Mistvale forest,
Outside Periun city,
Kettlia Region
Ashtarium Nation
North American continent
October 19th 2019
The morning mist clung to the earth like a living thing—cool, damp, and curling around the edges of Jack's boots as he stepped past the old ironwood fence that marked the threshold of Mistvale Forest. Beyond the worn, rune-etched gate, the world changed.
The trees ahead loomed like silent sentinels—tall, pale, and veiled in fog that shimmered faintly with residual mana, like veins of light pulsing through the underbrush. The air was thick, not just with moisture, but with pressure—like the forest itself was holding its breath. There were no birdsongs. No rustling of leaves. Just silence. And presence.
Jack adjusted the strap of his pack and inhaled slowly, steadying his pulse. The Codex's upgrade depended on this. He needed to track down and defeat the Aetherfang Stalker, a mid-tier mana beast that roamed this place like a ghost. The mission was simple in theory: hunt, strike, extract the Mid-Grade Mana Stone lodged in the beast's core.
This wasn't a stroll. This was a hunt.
Or at least... it was supposed to be.
"Wow! This place is creepy!" Sarah's voice rang out suddenly, shattering the stillness like a stone thrown into a mirror.
Jack turned with a sharp intake of breath, his eyes narrowing at the sight behind him. The van doors were open, and from its side came Carrie, Mark, Eli, and three of Carrie's friends—Layla, Zoey, and Amber, already stepping out with rolled-up sleeping bags and tote bags of snacks. Sarah was staring at the fog as if it were a scene from a movie set.
"What the hell…" Jack muttered under his breath.
Mark stretched, oblivious. "Man, this place looks straight out of a haunted fantasy game. You sure this is where you wanted to camp, Jack?"
"I don't like the vibe here," Eli said.
"Then you didn't have to come," Jack muttered.
For some reason, Carrie had wanted them to hang out this weekend, and Jack had to come up with an excuse for not being available. He'd quickly fabricated a story about a monthly camping trip he normally took with his friends. Naturally, he had to make sure his friends backed the lie, and as a result, Carrie had suggested they all join him on the trip.
Jack was annoyed with his friends for agreeing to it—but he knew they didn't have much of a choice. Saying no would've exposed his lie. In truth, he couldn't blame anyone but himself.
Layla raised her phone and snapped a few shots. "The aesthetic here is insane. This is going to look so good on the group feed."
"Just go along with it," Jack muttered under his breath, the words barely audible beneath the murmur of shifting mist.
He forced a smile onto his face, turned toward Carrie, and took her hand in his. The contact was warm, grounding—but also, to Jack's dismay, the trigger for a cascade of giggles from the girls behind them, Amber chief among them. Her laugh had a way of making even a subtle gesture feel theatrical.
Suppressing a sigh, Jack took the lead with Carrie by his side, guiding the group deeper into Mistvale Forest. The fog here was no ordinary mist—it shimmered faintly, infused with the latent breath of leyline magic. But it parted before him, unraveling at the edges as his Zone Drive expanded outward in a quiet pulse.
The air vibrated subtly around him. His Awareness, honed from days of cultivation and combat, now reached a level where the slightest disturbance against the perimeter of his Zone sent a whisper of sensation through his nerves. A shifting branch. A brush of fur. A ripple of spatial tension. He felt it all.
Mistvale was vast—roughly a hundred and fifty meters in radius by Codex estimates—but within his expanding Zone, Jack maintained control over his immediate sphere like a spider in the center of its web.
Eventually, they reached a clearing veiled by towering moonleaf trees and cushioned with moss-dampened earth. The air here felt more stable, the mana density thinned just enough to be safe—at least for now.
The group quickly fell into the rhythm of camp setup, the casual banter of friends rising in contrast to the ancient silence of the forest. Tents were unpacked. Sleeping bags unfurled. Firewood gathered. It was a picture of normalcy nestled in the heart of the uncanny.
Jack began unrolling his tent beside Carrie's when—of course—Amber intervened.
"Guys, you stay over there," she said with playful finality, gesturing toward a corner of the clearing. "We ladies will set up camp here. Campfire in the middle. Boundaries respected. Understood?"
Before Jack could protest, Amber was already pushing him—not roughly, but with firm, teasing insistence—toward the side where Mark and Eli were struggling to stake down their tent without bending the poles.
