Ren walked deeper into the forest, guided by the faint thread of gray aura that vibrated like it carried breath.Lyra stayed close, still holding his hand.Borin and Draven followed behind, tense and alert.
With each step, the air grew heavier.Not with spiritual pressure.Not with beast presence.Something else—a silence that didn't belong to the living world.
Borin muttered:
"The forest is… way too strange."
"It's afraid," Ren answered.
Draven nearly jumped.
"T-TREES don't feel fear!""They do," Ren murmured, "when they should be running."
Lyra tightened her grip.
"What are you sensing now?"
Ren hesitated—and that alone made Lyra draw an arrow.
"I don't know how to describe it," he said. "But we're not heading to him."
Draven blinked in confusion.
"We're not?So we're going where?"
Ren stopped.
"We're going to what he left behind."
The gray thread flickered one last time—and extinguished, like a candle at its end.
They stepped into a clearing.
Small.Quiet.Normal at first glance.
Except for one thing:
The air in the center was bent.
It wavered, like looking at stone through heat—except there was no heat.Just a trembling distortion.
Lyra's breath tightened.
"Ren… you're seeing this too?"
"Yes."
Borin hefted his axe.
"Magic?""No," Ren said."A leftover presence."
Draven swallowed hard.
"A presence… HIS?"
Ren nodded.
The distortion trembled.Not like aura.Not like power.
It trembled like something had stood there, watching for a long, long time.
Something that didn't blink.Didn't breathe.
Ren took one step forward.
The distortion responded.
It rippled—subtle, but unmistakable—like disturbed water.
Lyra yanked Ren back.
"NO!"
"Calm down," Ren said softly—but with a firmness that sounded too old for his age.
And then—something unsettling happened.
The distortion… retreated.
Slightly.Barely.
But it moved.
As if it recognized Ren.As if it acknowledged that he was meant to stand there.
Borin froze.
"Ren… it's moving because of YOU."
"I know."
Draven's voice cracked.
"S-So let's LEAVE, PLEASE!"
Ren didn't move.
He slowly released Lyra's hand—and she held tighter, almost desperate,before finally letting their fingers separate.
Ren walked alone toward the distortion.
When he got within arm's reach, the air opened.
Not like a door.Not like a portal.
It opened like permission.
Permission for one person.
Ren tapped the distorted air with his staff.
Instantly, an image flared—brief and broken.
A human silhouette leaning on a tree.Arms crossed.Face swallowed by shadow.Cracked aura leaking from his fingers.Eyes closed, waiting.
Waiting for him.
Then the image vanished.
Lyra stepped closer, voice trembling.
"Ren… was that… him?"
Ren took several seconds to answer.
"No.Not him."The staff shook faintly."But his shadow."
Borin clenched his jaw.
"A shadow that… watches?"
Ren lifted the staff, and the distortion collapsed—shrinking in on itself like smoke being sucked underground.
Only the faint smell of burnt stone remained.
Draven inched forward.
"Ren… why would that… shadow… be waiting for you?"
Ren turned to them.
His expression wasn't fear.Or anger.
It was certainty.
"Because the Broken Path begins with being seen."
Lyra stared at him, eyes wavering between worry and something deeper.
"And if he's watching right now?"
Ren looked at the place where the distortion vanished.
And the answer came—soft, cold, unmistakable.
"He is."
Far behind them, the White Spirit Flower dimmed.Inside the cabin, the fragment pulsed—violently, urgently—as if screaming in silence.
Ren drew a breath.
"He wants to see how far I can walk… before I break."
Silence fell—a silence sharp enough to cut.
The Immortal Guild—still young, still small, still incomplete—was now under the gaze of a man who had shattered his own Path.
And Ren understood, with painful clarity:
From this moment forward,he wasn't just walking.
He was being watched.