Daniel did not look back.
He didn't need to.
He could feel both boys behind him—Rowan tense and shaking but ready to drag Eli away again, and Eli himself locked in that strange trance, the kind Daniel had prayed would never awaken.
The Warden-Class creature braced its clawed feet, muscles swelling, mask glowing with a fracture-line of molten gold. Its roar bled fury and anguish into the air, vibrating the trees, the ground… even the blood inside their veins.
Daniel stepped forward and let the world narrow to a simple truth:
If the creature reached Eli in this state, something irreversible would happen.
Something Daniel had spent fifteen years preventing.
"Run," he repeated—sharper, this time.
Rowan obeyed.
Eli didn't.
He stood frozen, chest rising too fast, eyes unfocused. Daniel felt the aura blooming off him—faint but unmistakable. An echo. A resonance.
No, Daniel thought, heart sinking. Not now. Not before he can control it.
The Warden charged.
And Daniel met it head-on.
The clash shook the entire clearing.
Bark exploded from nearby trees; a shockwave rippled outward like war drums breaking the air. Daniel slid one foot back, redirecting the beast's momentum—not stopping it, but bending its path with precise, terrifying strength.
He grabbed the chain still attached to the creature's left wrist and used it like a lever, slamming the Warden sideways. The monster snarled, snapping its cracked mask toward Daniel's throat.
Daniel ducked, twisted, and delivered a palm strike to the jaw so clean it sent the creature crashing into the forest wall.
But the Warden didn't stay down.
It never did.
Not when it was in cognitive bleed.
Not when it saw a target it associated with its tormentors.
Not when Eli was standing there glowing like a beacon.
Rowan finally managed to drag Eli behind a cluster of boulders.
"Snap out of it!" Rowan hissed, gripping his shoulders. "Eli, look at me!"
Eli blinked rapidly, but his breathing only grew worse.
"It's calling me."
His voice cracked, thin and trembling.
"I can feel it. Something in its aura—something in me—"
"No. No. Don't do that freaking mystic connection thing right now—"
"I'm not doing anything!" Eli gasped. "It's like… like my ribs are vibrating from the inside—"
Rowan froze.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
He remembered this sensation.
Not from himself, never from Daniel.
But once—years ago—when Eli fell and broke his arm during training, and the blood rushing out of the wound shimmered faintly, unnaturally, for less than a second.
Daniel had said it was adrenaline.
A hallucination.
Shock.
Rowan had believed him.
Until now.
"Eli…" Rowan whispered. "What are you?"
"I don't know!"
They both flinched as the Warden smashed Daniel through a fallen tree, splintering it like chalk. Daniel hit the ground in a crouch, bleeding from his temple but otherwise infuriatingly composed.
Rowan whispered, "He can handle it. He always can."
But Eli shook his head violently.
"No. He's holding back."
Rowan stared. "Why would he hold ba—"
"Because the creature's not fully hostile," Eli said, gripping his chest. "It's afraid. It thinks we're the ones who hurt it. If Daniel goes all-out, it'll push into terminal frenzy. And then there's no saving it."
Rowan paled.
"Saving it? Eli, it's trying to kill you."
"No," Eli whispered, eyes flicking toward the monster with a strange softness. "It's trying to reach me."
Rowan seized Eli's face with both hands.
"Listen. I don't know what's going on with you. I don't know why a nightmare-class monster is making eye contact like you're its long-lost cousin. I don't know why your chest is lighting up like a magic reactor. But whatever—whatever—this is? If you walk into that clearing you will die."
Eli exhaled shakily.
"Maybe."
And then—
His pulse surged.
A shockwave of faint blue light spread from his sternum outward, pulsing like a heartbeat too deep to be human. Rowan stumbled back as the air around Eli folded, bending like heatwaves.
"Eli—!"
The Warden froze mid-charge.
For the first time, its golden eye-slits widened.
Not in recognition.
In submission.
Daniel felt the shift instantly.
His head snapped toward Eli, and his expression—usually so calm it bordered on unshakable—fractured into raw horror.
"No. No—Eli! Stop!"
But Eli stepped forward.
Not fully conscious.
Not fully himself.
His eyes glowed faintly with the same ghost-blue that had lingered on the broken collar rune.
The Warden lowered its head…
…as if bowing.
Fog thickened around the creature's shoulders, drawn toward Eli like he was a gravitational core.
Daniel blurred toward them—but the Warden moved first, interposing its massive body between him and Eli with terrifying speed.
Rowan shouted, "Eli! Daniel's trying to help—tell it to back off!"
"I'm not telling it anything!" Eli cried, breath hitching. "I don't know how to stop it!"
Daniel skidded to a halt a few feet away, hands raised—not in combat stance, but in warning.
"Eli," he said, voice quiet, almost fragile. "Listen to me. You need to slow your breathing. Don't match its pulse. You understand? That connection—it's dangerous. It's not awakening, it's resonance. And resonance can kill you."
Eli shook his head.
"I can't break it!"
"You can," Daniel insisted. "Look at me. Stay with me."
But the Warden growled deeply—a sound like cracking boulders—and stepped closer to Eli, chains dragging across the ground.
Protective.
Possessive.
Rowan felt sick. "What does it want with him…"
Daniel didn't answer.
Because the truth was finally unavoidable.
Eli wasn't reacting to the Warden's aura.
The Warden was reacting to his.
The fog thickened until Eli could barely see Daniel anymore.
His lungs filled with cold air.
His heartbeat synced with the creature's again.
Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.
The world dimmed.
The Warden leaned down until its cracked mask hovered inches from Eli's face.
A whisper escaped its ruined throat.
"…half… seed…"
Eli froze.
"What?" he breathed.
Rowan shouted his name, but it was distant now.
Daniel cursed under his breath.
"Eli—back up. NOW."
But Eli couldn't move.
The Warden raised a clawed finger—slow, reverent—and touched the center of Eli's sternum.
The blue light erupted.
Not outward—inward.
Eli screamed.
Daniel vanished into motion, rushing them—
Rowan sprinted toward his brother—
The Warden jolted, suddenly spasming—
And then the world imploded into a vortex of blue static and crushing sound.
Eli's knees buckled.
Images flashed through his mind—monsters, masks, chains, symbols he couldn't understand—
A circle of glowing runes—
A hand reaching for him—
A voice whispering:
"Return."
Eli collapsed unconscious.
The Warden collapsed with him.
And Daniel, skidding to their side, caught Eli before he hit the ground, staring down at him with a mixture of fear and grief that Rowan had never seen on him before.
"Damn it…" Daniel whispered, voice breaking.
"I wasn't ready to tell you."
The forest was silent again.
This time, for a far more terrifying reason.