Jack stumbled back a step, resigned. "Yeah… understood."
He shot a glance toward Carrie, who only offered a shrug and a soft smile, clearly amused.
Jack didn't mind too much. The real battle would come after sundown.
And tonight, he wouldn't need anyone in his tent.
He'd be alone.
Out there.
Hunting.
****
As night descended upon Mistvale, the forest transformed. The fading light softened the stark silhouettes of the trees, and the mist—still thick in the distance—glowed faintly under the moon's pale eye. In the heart of the clearing, a warm fire crackled to life, its golden light casting gentle shadows across the mossy earth.
Mark and Eli had taken it upon themselves to gather firewood earlier, their laughter echoing faintly through the trees as they returned. Jack, though seated in quiet stillness at the edge of the camp, had never lost track of them.
His Zone was spread wide—expanded beyond the clearing, across the forest floor, threading itself into the outer edges of the woods where the boys had wandered. It was subtle, woven through the environment like a silk net. Any movement, any unnatural shift, and he would've known.
Mistvale was a popular destination for Mundanes—campers, hikers, amateur explorers. But Jack knew better. The Codex had told him the truth. Beneath the surface charm of the woods lay something deeper—older.
It was a place laced with dimensional anomalies, harboring not just ordinary mana creatures, but Awakened Magical Beasts—creatures that had achieved spiritual cognition and developed dangerous instincts.
According to the Codex, the forest concealed a hidden sanctuary—a pocket dimension layered within the fabric of Mistvale itself. A separate space superimposed on reality, invisible to those without awakened perception. Most Mundanes would never encounter it. Most wouldn't even realize the danger walking just beneath their feet.
But there were places—fractured seams in the fabric of the forest—where the veil between worlds thinned. The Codex had shown Jack a mental map, marking these thresholds with precision. He had memorized each one.
And yet, with every answer the Codex gave him, more questions stirred within him.
Who created it?
Jack had wondered often. Who had forged this sentient, analytical system inside him—the very thing that had unlocked his Zone Drive and awakened his soul core?
He had considered asking Nico, but something always stopped him. Some instinct. A lingering uncertainty. Nico had spoken often of soul cores, cultivation stages, and the power of Mana… but never once had he mentioned anything like the Codex. It made Jack feel—different. Like his awakening wasn't standard. Like he was something else entirely.
So he kept it to himself.The Codex.The voice in his mind.His secret.
Now, his meditation complete and Mana still humming softly beneath his skin, Jack stepped out of his tent. The night air greeted him cool and crisp, fragrant with moss, woodsmoke, and distant fog. The gentle crackling of the campfire and the easy chatter of his friends guided him forward.
They were gathered around the fire now—Carrie, Sarah, Mark, Eli, Amber, Zoey and Layla—seated on stumps and folding chairs, wrapped in blankets and laughter. The flames painted their faces in warm gold, their shadows flickering behind them like quiet echoes.
Jack smiled faintly. Somehow, Carrie's friends had fit into the group with surprising ease. Layla and Sarah were already deep in conversation, sharing something on a phone screen. Mark and Eli were arguing good-naturedly over who had carried the heaviest pack with Zoey. Even Amber, though occasionally irritating in her constant commentary, had found a strange rhythm with the others.
It felt... whole. Like something that had always been missing was slowly, finally, forming.
As Jack approached, Carrie met him halfway, her smile soft and bright in the firelight. Without a word, she held out a steaming mug.
"Hot chocolate," she said. "Your favorite."
Jack blinked, a little surprised, then took it with both hands. The warmth seeped through his fingers.
"Thanks," he said quietly, eyes lingering on hers for a moment longer before sitting beside her on an open log seat. The moment felt still. Peaceful. For now, the hunt could wait.
"So, Halloween's coming up—what are your plans?" Amber asked, her tone playful as she glanced around the fire. Her eyes eventually settled on Jack and Carrie, a mischievous glint in her expression.
"The school's Halloween dance is coming up," Zoey chimed in, her voice a little shy but hopeful. She shifted slightly in her seat and turned to Eli, cheeks already turning pink. "Do you… want to go?"
Eli, mid-sip, choked on his drink.
He coughed violently, eyes wide, as he turned to Zoey and managed a quick, flustered nod—still wheezing and now completely avoiding eye contact. His face turned a deep shade of red, drawing a round of soft laughter and teasing smirks from the group.
