Chapter Three – The Shadow Forest
The first breath burned.The second came with hunger..his chest rose and fell in ragged heaves, air scraping down a throat that was not his own. His eyes snapped open beneath a canopy of blackened leaves, and the world rushed in at once.
Sound. Scent. Heat.
Every heartbeat in the forest thundered like a drum. Every wingbeat, every claw dragging across bark, every insect stirring in the dark scraped against his skull. The perfume of blood, faint yet everywhere, wrapped around him like smoke.the hunger stirred, gnawing, a beast of molten fire twisting through his veins.and the Shadow moved.
Not walking. Not running. It slipped faster than sight, a ripple through the trees. The forest bent around it. Branches shivered. Leaves tore loose. Snow broke in its wake.
The first prey was a stag.
Regal, antlers heavy with frost, breath steaming in pale clouds. It turned, but too late. A hand blurred. Claws split hide. The throat collapsed with a crack like splintering wood. Teeth sank deep, tearing flesh, drinking heat. Blood gushed in steaming rivers, coating his lips, searing his tongue. The body convulsed once, then fell still.But the hunger remained,it clawed deeper, howling inside his marrow.
Wolves came next. Drawn by the scent, they emerged low and growling, eyes burning amber. For a heartbeat they hesitated, sensing wrongness. Then they lunged. Jaws snapped on emptiness. Bones shattered in return, ribs torn open, hearts ripped still-beating from their cages. Marrow spilled, steaming in the cold. The forest swallowed the echoes of violence.
Birds abandoned their roosts. Insects fell silent. Even the wind withdrew from the thing stalking beneath the canopy.
The deeper he went, the darker the forest became. Branches knitted into a ceiling of tangled black, choking away the last light. The trees leaned back as if recoiling, bark darkening, roots twisting from the soil in mute refusal.
Then the greater prey came.
A silverback bear, massive, scarred by a hundred battles. It burst from the undergrowth in a roar that split the stillness, claws outstretched, teeth glinting.
The Shadow did not slow.,hey collided. The earth shuddered beneath the impact, snow and leaves scattering like dust. Claws raked flesh, but wounds sealed before blood could fall. The beast struck, a blow that could have shattered stone, yet the Shadow did not yield. A hand plunged through fur and sinew into the throat, ripping wide its gate of breath. Hot life poured over his arm, down his chest.He drank. And drank. Until heat turned to cold meat in his grasp.
And still the void inside howled.By dusk, the forest was a graveyard.
Every carcass lay hollow. Not merely dead, but drained. Essence gone, shells collapsed like fruit pressed dry. The ground was slick with what he had taken, the air heavy with iron. The forest had learned silence.B..ut silence could not satisfy the hunger.
It rose higher, sharper, filling his skull. A pressure. A pulse. Not sound. Not scent. Something older. Something inside. A gravity dragging him toward the heart of the forest.
There, in a clearing where no bird dared fly, where the trees had split and curled back, he stopped.The earth was bare. Black soil, cracked and lifeless. The air hung heavy, thick as oil, clinging to his skin. His breath fogged and vanished instantly, devoured by the air itself.Inside his chest, something stirred.A whisper.Not carried by wind. Not carved in stone. From within.
…hungry…iHs limbs trembled. His head bowed. The world bled pale, white edges creeping into his sight. Every pulse thundered in his skull.
Another whisper, closer.…devour…
The hunger was not outside. It had never been outside. It had always been here, fused into the marrow of his bones, into the core of his soul....A Core.!!
Not an artifact to be found. Not a relic to be claimed. It had chosen him from the first breath. It was him. And it was waking.
Agony lanced through him. His body seized, teeth grinding. Vision fractured into shards of red and white. It crawled beneath his skin, searing every nerve, reshaping every cell. Not possession. Not curse. Truth...the Core of Gluttony.
No longer silent.and as he fell to his knees in the dead clearing, claws digging into the earth, the hunger opened its jaws wider than ever before.somewhere through the haze of blood and agony, a name clawed its way back into him. Not given. Not learned.Remembered.
Azreal..