The morning began with shouting.
Moss jolted awake to the sound of chaos outside, boots striking dirt, voices overlapping in panic, the unmistakable crack of something heavy collapsing. He pushed through the tent flap, the chill of dawn sharp against his face.
Dozens of people crowded near the western edge of the frontier town. Soldiers tried to keep order while settlers shouted over one another. The air reeked of fear and smoke.
"What's going on?" Moss called.
A man from the Steelhands turned toward him, face pale. "The new convoy, ambushed," he said. "But not by aether beasts or raiders. They said the ground itself attacked them."
Kain strode into view, his armor catching the light of the rising sun. "Make way!" he ordered, clearing a path as a battered wagon rolled into the settlement. The chocobos pulling it were coated in mud and streaked with blood. One stumbled, its legs trembling, before collapsing entirely.
Rosa rushed forward with her healers, shouting for water and bandages. Dole appeared beside Moss, expression grim. "That's the second convoy this week to get hit," he muttered. "But this one made it back."
The wagon came to a halt. Two survivors, both miners by their gear, sat slumped in the back, covered in dust and shallow cuts. One of them stared ahead with wide, glassy eyes, whispering under his breath.
"The earth moved," he said. "It rose up, like a man made of stone. No... bigger than a man. A giant. The ground swallowed the rest."
The crowd fell silent. Even the chocobos shifted uneasily.
Serra pushed through, clutching a satchel of instruments and notes. "A creature that size… the aether concentration must be enormous. If it truly rose from the soil itself, then it could be an elemental construct, or something older."
"Older?" Dole asked, glancing at her.
She nodded, adjusting her glasses. "Maybe one of the Eidolons. If so, the frontier isn't as empty as the empire believed."
Kain slammed the butt of his spear into the dirt. "Speculation won't help us. We need to reinforce the perimeter. No one leaves the settlement until we know what we're facing."
A few soldiers moved to obey, though Moss noticed hesitation in their steps. The fear in their faces was the kind that didn't vanish with orders.
Varrin and several Steelhands began unloading crates from the damaged wagon. "Half their supplies are gone," he said. "If we keep losing convoys, we'll starve before winter."
Moss knelt by one of the survivors. "Where did it happen?"
The man's hands trembled as he pointed west. "Past the old ridge... near the hollow plains. It came out of nowhere. The ground cracked, and then it looked at us."
Rosa frowned, glancing toward the horizon. "If this is true, it may not stop at just one attack. Whatever it is could see us as intruders."
The word lingered, intruders.
Moss straightened, a dull ache pulsing in his chest. It wasn't pain exactly, but something deeper. A slow, rising beat that didn't belong to fear or adrenaline. His heart felt heavier, louder, as if echoing something far away.
Dole noticed his stillness. "You alright?"
"Yeah," Moss said quickly, rubbing at his sternum. "Just cold."
But he knew it wasn't the cold. It was that feeling again, like the world itself had a pulse, and it was growing louder.
By evening, the settlement had fortified its outer walls with whatever scraps of wood and iron they could gather. Watch rotations were doubled. Rosa's healers tended to the wounded. Serra took samples of the mud and broken stone from the convoy's wreck, muttering calculations under her breath.
The firelight flickered low as Moss sat beside Bran, the chocobo restless and alert. Out past the fields, the wind carried a low, distant rumble, too steady to be thunder, too deep to be anything human.
Moss stared into the darkness until his heartbeat began to match that sound.
Something was moving beneath the earth.