The ruins of Larkos held a strange silence.
It wasn't the solemn hush of a graveyard or the hollow echo of an abandoned city. It was heavier… as if the stones themselves were holding their breath. As if the city, instead of being dead, was listening.
The kind of stillness that appears when something is hunting…
and everything else has learned not to move.
Eiden felt it before anything else.
A prickle at the nape of his neck.
A dull pull in his chest.
That uncomfortable mix of a player's instinct and an animal's intuition for danger.
He had survived the tutorial.
He had traversed all of Larkos without seeing a single real threat.
And yet, something in him insisted: You are not alone.
He breathed slowly. The scent had changed: old dust, damp stone… and something else. Something foreign. Something that didn't belong in human ruins.
He crossed a narrow street where balconies crumbled in pieces and the shadows were thick enough to seem alive. It was there, between two fractured columns, that he saw it.
A boy.
Sitting by the remains of a broken fountain.
Barefoot.
Dirty linen clothes.
Dark hair falling over his forehead.
And still.
Too still.
Eiden stopped. In a place like this, the sight of a living boy felt… impossible.
He took a step forward.
The boy didn't move.
"Hey…" Eiden murmured, almost afraid to break the air.
The boy lifted his head with an unnatural slowness, as if his neck didn't understand the mechanics of movement.
His eyes held no light. They weren't empty, either. They were flat, depthless. As if someone had hastily painted a pair of eyes without any real intent.
His skin was the color of ash-gray.
And his chest…
It didn't rise.
It didn't fall.
Not a single breath.
An icy jolt hit Eiden's stomach.
Something was very wrong.
The boy's lips parted, but the voice that was heard didn't come from that mouth.
It came from the surrounding streets, carried by broken echoes that snaked between the walls.
"Help…" something whispered, clumsily mimicking the voice of a human child.
Eiden took a step back without thinking.
The boy stood up.
He didn't use his hands.
He didn't tense his legs.
He didn't use muscles.
He simply rose, as if invisible strings were pulling his spine.
Crack. Crrrk. Pop.
His head tilted to one side.
And then he smiled.
An impossible smile.
His lips stretched too far.
Much too far.
A gesture human anatomy should not allow.
The boy's right arm began to lengthen.
First a little.
Then more.
Then too much.
The elbow bent backward, as if seeking to break itself for pleasure.
Something cracked inside the skin, a bone moving where there was no space. The stretched skin turned translucent.
And it split open.
What emerged was not a boy.
The torso unfolded like a broken umbrella, ribs splayed open like claws.
The legs took the twisted shape of a broken deer.
The head was a grotesque mix of wolf and something more ancient.
The jaw opened in three sections, like petals lined with teeth.
And the eyes…
Not two.
Dozens.
Small, black, wet, opening on the skin like seeds of a nightmare.
The smell of sweet, rotten meat arrived late, stabbing into Eiden's throat.
The creature inhaled for the first time, letting out a rough, almost painful gasp.
Eiden retreated two steps. The rubble crunched under his boots, a sound that seemed far too loud in that silence.
The creature turned its head toward him. Toward him with all its eyes.
It wasn't fear he felt.
Not exactly.
It was that internal awareness, that alarm that said:
If you blink, you die.
The creature lunged.
It didn't run.
It didn't jump.
It simply appeared where he had been a second before.
Eiden barely managed to duck.
A claw tore across his cheek.
The skin split with insulting ease.
The warmth of his own blood surprised him.
He rolled backward, clumsy, hitting loose stones. The creature crashed into a collapsed wall, writhed, and moved again with visible hunger.
Eiden raised his arm as if holding a weapon.
He didn't decide to.
He didn't think about it.
He just felt the pulse.
A sudden heat raced through his palm.
An electric vibration ran up his forearm.
Light.
A golden spark.
Concentrated.
Dangerous.
The creature snarled, a wet, unpleasant sound.
Eiden fired.
The light shot out like a white whip.
It struck one of the lateral eyes.
The orb burst in a dark pop.
The monster shrieked, a dry, sharp cry that echoed off the broken walls.
The recoil knocked him down. He had never released anything like it. Much less from his own hand.
The creature twisted, slamming its head against the pieces of a fallen house. Its legs trembled… but it advanced. Crawling with a hungry determination.
Eiden tried to get away. He slipped in the dust. His ribs hit a broken column. The air left his lungs.
He raised his arm again.
The light was weaker.
The pulse smaller.
He fired.
The ray tore away part of the side-jaw.
Flesh fell away in a black, viscous strand.
The monster didn't scream this time.
It just sped up.
THUMP.
THUMP.
THUMP.
Its legs hammered the cobblestones like poorly calibrated tools.
Eiden scrambled back, but tripped over a fragment of wall. He fell sideways.
The creature fell on top of him.
Heavy.
Cold.
Stinking of rancid meat.
The eyes watched him from every angle.
The side-jaw opened to bite his shoulder.
Eiden yelled. He kicked. He couldn't push it off.
Too much strength.
Too much weight.
His right hand sought the monster's throat.
He didn't know why.
He didn't know what he was trying to do.
The ability acted on its own.
Light.
A white flash.
A shockwave that burned his own skin.
The monster arched, convulsing.
And collapsed on top of him.
Several seconds passed before Eiden managed to shove it aside. His breathing was irregular, a desperate attempt to regain control.
The smell of burnt flesh irritated his throat. His hands shook so badly he didn't know if it was from adrenaline or something more intimate.
It wasn't fear of the monster.
It was fear of the light.
Because for a moment, it hadn't been him who raised his arm.
It had been the ability.
That thing inside him.
That power he didn't understand.
He stared at the twisted body.
"Well…" he whispered, his voice trembling. "I guess you're dead."
It didn't sound like triumph.
It sounded like a warning.
A reminder that outside the tutorial, everything was more real.
And more dangerous.
The light still vibrated in his palm.
Weak.
But present.
As if it wanted to come out again.
As if it, too, were hungry.
Eiden closed his fist carefully.
He took a deep breath.
He looked at the silent ruins.
"Right…" he murmured. "Welcome to the real world, Eiden."
It was his first real kill.
And he knew it wouldn't be his last.
He stood up.
Shaking.
But alive.