The mist clung to the ruins like wet cloth, curling around shattered steel beams and twisted vines. Arion stayed low, watching Stella's squad advance through the jagged streets.
She moved like a predator trained not to provoke. Every step measured. Every weapon swing calculated. The soldiers flanked her, but all eyes were on her. And for the first time in decades, someone held his full attention.
Arion pushed himself from the wall. A slight crack underfoot.
One soldier turned. Another tightened their weapon grip. Stella's head snapped toward him — sharp, aware.
"Show yourself," she said. Her voice was calm, commanding. Not panicked. Not screaming.
He stepped fully into the open. Arms relaxed. Veins faintly glowing blue from the predator's energy still coursing through him. His eyes flickered with quiet power.
The squad tensed. The air hummed.
Arion's lips curved into a faint, almost bored smile.
"You're in my territory," he said.
"I'm not here to fight," Stella replied. "But you're destabilizing energy cores in this zone. That's a violation."
"Violation?" Arion's laugh was soft, almost hollow. "I survive."
Her gaze sharpened. "Survival doesn't give you the right to endanger others."
He tilted his head, studying her. There was no fear. Only… resolve.
For the first time in decades, he felt the pull. The tug of humanity inside him. Faint, fragile, almost painful.
Not from hunger. Not from fear.
Her calm presence.
The soldiers moved forward, rifles humming.
Arion sighed. The energy from the predator still pulsed in him, eager, impatient. His muscles itched. The core inside him begged for release.
He clenched his fists. Absorbed the kinetic tension in the air. The small electrical discharges on the weapons. The minute tremors from the soldiers' movements.
The energy flowed into him, thick and warm, and he felt… nothing.
Except a hollow emptiness where emotion once lived.
The soldiers saw it in his eyes. Stella did too.
"That's what I feared," she whispered, more to herself than to her team.
Arion tilted his head. "What?"
"You've taken too much. You've lost… everything you're supposed to feel."
A silence fell.
No one moved.
He looked at her for a long moment. Something stirred deep inside, a fragment of memory or instinct he couldn't name. A faint recognition of… care.
"You don't run," he said finally.
"I don't," she replied. "I don't retreat from what I know is right."
A long pause. The air thickened. Energy danced faintly across his skin, hungry, restless.
He could strike. End them all. Absorb the squad's energy, and he would be unstoppable for days.
But he didn't.
Something about her presence — her voice, her posture, the certainty in her calm eyes — made him hesitate.
"Why…?" he asked, almost quietly.
"Because someone has to stand," she said. "Even when it's dangerous. Even when the odds are impossible."
Her words pierced through the haze of his hollow mind. And for the first time in decades, he felt a flicker of emotion.
Not enough to remember joy. Not enough to remember love. But enough to notice it was gone.
He stepped back, letting the squad advance cautiously. Energy still thrummed through him, restless, untamed, and yet… he did not attack.
Stella studied him. The faint glow across his body. The unblinking, almost alien stare.
"You're… dangerous," she said. "More than you even know."
"Dangerous?" Arion echoed. "Maybe. Or maybe I'm just… empty."
Her eyes softened — just a fraction, enough that he noticed.
"Then maybe you need someone who won't be afraid of that."
He froze. The words hung in the air. Faintly, impossibly, they struck a chord he didn't know existed.
He shook his head, forcing the pull back into the void where emotions could not linger. "You shouldn't be here. Not in this zone. Not anywhere near me."
"I'm here," she replied. "And I'll stay until you learn that no one is untouchable."
The squad tensed again, expecting violence.
Arion raised a hand — not in surrender, not in attack. But in acknowledgement.
Something unspoken passed between them. A fragile understanding, a spark of connection he could barely name, and one she did not yet recognize as extraordinary.
For now, the Wild Zone remained alive. Dangerous. Unpredictable.
And Arion Crow walked away, leaving her standing among her soldiers, his glow fading into the mist of the ruins.
But the pull — faint, fragile, and terrifying — lingered.
The Devourer absorbs everything.
But some things… cannot be taken.