Jack couldn't help but smile. The two of them were clearly fumbling through something new, and it was… cute, in a genuine way.
He felt a gentle squeeze on his hand.
Turning, he met Carrie's gaze. She was smiling at him, her hand warm in his. The campfire's light danced in her eyes, casting shadows across her face, softening her usual confidence into something more intimate.
Jack blinked, realizing he had completely forgotten about the Halloween dance. School events like that had never really been on his radar. He usually stayed home, avoided the crowd. The last one—the homecoming dance back in August—had come and gone without his notice. Back then, things were different. He hadn't been with Carrie. Not like this.
Now, everything had changed.
He didn't know what he'd say yet. He wasn't great at these kinds of moments.
But he knew one thing with certainty:
He wanted to go—with her.
And this time, he wouldn't miss it. The laughter around the fire slowly settled into a comfortable lull, the crackling flames filling the silence with a soft, rhythmic pulse. Jack sipped the last of his hot chocolate, the warmth lingering in his chest more from Carrie's presence than the drink itself.
He glanced at her again, their hands still loosely intertwined, her thumb tracing absent circles against his knuckle. She hadn't said anything about the dance. Not yet. But she was definitely thinking something.
And then she gave him that look—mischievous and knowing, with just enough softness to make his heart skip.
"So…" she began, drawing out the word like a challenge. "Are you planning on going to the Halloween dance?"
Jack blinked. "I… hadn't really thought about it."
"Hmm." She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping just enough to make it feel like a secret. "Well, I was thinking of going."
Jack swallowed. "Yeah?"
Carrie nodded. "But only if the right person asks me."
He stared at her, caught somewhere between stunned silence and the beginnings of a grin. "The right person, huh?"
She raised an eyebrow. "You know anyone like that?"
Jack laughed under his breath, then looked down for a moment before meeting her gaze again. "I might."
Carrie tilted her head, mock-thoughtful. "He better hurry up, though. I'm popular, you know."
Jack shook his head, smiling. "Well, in that case…" He reached for her other hand, holding both now. "Would you go with me?"
Carrie's smile deepened. "Jack Ryan. Are you asking me to a high school dance?"
"Depends," he said. "Are you saying yes?"
"I'd love to."
The world felt quiet for a moment, like even the mist had leaned in to listen. The firelight flickered between them, and Jack felt—strangely, wonderfully—at peace.
But that peace would be brief. Because soon, he would step beyond the glow of the campfire. Into the forest. Into the hunt. And whatever waited out there… wouldn't be this warm.
Jack moved silently through the underbrush, his steps light, deliberate—more a prowl than a walk. The forest around him pulsed with otherworldly stillness, shrouded in silver mist and shadow. After the others had fallen asleep by the dying campfire, Jack had slipped away, cloaked in the silence of the woods.
His thoughts were focused—sharpened to a singular purpose: finding and slaying the Aetherfang Stalker, the elusive mana beast that carried the Mid-Grade Mana Stone he needed to upgrade the Codex.
His Zone Drive was fully expanded now, rippling outward with smooth precision, blanketing the forest floor in a circular radius of two hundred meters—a notable increase since ascending to the Acolyte Realm. As a Novice, he had only been able to blink across his Zone five times in rapid succession.
Now, he could blink ten.
The difference wasn't just quantitative—it was qualitative. His spatial sensitivity had evolved. The way the air curved. The way mana condensed. Even the way sound bent in fog. He could feel everything within his domain like threads on a loom, waiting to be plucked.
The Aetherfang Stalker was no ordinary predator. According to the Codex, it was an Awakened Magic Beast—a creature that, like him, had cultivated to the Acolyte Realm. It possessed not only power, but will.
As Jack neared one of the hunting grounds marked on the Codex's mental map—a crescent glade surrounded by spirewood trees—his internal senses suddenly flared.
Mana.
Multiple signatures.
The forest around him darkened subtly, as though the trees themselves were holding their breath. His spatial awareness picked it up at once: distorted ripples in the fog, pockets of fluctuating density where unseen creatures moved.
Predators.
"Ascendant Jack should proceed with caution," the Codex chimed, its voice level but edged with warning. "The Aetherfang Stalker is a creature of camouflage, spatial blinking, and Ether Beam emission. Engagement without preparation is ill-advised."
Jack narrowed his eyes, whispering beneath his breath, "Ether? What's that?"
