The smell of smoke and blood still lingered in the cold morning air.
Malik sat on a flat slab of rock, staring at his hands. They were steady now, but a few hours ago, they'd been shaking so bad he couldn't even grip his spear.
"That split-vision thing you pulled…" Zyren exhaled a puff of sweet smoke. "Man, that was some cheat code level stuff. You got GameShark in your veins."
"It almost ripped my chest apart," Malik muttered.
Sura approached, holding a thin chain of silver threads between her fingers. They shimmered faintly, like moonlight trapped in water.
"This is the beginning," she said, sitting across from him. "What you awakened was raw Thread. Unrefined. Without forging, it's like swinging a sword still glowing from the forge — powerful, but it'll break in your hands."
"And forging means…?" Malik asked.
Sura held the chain out. "You take your Threads — the living currents inside you — and you weave them tighter, anchor them to your body, mind, and spirit. The stronger the weave, the longer you can fight without tearing yourself apart."
Malik reached for the chain, but as soon as his fingers touched it, the world tilted. His vision split again — one eye watching his hand reach forward, the other seeing his hand pull back. The double-rhythm heartbeats thundered in his ears.
Sura snatched the chain back. "You're already unstable. We go slow, or you die."
"Cool," Zyren said, taking another drag. "Slow's my speed anyway."
Later, at the campfire
The Battle Royale survivors were trickling into the mountain pass camp — a temporary safe zone before the next trial.
Malik's eyes scanned the crowd:
A tall, silver-haired girl with black tattoos curling around her neck, sharpening knives with a smile too calm for comfort.
A lean, bronze-skinned archer leaning against a tree, eyes darting like she was counting exits.
A redheaded giant of a man carrying a warhammer like it weighed nothing.
And a quiet, dark-eyed woman sitting apart from the others, reading a book bound in strange, leather-like scales.
Each of them had a mark on their right hand — the Seal of Entry. Ten of these seals would open the gates beyond the ice walls.
That night, Sura drew patterns in the dirt near the fire. "Tomorrow is the First Weave. Fail, and you lose your Thread. Lose your Thread, and you…"
"Die?" Malik guessed.
She shook her head. "Worse. You live without power. You'll be prey forever."
Zyren chuckled. "Prey can still smoke and chill, though, right?"
Sura ignored him. "And Malik… your double-thread makes you a target. There are cultivators who'd kill just to taste that power."
Malik looked back toward the crowd — and for just a moment, he could feel two versions of each competitor: one where they lived through tomorrow, one where they didn't.
It was a lot harder to tell which was which.