Orion assessed the situation quickly.
They had gone several hours without encountering a single monster. That alone told him
enough. Judging by the distance they had covered in silence, whatever lay ahead commanded
an enormous territory. In the Jade Forest, territory size correlated almost directly with strength.
Smaller predators avoided larger ones instinctively, and ecosystems reshaped themselves
around apex hosts.
Large territory ant a strong host.
He was confident in his own abilities, but confidence didn’t blind him to reality. Monsters didn’t
fight like people. They didn’t rely on technique or training in the way humans did. They relied
on instinct, environnt, and abilities that often ignored conventional logic. The academy had
drilled that lesson into them relentlessly: strength wasn’t just mana output or brute force. A
poorly understood skill, activated at the wrong mont, could kill soone far stronger than
its user.
The safest approach was obvious.
They should regroup.
Together, they had overwhelming coverage. A wide range of innate skills. Spatial control,
sensing, suppression, raw force. As a unit, they could respond to anything the forest threw at
them.
Orion knew that.
And he rejected it anyway.
He wanted this.
He wanted to take it alone.
Yesterday, the others had fought repeatedly while he held back. He’d watched, calculated,
adjusted formation, but he hadn’t interfered. This was his turn. Not because of pride, but
because sothing about the mana ahead felt different. Heavy. Old. Interesting.
Selene noticed imdiately.
She turned toward him, eyes narrowing slightly, her gaze sharp and disapproving in a way that
told him she already knew the answer. "Reconsider, Orion."
He didn’t et her eyes.
"Reconsider what?" Arlen asked, confused.
"You want to fight alone," Erevan said, picking it up instantly.
"What? No," Arlen protested imdiately, shaking his head. "That’s not happening."
"You all fought yesterday," Orion said, sounding mildly annoyed. "I didn’t interfere. It’s my turn
now."
Selene hesitated, then frowned. "That’s not the point. We don’t know what we’re facing, and
from how eager you are, it’s obvious this thing’s dangerous."
"Yes, what she said," Arlen added quickly.
Orion stared at him flatly. Arlen coughed and looked away.
Of course Orion had thought it through. He wasn’t reckless. But this was the kind of encounter
he needed. Sothing that forced adaptation. Sothing that wasn’t predictable. Sothing
that might actually push him.
"Relax," Orion said, waving it off. "It’s not that dangerous. I can handle it. You’re just being
paranoid. It’ll be a warm-up."
Selene didn’t look convinced. She didn’t argue either.
"Orion," she said, voice firm.
"Just give five minutes," he replied with a grin.
And then he vanished.
Selene sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Should we follow?" Arlen asked, uneasily.
"No," Erevan said, dropping down to sit against a tree. "Let’s stay put."
Selene tapped her bracelet, sending a quick signal through the Beacon to keep the others calm.
On Orion’s side, space folded cleanly and he reappeared in a clearing.
The layout imdiately caught his attention. The trees ford a near-perfect periter around
the clearing, their trunks evenly spaced, their canopies parting above to allow sunlight to pour
directly into the center. It was unnatural in the sa way the forest’s edge had been unnatural
when they first entered—too uniform, too deliberate.
On the far side of the clearing rose a mountain.
Not a hill. Not a ridge.
A mountain.
Its face was sheer and dark, stone rising sharply upward and blocking the path forward entirely.
That was a problem for later. If they needed to continue deeper into the forest, they would
have to reroute significantly.
For now, sothing else mattered.
At the base of the mountain was an opening.
One opening.
Wide. Tall. Carved cleanly into the rock, large enough to swallow multiple Nexcrafts without
effort. Whatever had created it hadn’t scraped or clawed its way through. It had passed
through stone as though it were soft.
Whatever lived inside was big.
Orion blurred forward, crossing the clearing in seconds. He stopped at the entrance, inhaled
once, then stepped into the darkness.
The light disappeared almost instantly.
The cave swallowed sound, heat, and illumination together, leaving behind a heavy, suffocating
stillness. The air inside was cold and dense with mana, thick enough that breathing felt
different. It wasn’t hostile, but it was oppressive, like standing beneath deep water.
The tunnel was enormous.
The walls were smooth, not jagged, not broken. This wasn’t a natural cave. It had been shaped
by repeated passage, by sothing moving through it over a very long ti. The ceiling rose so
high that his mana sense struggled to find it.
Orion moved forward at a steady pace.
He didn’t rush.
Mana sense expanded outward carefully, layered and controlled. Temporal Locus followed,
feeding him fragnts of information. Distance warped slightly the deeper he went. Ti felt
stretched, sluggish, as though the cave resisted observation.
And ahead of him, deeper still, was that presence.
The mana was overwhelming.
Not flaring. Not concealed.
It simply existed, vast and unrestrained, filling the space with pressure. This wasn’t a monster
that wandered. This was sothing that had settled here, claid the mountain, and forced
the forest to reorganize itself around its existence.
Territory on this scale ant one thing.
Apex.
The tunnel sloped downward gradually, pressure increasing with every step. The ground
beneath his boots vibrated faintly, warm in places, pulsing in rhythm with sothing deep
below.
Alive.
Temporal Locus reacted more strongly now.
Orion frowned slightly. This wasn’t just a powerful monster. This was sothing that had been
here long enough to alter mana flow in the surrounding region.
The tunnel opened into a vast chamber.
Circular. Imnse. The ceiling vanished into darkness above. Jade veins ran through the walls,
glowing faintly, pulsing slowly like veins under skin. The ground flattened into a wide, open
floor.
A lair.
The darkness at the far end was unnatural, swallowing light entirely. Even mana sense struggled
to penetrate it.
That was where it was.
Orion stepped forward.
The temperature dropped sharply.
Sothing exhaled.
The sound reverberated through the chamber, vibrating through stone and bone alike.
Temporal Locus surged.
Distance collapsed. Mass approached. Velocity spiked.
It was coming.
Too fast.
Far too fast for sothing this large.
The darkness moved.
Not charging. Advancing.
Each step erased space effortlessly.
Orion planted his feet, excitent sharpening into sothing tighter, more focused.
For the first ti since entering the forest, his instincts weren’t just alert.
They were warning him.
Closer.
Much closer.
And Orion realized—
It was already almost on top of him.
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