Ren was still holding the black shard when the light of the forest began to shift.
Subtly—so subtly that Borin and Draven didn't notice.But Lyra, always sharp, saw the exact moment when the air around Ren thickened, slowed…as if time itself struggled to breathe.
"Ren…?" she whispered.
He didn't answer.
Because at that moment, the world around him didn't matter.
What mattered was the silence inside his own body.
A silence that wasn't empty.
But the kind that comes right before a quake.
Ren stepped three paces away from the group.The staff vibrated in his hand, almost pleading for him to come back—but Ren ignored it.
He needed to hear something else.
He closed his eyes.
And then he felt it.
A crack.
A fracture.
Not in his body.
Not in his mind.
But in his Path.
His cultivation Path.One he had barely begun to walk.One that should have been pure, fresh, full of promise.
Now it was… trembling.
"Ren!" Lyra called, taking a step toward him."Something's wrong."
He lifted one hand, asking her not to come closer.
His voice came out low:
"He's here."
Draven whipped his head around, terrified.
"W-WHAT DOES HE MEAN BY THAT?!""Draven," Borin growled, "if you don't shut up—"
But Ren wasn't listening.
He was listening to the echo.
The same echo he'd heard when touching the fragment.The same echo buried deep in his mind.
But now it was different.Now it was clear.Strong.Present.
It was as if the shard in his hand were… calling.
And something far away was answering.
Ren opened his eyes.
And he saw.
Not with sight—but with that instinctive, deep sense born in prodigious cultivators… and monsters.
A thread.
A thread of gray aura.
Leaving the shard.Touching the earth.Extending into the forest.
Connecting him to something far beyond.
Lyra saw the change in his eyes.
"What do you see?"
Ren couldn't answer.
Because the thread pulsed.
Pulsed like a dead heart trying to beat again.
And every pulse shook his own Path.
A voice burst inside him.Not human.Not monstrous.
A fractured voice.
The same one the fragment used to beg for help.
"...do not follow…"
Ren clenched his teeth.
The fragment was trying to stop him.
"...wrong path…"
Ren inhaled slowly.
I know which path is wrong, he answered silently.But which path is right?
The roots of his consciousness trembled.
Then—something changed.
A second voice rose.
Human.Calm.Cold.
"You already know."
Ren's eyes snapped open.
Lyra grabbed his arm.
"REN!"
He looked like he had awakened from a deep trance—sweat dripping down his neck,the staff trembling like a frightened creature.
Draven staggered back.
"H-He's hearing something!""He is," Borin replied darkly."And I don't like it."
Ren exhaled.
"He spoke to me."
Silence.
Lyra swallowed.
"He… the cultivator?"
Ren nodded.
"He said I already know which path to walk."
Borin snorted.
"And obviously that's NOT a good path."
Ren looked at him.
"Paths aren't good or bad.""Oh great, he's a philosopher now," Borin muttered."But they can be wrong," Ren finished calmly.
Lyra held his arm tighter.
"So… what are you going to do?"
Ren opened his hand.
The shard pulsed.A single beat—almost human.
His Path shuddered a second time inside him.
And then he understood.
This wasn't a simple invitation.It wasn't an empty threat.
It was a test.
A test meant for him alone.
A test that could shape—or destroy—everything he might one day become.
Ren closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
Then opened them, resolved.
"I'm going to follow the thread."
Draven nearly fainted.
"YOU'RE WHAT?!""Ren!" Lyra grabbed his shoulders. "You don't know what's at the end of that thread!""I do," Ren answered, voice steady as steel. "It's the beginning of my Path."
"Or the end of it," Borin grunted.
Ren tightened his grip on the staff.
"Every Path begins with a risk."
The shard flared faintly.The gray thread flickered.
And for the first time since the symbol appeared, Ren took a step.
The ground vibrated.The forest seemed to recoil.The fragment inside the cabin pulsed wildly, desperate to pull him back.
But Ren kept going.
A second step.
Lyra ran after him and grabbed his hand.
He stopped.
They stood together, side by side, the gray thread glowing between them.
Lyra's eyes were trembling.
"If you're going to follow this Path…" she whispered,"…then I'm going with you."
Ren looked at her.
And for the first time that day, something inside him—something that had been cracking—stopped breaking.
He squeezed her hand.
"Then we go together."
The thread pulsed stronger.
The Mark of the Rift flashed once before going dark.
Ren faced the forest.
And the forbidden, dangerous, seductive Path opened before him like a scar in reality.
"This is the first step," Ren murmured."The first Broken Path."
And he walked forward.