless.
"Come out," he said, blade raised to strike.
Silence again.
Then a whisper—directly in his ear.
"Maybe I already have."
He spun, slashing behind him—only air.
His breath came faster. Not panic. Not fear. But something sharp and electric running through his nerves.
He wasn't alone.
And whoever she was—she wasn't normal.
Not Weather-Possessed. Not twisted by the elements.
Something worse.
Something without a Core.
And that made her terrifying.
From the smoke, she watched him dance.
His reactions were sharp. Efficient. But not perfect.
Not yet.
Seraphina Nyx Elarion pulled back her hood slowly, letting her long black hair fall freely into the ash-filled air. Her burgundy eyes glinted like polished garnet.
She stepped forward.
Not cloaked. Not hidden.
Let him see her.
Let him remember.
As her boots touched the blackened ground, the temperature in the air shifted—but not with heat or cold. Sky's core pulsed once and then wavered. His legs buckled slightly.
The hum of his dark blade fizzled. The energy faltered.
It was her.
Her presence. Her null field.
His Weather Core was being suppressed, like pressure around the lungs.
He staggered back instinctively.
She stood before him now, tall and stunning, her burgundy eyes locked onto his.
She tilted her head and smiled—not cruelly, but with a kind of teasing affection that made Sky's breath catch in his throat.
"Don't worry," she purred, voice like velvet and sin, "I'm not here to hurt you."
She took a step closer.
"You'll survive today."
Sky gritted his teeth, willing his core to respond. He summoned everything he had left to keep standing, to resist her pull. Dark energy gathered around his limbs like smoke trying to condense—but it faltered again, twitching violently.
The backlash hit instantly. His knees buckled. His ribs ached. A sharp pressure spiked through his chest.
Still, he didn't collapse. Not yet.
But his breath came out shallow. His legs trembled.
Nyx's smile softened. Her eyes gleamed with a different kind of shine—not mockery, but something laced with concern. A tinge of worry flickered in her expression.
She let her aura fade.
Instantly, Sky fell forward onto one hand, gasping for air.
"Tch," she clicked her tongue, kneeling in front of him with that same mysterious smile. "You're a stubborn one."
Sky looked up, cheeks flushed, eyes glazed with fatigue.
"W-why... what are you..."
She ran a single finger along the line of his jaw.
"Let's just say I'm curious," she murmured, her voice softer now, almost tender. "You're not like the others. You didn't just survive... you consumed."
Sky opened his mouth, but no words came.
Nyx leaned in close, close enough for her breath to tickle his skin.
"That kind of strength... it shouldn't exist."
Then, as if her own presence was never there, she vanished. No sound. No flash.
Only a faint heat where her body had just been. And etched into the ash beneath his hand, a symbol—a spiral surrounded by eight shards of black.
Her mark.
Sky lay there, panting, staring at it.
His thoughts swirled.
Who was she?
Why did she feel so... terrifying?
Why did her voice echo in his head like a melody he didn't want to forget?
You're mine now.
He swallowed, his chest still tight. His cheeks still burning.
And he hated to admit it—
But part of him hoped she would come back.