The forest held its breath the second time I approached the refuge. The air tasted different, more intense, like ozone before a storm. Or maybe it was just the fear coating my tongue.
I crouched behind gnarled roots, my knees pressing into the damp earth. Through the veil of leaves, the barricade stood in the distance, a fragile line between survival and oblivion. The monsters hadn't left. In fact, their numbers had swelled—a seething, snarling mass of claws and hunger, pressing against the wooden walls with relentless determination.
They know, I realized with a chill. They can sense the city's weakness too.
Then the world flickered.
Not in my vision, but in my bones. A vibration that started in my teeth and traveled down to my soul. The air shimmered with blue light, and words carved themselves into reality itself:
SYSTEM ALERT
[City Invasion Countdown: ACTIVE]
Estimated time until full-scale breach:
06:23:59:59
The numbers began their merciless descent.
06:23:59:58
06:23:59:57
Each tick felt like a hammer against my ribs. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours to prevent a massacre.
"Fantastic," I whispered to the indifferent trees. "Nothing motivates like an apocalyptic timer floating in your vision."
The system remained silent, but the monsters' renewed screeching felt like a response. I took it personally.
When I returned to the hidden cave, my breath came in ragged gasps. Aldren was waiting—sitting straighter than his bones should allow, as if he'd been sculpted from patience and pain.
"You run like death itself chases you, boy," he said, his voice rough with sleep or sorrow. "What did you see?"
"Time," I managed between breaths. "I don't think the city can hold much longer. I think the city has 7-8 days at most before it falls like Larkos. Seven days until the total fall of Larkos."
The children stirred in their sleep. The adults who were awake went completely still. One woman—Elara, who had lost her son in the first wave—began praying under her breath.
Aldren closed his eyes. For a long moment, the only sounds were the children's breathing and the countdown ticking in my mind.
"Then we begin at dawn," he said finally, opening eyes that held decades of war and wisdom. "Show me the weapon. Not tomorrow. Now."
I hesitated, glancing at the sleeping forms around us. "What if I—"
"Every moment you fear your own power is a moment the city burns," Aldren cut me off. "Control isn't born from caution. It's forged in necessity."
He stood, his joints protesting audibly, and led me to a small clearing where the moonlight painted silver patterns on the forest floor.
I reached for the thread inside my chest—that fragile connection to something I didn't understand. The lightcaster formed in my hand, trembling like a frightened animal. The three orbs at its tip pulsed erratically.
Aldren studied it, his gaze intense. "Level One manifestation... but the resonance is wrong. Split. Like two different echoes fighting for dominance."
"Great. So I'm spiritually divided. Just what I needed."
"Or doubly blessed," he countered. "Most manifest one aspect. You have two trying to emerge simultaneously." He pointed to the dead tree at the clearing's edge. "Fire the center orb. Don't aim. Intend."
I raised the shaking weapon. "What's the difference?"
"Aim comes from the eye. Intention comes from the soul."
I took a breath, let the fear flow through me, and focused not on the tree but on the space I wanted the energy to occupy.
The orb released with a sound like tearing silk. A bolt of compressed lightning lanced through the air, vaporizing a fist-sized hole clean through the trunk.
The recoil slammed into my shoulder, spinning me halfway around. The children who had crept out to watch gasped in unison.
Aldren stared at the smoking hole, then at me, then back at the hole. "That... was a Level One manifestation?"
"Apparently my existential crisis comes with extra firepower."
He rubbed his forehead wearily. "The world has a cruel sense of humor indeed."
"So what's the plan? How do we save a city in seven days?"
"We don't," he said bluntly. "But we might save enough of it to matter. We'll start unlocking that second aspect. Tonight..." He placed a hand on my shoulder, the gesture surprisingly gentle. "Tonight you make peace with being afraid. Your weapon responds to emotion. If you cannot master your fear, you cannot master your power."
I looked at the countdown still burning in my vision.
06:23:12:41
Seven days to become someone who could stand between a city and its destruction. Seven days to learn control. Seven days to face whatever part of myself I'd been ignoring.
Aldren was already walking back to the cave, his form silhouetted against the firelight. "Sleep, Eiden. Tomorrow we begin remaking you into something fate didn't account for."
For once, I had no joke ready. Because staring at that countdown, feeling the strange power sleeping in my veins, I realized something terrifying:
I wanted to try.