Dust hung heavy in the air as Kael crept forward, dropping low behind a collapsed column. His eyes, narrowed slits, scanned the desolate landscape. Down the slope, in a half-ruined plaza, several figures moved. They wore white robes, but unlike those of Silas and Aeris, these were lined with gold, with faint symbols stitched into their sleeves. A palpable tension clung to them like an impending storm. One of them bled profusely, his arm torn clean off at the elbow, staining the cracked earth. Another glanced nervously over his shoulder, clearly on edge.
The ground was marred with crevices and craters, and the surrounding buildings were reduced to dust,a testament to a terrible battle that took place here. In the center of the destruction, a hooded young man knelt, bound by chains. His breathing was sharp and shallow, his own robes torn and bloody. From this distance, Kael couldn't see if he bore the mark, but he could feel it: the unmistakable presence of a Burdened. Two of the cultists restraining him were also Burdened, while a third, larger man stood dormant, much like Kael himself.
'How strong must the boy be,' Kael mused with a flicker of unease, 'to hold his ground against two Burdened and cripple one of them?'
As he watched, the man with the severed arm,took out a rectangular object like a card. He placed it near his wound and muttered something. The card flared with a blinding white radiance before crumbling to dust. When the light faded, his shoulders visibly slumped, the tension draining from his frame as the flow of blood ceased.
"Do you have any charms left, Corin?" the other Burdened asked the cripple, his voice edged with desperate urgency.
"No, that was the last one," Corin replied, his voice thin, betraying his calm posture. "Malik,What about you?"
"Two left," The other burdened—Malik said, his gaze fixed on the chained boy with frustration. "Who knew this bastard would be this strong? He made us use almost a year's worth of charms."
Corin scoffed. "So much for a simple kidnapping. Anyway, what are they going to do to him?"
"The usual. Sending him to the capital." Malik sighed. "I just hope he's the one they're looking for."
Kael's was confused. The capital? Eldwryth? The thought Itself was jarring. He knew the capital as a place of strict order, where such a brazen act should be impossible unless someone strong was pulling the strings. A quiet dread settled in his gut. Just how deep did this corruption run?
"Yeah, his brother was a pain to deal with too," Corin said with distaste, then shifted his gaze to the large Dormant cultist. "Carry him. We need to be there before nightfall."
The burly man began walking toward the chained boy, but before he could reach him, the chains snapped apart with a sharp metallic crack. The boy surged forward, aiming straight for the Dormant's neck.
It happened so fast that even Kael couldn't follow the movement. In the blink of an eye, the boy's hand was already wrapped around the Dormant's throat, threatening to crush it.
Before he could though, Corin opened his mouth and chanted something in an unfamiliar tongue. The words shimmered through the air, and suddenly, the boy's legs buckled,his grip faltered.
The Dormant chose this opportunity and broke free instantly.
Malik didn't waste the opportunity. He charged forward, raising a massive mace to deliver a crushing blow.
But just as he closed the distance, the boy raised his hand and flicked it.
Something bizarre happened.
Malik was still running yet he was getting farther and farther away from the boy, as if space itself had twisted and turned against him.Meanwhile, Corin kept chanting, not wasting a single breath. The ancient words shimmered through the dust-heavy air, grinding against the unnatural silence.
The boy clenched his jaw, blood trickling from his lips. Then, with a sharp gasp, he spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed. The impact stirred the dust around him in a sudden flare
Malik skidded to a halt, panting. "What a monster. It's a relief we planned this for months… chose the moment his divinity was drained. Otherwise, we'd have been dead meat."
Kael watched, his own weakness laid bare before him. He had seen Burdened from afar, but never in combat. Now he understood. The sheer power, the casual warping of reality,they were monsters, all of them. Even the Dormant among them felt stronger than him.
'Damn it, what am I even doing here?, I need to move before they notice me. 'he thought, a cold dread washing over him. This wasn't his fight. His rational mind screamed at him to leave, to fade back into the ruins and forget he ever saw this.
He acted on the impulse, turning his back on the plaza. He took one step, then two, then three.
The pain hit.
It started as a dull throb at the base of his skull, but with each step, it sharpened into an agonizing spike driving down his spine. The mark on his hand pulsed with searing heat, from deep within his nerves.
'Hell,' he hissed, stopping in his tracks. He clutched his wrist, but the pain didn't ease. It wasn't just physical. Emotions that weren't his flooded his mind: the raw panic, the burning rage, and a profound sense of loss. It was a silent scream, the feeling of drowning in a memory he didn't recognize.
He turned back, forced to face the plaza again. The damn mark wouldn't let him leave. The choice was clear: intervene, or endure this torment until the boy was dead,a grim premonition told him the latter was a mistake he wouldn't survive.
"This is suicide," he muttered, his jaw tightening.
Fine. If the mark demanded a rescue, he would obey. But he would do it on his terms. A bitter resolve settled in his gut. He would make the boy indebted to him, turning this forced intervention into a future asset. But how? A direct fight was impossible. His mind raced, scrambling for a strategy.
A rough plan took shape.
"Alright," Kael whispered to the unconscious boy in the distance, a dangerous glint in his eye. "Let's see if saving your sorry ass is worth the trouble."
With a new, albeit forced, purpose, Kael slipped away from his perch and moved through the ruins with silent steps, his boots barely stirring the dust. It was a skill born of cruel necessity,one of many he'd been forced to learn just to survive in this broken world. He slipped between crumbling buildings, letting his fingers brush against the worn stone as he activated his ability to read the memories etched into them.Most of them were crimes so he ignored them. What he was looking for was simple, Silas had warned him about a tainted one living in these ruins monsters equivalent in rank to the Burdened. ,he knew that he was not capable enough kill a burdened let alone two so he made a relatively simple but reckless plan ,if it even could be called that, lure them to the tainted save the boy while they kill each other.
He wasn't worried about running into the monster himself,that was but because he knew he'd be dead the moment he did, but then again the mark did not want him dead just yet.kael as not naive enough to believe that Ash gave him the mark just because of concern,These strange occurrences, like being forced to intervene for the boy, didn't feel like coincidences. He suspected the mark's purpose was to keep him alive or rather, keep him alive until some purpose was fulfilled. He didn't know what that purpose was, but he had no desire to follow along. That's why he needed to become stronger ,much more so.
As he contemplated the nature of the mark, a particular memory caught his attention. It was a single, horrifying frame of a grotesque abomination. Almost four meters long with chitinous skin, its long, elongated limbs ended in five-inch, razor-sharp claws. Its head was a terrible mix of a spider and a human skull, with elongated pointy ears ,ts face was a maddening cluster of ruby eyes, while its pincered maw, full of tiny needle-like teeth, each one oozing with thick, blue pus.
'That's certainly a tainted monster, but I'm not sure if it's the one Silas mentioned,' Kael thought uneasily. "Well, no point fretting about it."
He reassured himself as he walked, searching for the perfect place to execute his plan. After about ten minutes, he found a charred structure. Loose debris hung from it in a fragile balance, threatening to collapse under the slightest disturbance. "This will do."
"Now for the final part," Kael said to himself, "let's make some noise."
He took out his revolver, aimed for a worn-out beam supporting the structure, and pulled the trigger. The bullet shot out and struck the beam, shaking it. Kael didn't waste a moment and fired again and again until the beam gave out. The structure collapsed, fracturing the ground.
'Let's get moving.' As soon as it fell, Kael ran stealthily towards his initial position, making sure to take another route.The bait was set.
Now, all he could do was wait... and hope the monster came before the cultists figured out the trap.