The morning mist drifted over the lake like magical silk torn by an invisible hand, shimmering with the luster of mother-of-pearl.
Raine's eyelids fluttered slightly, and a dewdrop—crystallized like a star and clinging to his long elven lashes—rolled off with the motion. As he opened his emerald-green eyes, the first ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, dyeing the entire mirror-like lake with the color of molten gold.
"Gods above... Where is this?"
He pushed himself up, his slender fingers sinking into the damp humus. Suddenly, Raine froze—the crystallized right arm that had plagued him for years like a curse etched into his very bones had vanished. In its place was skin pale as an elf's should be. In disbelief, he turned his wrist over. Beneath the nearly translucent skin, faint bluish-green veins shimmered with the glow of elven blood. The cursed crystals that had tormented him for centuries were gone, as if they had never existed.
A faint cry came from the reeds.
Raine's pointed ears twitched sharply toward the sound. Silently, he parted the dewy reeds. Nestled among the intertwined stalks was a baby wrapped in a tattered cloak, its face red from crying—a bundle Raine recognized immediately. It was the very swaddling cloth borrowed from the old hunter in town.
"Little one, how did you..." Raine's voice trailed off. As his shadow fell over the baby, the infant abruptly stopped crying and opened its eyes to look up at him.
"Damn it, this isn't right." Raine cursed under his breath, yet still reached out to wipe the tears from the baby's face. The moment his fingertips touched that soft skin, a surge of warmth flowed through his body like a spring bubbling up from deep within.
In a flash, fragments of memory streaked across his vision:
—a silver-haired elven woman pressing a mechanical core into Ravenna's chest,
—chains forged of starlight piercing through seven sacred temples,
—and... something else, something that made his heart lurch with dread.
"Raine?"
That voice—familiar, with a gravelly edge—struck through him like lightning. He spun around, just as a gust of wind scattered the morning mist. And there she stood.
Ravenna.
Barefoot in the ankle-deep waters of the shallows, her bronze skin kissed by the dawn, a golden halo outlining her silhouette. But what stole his breath wasn't her presence—it was her chest. Where once a mechanical heart had been embedded, now there was only a faint, rose-shaped scar, glowing softly.
"Your... your mechanical heart?" Raine's voice cracked, dry as desert salt on his tongue.
Ravenna lowered her head to look at her chest. Her fingers—nails stained with indigo—hesitated before brushing the scar.
"I swear there used to be a mess of gears and…"
She suddenly winced, clutching her temple.
"Wait a second. Weren't we in the middle of fighting those Abyssal Council bastards—"
Both fell silent.
A strange, dense quiet stretched between them.
Raine remembered it clearly—their desperate escape from the Bone Rot Marsh, Ravenna's mechanical heart thudding visibly beneath her ribs, the searing agony of his crystallizing right arm... and then—nothing. It was as if a veil of forgetfulness had been draped over everything that came after.
And the infant in his arms—He had left the baby somewhere safe. He was sure of it.
"Gah... gaaa…"
The baby suddenly giggled, its chubby hand reaching up to grab a lock of Raine's silver hair.
In that moment, something ancient stirred in Raine's blood—an old, slumbering contract awakened. Not the cold bloom of crystalline curse, but something else… something warmer. Like the first budding of an ancient tree spirit beneath thawing soil.
Without realizing it, Raine began to chant in Elvish. The words slipped from his tongue like breath, like memory. And as he whispered, a rose bloomed at his fingertip—woven from pure starlight.
"Shit!"Ravenna dashed onto the shore in a single bound, droplets flying from the leather belt around her waist.
"Since when can you cast advanced healing magic?!"
Raine didn't even have time to answer.
The infant in his arms suddenly erupted in a blinding golden light.
Ripples swept unnaturally across the lake, then—whoosh!—twelve columns of water shot up, forming a cage of thorns around them. Instinctively, Raine drew his dagger—only to find it had transformed into a branch, blooming with starflowers.
Ravenna swore and reached for her hidden weapons, but pulled out something entirely unexpected: a handful of glowing mechanical seeds.
"Well then…" Ravenna licked a fang, flashing that signature dangerous grin of hers.
"Looks like someone's been tampering with our memories."
They found an abandoned hunter's cabin near the lake.
Bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters, and alchemy tools—long untouched—sat under a thick layer of dust in the corners. As Ravenna reached out to touch a copper distiller, the metal pulsed faintly with blue light. Arcane runes began to crawl across its surface like frost on glass.
"These are…" Her pupils widened slightly.
"I know these runes."
Raine stood by the doorway, the baby still cradled in his arms. Sunlight streamed in from behind, casting a long shadow across the wooden floor. He watched Ravenna in silence, that strange, disorienting familiarity rising in his chest again.
She moved differently now—less like a thief accustomed to slipping through shadows, and more like… a scholar. There was a rhythm to her gestures, a natural ease as her fingers traced the runes. It was as if these alchemical instruments were an extension of her body—tools she had once mastered, long ago.
Something was deeply, dangerously wrong. And they were only just beginning to uncover it.
The baby squirmed gently in Raine's arms, tiny fingers scratching at the air. When Raine looked down, he caught a faint green glow flickering at the infant's fingertips.
Stranger still—where that light brushed past, a withered herb in the corner suddenly sprouted a fresh, tender shoot.
"Life magic?" Raine murmured, astonished. He gently lifted the baby's hand, inspecting it carefully—but the glow was gone, replaced by nothing more than the baby's innocent, toothless smile.
