The night inside the Dead Vein Forest felt alive in a way that was not natural. It breathed. The trees exhaled cold mist. The soil twitched under Eiryn's boots as if veins pulsed beneath it, pumping a heartbeat not of the earth, but of something dreaming inside it. Riven walked three steps ahead of him, slow and steady, shoulders tight, eyes scanning every shifting shadow. They spoke no words. Words didn't survive well here. Sound came back distorted. Even breathing sometimes returned late, echoing behind you like someone imitating you.
Eiryn held his breath as they reached the center clearing—the place where the cult's scripture claimed the world had first heard the Whispering Thought. A ring of dead black trees circled the clearing, their branches twisted like hands reaching for something that had escaped them centuries ago. At the center lay a stone platform covered in ancient glyphs, pulsing faintly with blue-white light. The air above it wavered like something invisible stood there.
Riven raised a hand, signaling Eiryn to halt. "It's awake," he whispered, his voice trembling despite his efforts to stay calm.
"What is?" Eiryn whispered back.
Riven pointed at the platform. "The First Manifested."
Before Eiryn could speak, a cold rush of wind spiraled around them. The forest silenced. Every moth froze mid-air. Even the mist stopped moving. A low hum filled the clearing—like the vibration of a thousand voices speaking the same word silently.
Eiryn's vision blurred for a heartbeat. Then he saw it.
A figure.
Not human. Not fully.
It stood upon the stone, tall and thin, its body made of semi-solid shadow, flickering like fire under water. Its face was a void except for faint glowing lines forming almost-human features. When it turned its head toward Eiryn, space distorted, bending inward as if pulled toward its gaze.
Riven stepped in front of Eiryn instantly, daggers out, his stance low. "Stay behind me."
But the creature did not attack. It simply tilted its head, studying them both like someone looking at a memory they had forgotten they once owned.
Then, a voice—soft, genderless—echoed directly inside Eiryn's skull.
"So… you carry it."
Eiryn flinched. "Carry what?"
Riven whispered, "Don't respond." But it was too late.
The creature took one slow step forward. The ground beneath it cracked without sound. Its body flickered brighter.
"The Helunsntion seed… incomplete, unstable… but awakening."
Eiryn's blood chilled. "How do you know about—"
Riven grabbed his arm. "Don't talk to it!" he hissed. "It feeds on interaction. Every answer gives it shape, gives it strength."
But the creature ignored Riven completely. Its attention was locked on Eiryn alone, as if Riven did not exist.
"You see what others do not. You hear what others cannot. You imagine… and it comes."
Eiryn stepped back automatically. "You're wrong. I don't manifest anything. I can't even control—"
The creature raised one hand. A pulse of black-blue light shot through the clearing.
Eiryn screamed.
He wasn't in the forest anymore.
He stood inside a room he recognized immediately—his childhood bedroom. The narrow window. The broken shelf. The drawings. The shadows on the walls.
But he was not alone.
A young boy sat on the floor—the younger version of himself, no older than nine. Pale. Scared. Drawing symbols on the wooden floor. Whispers coiled around the boy's ears, invisible but sharp.
Eiryn's breath caught. "This… this memory…"
The boy turned slowly to look at him, eyes hollow, pupils swirling with faint blue patterns.
"You created me," the younger Eiryn whispered. "You dreamed me into this."
"No," Eiryn whispered. "I didn't—"
The creature's voice echoed around him, overlapping with the child's voice.
"The First Manifested is not a being. It is a mirror."
The child's form began to melt into smoke, limbs fading, face stretching into an expression of grief Eiryn remembered far too well.
"It shows you what formed you… what broke you… what waits inside you."
The smoke swirled, thickened, and then reassembled—not into the child, but into a tall, horrifying humanoid silhouette with Eiryn's own face carved onto it, twisted into agony.
Riven's voice pierced the illusion faintly: "EIRYN! WAKE UP! Fight the vision!"
But the creature shifted again—and now it looked like Riven, eyes dead, body twisted, accusing.
"You will kill him," the illusion said with Riven's voice. "Just like you killed the boy you were."
"No!" Eiryn grabbed his head, trying to shut it all out. "Stop—stop—STOP!"
The world shattered like glass.
The forest returned.
The creature stood right in front of Eiryn, inches away, its void-face staring directly into his soul.
Riven threw a dagger at its head. The blade passed through harmlessly—but the creature flickered out. The forest exhaled. Sound returned. The trees creaked.
Eiryn collapsed to his knees, gasping for air.
Riven rushed to him and grabbed his shoulders. "Eiryn! Look at me. Focus."
Eiryn's eyes were wet, trembling. "It showed me… me. It showed me my childhood. It knew everything."
"That's what the First Manifested does," Riven said grimly. "It reveals memories that should never surface. It forces you to face the version of you that the disease shaped before you ever noticed it."
Eiryn clenched his teeth. "Riven… what exactly was that thing?"
Riven hesitated.
Then he said the words Eiryn never expected.
"It was the first human who ever manifested Helunsntion."
The world froze.
Eiryn stared at him. "But… they died centuries ago."
"No," Riven whispered. "They became something else. Not alive, not dead. A thought given shape. A memory without a mind to hold it. The First Manifested is the disease itself learning to mimic a person."
Eiryn's skin crawled. "So it… absorbed them?"
"In a way," Riven answered. "It shows different forms to different people. To some, it looks like a guardian. To others, a nightmare. To Manifested… it looks like their origin."
Eiryn swallowed hard. "Then why did it show me… me?"
"That," Riven said, tightening his grip on Eiryn's arm, "is exactly what scares me."
The wind howled suddenly. The ground trembled. The trees twisted violently, branches stretching toward the sky as if trying to escape something rising beneath the soil.
A crack split the stone platform open.
Blue-white light surged out.
Eiryn's mark burned—harder than ever before. His vision blurred.
A massive symbol erupted from the ground, glowing bright enough to blind him. Riven shielded Eiryn with his body, teeth clenched, as waves of energy crashed over them.
Then, a voice—louder, clearer, ancient—echoed across the clearing:
"THE SECOND MANIFESTED HAS ARRIVED."
Riven froze.
Eiryn's heart dropped.
The light intensified, swirling into a vortex above the broken platform.
Inside the vortex…
A shape formed.
A silhouette.
A person.
Not the First Manifested.
Someone new.
Someone breathing.
Someone alive.
Riven whispered, voice shaking, "No… no… this can't be happening…"
Eiryn forced himself to stand despite the burning in his veins. "Riven… who is that?"
Riven didn't answer.
Because the figure stepped out of the vortex—slowly, steadily.
And when the light faded…
Eiryn saw a face he recognized.
The same boy from his visions.
The same child he had seen trapped in the illusion.
But older. Broken. Manifested.
It was HIM.
Another version of him.
The boy whispered:
"You're late."
Eiryn staggered. "This… this is impossible—"
The boy smiled faintly, eyes glowing with Helunsntion lines. "I am what you were supposed to become. I am the path you abandoned. I am the memory the First Manifested saved."
Riven drew his blade. "Eiryn… step back."
But the boy didn't even look at Riven.
He took a step toward Eiryn, extending a trembling hand.
"It's time you learned," he said softly, "why the Helunsntion disease chose you."
The forest fell silent.
The wind died.
The clearing darkened.
And the boy's next whisper shattered everything:
"I… am the FIRST fragment of you."
And the chapter ends here.