Meanwhile, Ravenna had already begun assembling the alchemical instruments with practiced ease. The copper devices seemed to hum beneath her fingertips, the worn components clicking into place almost on their own. It was as though the apparatus remembered her.
As the final conduit slid into place, a soft blue light pulsed at the core of the machine. Then, it projected a miniature star map into the air.
"Alchemy fused with magic," Ravenna said quietly, her voice carrying a calm certainty even she seemed unaware of.
"It needs moonstone powder and silverleaf to fully activate."
Raine noticed something peculiar. As she spoke, Ravenna unconsciously rubbed the side of her thumb against her index finger—a subtle, habitual motion. The kind scholars developed from years of grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle.
But in all of Raine's memories, Ravenna hated books, despised laboratories. She mocked "dust-breathing academics" whenever she had the chance.
And yet now—this.
The device fully activated. The projected star map expanded, filling the entire room with celestial light. Seven points shone especially bright, arranged unmistakably in the shape of a ladle.
"The Seven-Star Lock…" Ravenna whispered the name without thinking—then blinked, frowning deeply.
"Why… why do I know that name?"
Raine stepped closer to the star map, the baby in his arms suddenly waving its tiny hands with excitement. The moment the child's fingers brushed against the star labeled Mizar, the glowing point flared bright emerald green—and projected a blurred vision into the air:
A towering ancient tree collapsing in flames.
At the base of its roots, a glowing figure stood—radiant, unmoving...
"The Mother Tree!" Raine's heart clenched tight.
Forgotten fragments of memory surged through his mind in a disorienting tide. Suddenly, he understood why this cabin had felt so familiar—the herbs hanging from the rafters included three key ingredients used in traditional elven healing magic. And the way they were arranged on the beams... they formed the shape of an ancient elven sigil.
Behind him, Ravenna's device let out a shrill alarm. The star map flickered violently, and all the luminous points turned an ominous red.
She twisted several knobs rapidly, her expression hardening.
"Something's tracking the signal—not just scouts… It's a magical species from the Abyss."
They packed their belongings in haste and fled the cabin.
Raine used his cloak to fashion a makeshift sling, strapping the baby securely to his chest. The moment they stepped into the forest, something strange stirred in him.
The rustling leaves whispered indistinct words in his ears, guiding him, drawing him forward. It felt as though the entire forest was silently calling out to him.
"North." Raine pointed toward a narrow path nearly swallowed by underbrush.
"There's an abandoned dwarven mine that way—we can hide there for now."
Ravenna gave him a sharp look, surprised.
"That mine's never been marked on any map."
Raine paused, just as startled. He glanced down at the sleeping infant strapped to his chest—and noticed the child's eyelashes were faintly glowing. The light pulsed in sync with the soft green halo that had begun to appear at the edge of Raine's own vision.
The forest around them twisted into an unnatural form. Some trees were choked by black vines that pulsed with dark violet veins of magical energy—clear signs of Abyssal corruption.
Their exchange was cut short by a low, guttural growl echoing from deep within the woods. It wasn't the sound of just one creature, but a chorus of wet, throaty snarls, vibrating with a sticky, unnatural resonance.
Then the shadows beneath the trees began to writhe—as if hundreds of unseen eyes were blinking open in the dark.
"Abyss Hounds…" Ravenna's voice went taut, sharp as a drawn blade.
"Magical beasts warped by the Abyss. Hunters bred for one thing—tracking and killing."
Raine's ears twitched, catching details even she hadn't:
At least twenty of them.
Their movement was accompanied by a sickening, mucus-like slithering sound.
Their forms flickered between the material and the ethereal, dripping not with saliva—but with acidic, magic-laced Abyss ichor from their jagged teeth.
And beneath it all… that awful, subsonic hum.
Low, relentless.
As if the entire forest trembled under their footfalls.
"This way!" Raine grabbed Ravenna's wrist and veered sharply toward a steep, narrow mountain trail.
The lead Abyss Hound suddenly surged forward, its body warping grotesquely mid-sprint like a mass of writhing shadow.
In the blink of an eye—thwip!—Ravenna drew a dagger from her belt and hurled it.
Midair, the blade split into seven razor-sharp fragments, each one striking with deadly precision into the beast's energy nodes. The creature let out a distorted screech, collapsing into mist before it even hit the ground.
"These moves…" Ravenna stared at her hand, as if seeing it for the first time.
"They're not from any style I've ever learned…"
But there was no time to dwell.
More Abyss Hounds burst from the woods, their howls rippling through the trees like waves of nausea. Raine backed away, cradling the baby close—then suddenly felt the ground vanish beneath his feet.
They were at the edge of a cliff.
Below, a roaring river churned violently.
"Jump!" Ravenna didn't hesitate—she grabbed Raine's arm and pulled.
As they fell, time slowed in Raine's perception. He saw the pursuing beasts halt at the cliff's edge, their glowing violet eyes shimmering with ravenous hunger. He saw Ravenna cast a fistful of magical powder into the air, which bloomed into a cushion of glittering light, slowing their fall.
And the strangest thing of all—The baby in his arms didn't cry.
Its heterochromatic eyes were wide open, watching the world with eerie calm.
One small hand clutched his collar tightly, and—just barely—there was a smile on its lips.
The impact with the river was softened by the spell, but the current caught them immediately, dragging all three into the wild rush of water.
They were swept downstream, toward the unknown.
And waiting at the river's end, hidden in the shadow of moss and stone…a long-forgotten dwarven mine lay in silence, ready to receive them.