"Ether," the Codex explained, "is pure Mana in its raw state—unconverted into elemental form. While most Magical Beasts possess elemental affinities—fire, wind, ice—the Aetherfang does not. Its body channels unfiltered Mana, giving it access to Ether-based abilities, including refined spatial manipulation."
"So… it doesn't use elemental attacks—it bends space," Jack muttered, now tightening his grip.
"Correct. Ether is the uncarved block. Aetherfangs are rare because they are born of leyline convergence points—where raw Spirit Energy flows without elemental segmentation."
Jack exhaled slowly. That meant his own Zone Drive, which also operated through spatial manipulation, would be both an asset and a vulnerability. He was facing a predator whose instincts mirrored his own.
A hunt between two spatial wielders. He slid behind a moss-covered tree trunk, his eyes scanning the mist beyond. The stalker was close. The pressure in the air told him that much.
The real question wasn't if it knew he was coming. It was whether it had already chosen to strike. A low shimmer rippled through the mist like heat over stone.
Jack froze.
Every instinct screamed at him—move—but he didn't. Not yet. He focused, narrowing his attention on the slightest warp in space within his Zone. There. A distortion. Barely visible.
Then—
The air snapped.
A beam of pale, translucent energy tore through the fog, searing a straight line through the tree behind him. The bark disintegrated in silence, the trunk vanishing into dust as if it had never existed.
Ether Beam.
Jack blinked sideways just in time, his body flickering through space as he repositioned behind a nearby rock. The moment he reappeared, another beam cut through his previous location—perfectly timed.
It's tracking my blink patterns already.
"Warning: Enemy utilizes predictive spatial telemetry," the Codex intoned. "Adjust randomness in blink vectors. Anchor deployment recommended."
Jack grit his teeth and activated Anchor Mode. Subtle pulses radiated beneath his feet, stabilizing his position. He didn't move this time—he waited.
His eyes scanned the mist. The Aetherfang Stalker emerged like a ghost—half-phased, its shimmering coat refracting the forest around it. Its body was feline, lean but long-limbed, its translucent muscles twitching with otherworldly precision. No eyes. Just four glowing lines across its head like sightless ridges, radiating ether. Then it vanished. A spatial flicker.
Blink.
It reappeared directly above him.
Jack didn't dodge.
Instead, he slammed his foot down.
"Spatial Anchor Strike!"
Mana surged from beneath his feet as anchor points burst into existence—shimmering sigils binding the localized space around him. The creature's body hit the edge of the anchor field—and for a split second, its blink stalled.
That was all Jack needed.
He stepped forward, twisting his body, and drove his elbow upward with the help of frictionless momentum. The strike connected with the beast's ribs, enhanced by anchored gravity and zero-recoil backlash.
The crack was audible.
The stalker yowled—a sound that shimmered rather than echoed—and blinked away again, materializing twenty meters back. It limped, its semi-invisible form flickering under strain. For the first time… it hesitated.
Jack exhaled, watching the mist swirl between them. His Mana core pulsed evenly now, rhythm aligned with his Zone. He wasn't just reacting anymore. This was his territory. And he would bring the stalker down—on his own terms.
The two faced each other in silence. The Aetherfang Stalker crouched low, its body rippling between states of visibility. Wounds shimmered along its ribs, flickering between corporeal and etheric form. Its glowing ridgelines pulsed with irregular light, evidence of its instability. Jack stood tall, one foot forward, both palms open, every muscle in his body coiled like wire.
His Zone throbbed beneath the ground—dense, complex, alive. Anchor points had already been seeded through the battlefield, layered in invisible geometry across the mossy clearing. Some stabilized the terrain beneath his feet, others hovered in the air, fixed like invisible snares just waiting to be triggered.
He didn't need to see the beast to know where it was. He could feel it.
"Entity cycling Ether build-up," the Codex warned. "Spatial blink imminent. Beam concentration level: elevated. Prediction: lethal tier."
Jack smirked. "Then I guess it's time to end this."
The stalker blinked. It didn't appear next to Jack this time. It appeared inside the air behind him—angled downward, mid-pounce, Ether beam glowing at its maw.
Jack didn't blink. Instead, he released his trap.
"Anchor Overframe: Lock Cascade!"
His entire Zone flared—sigils erupting like stars across the mist-laced field. Spatial weight slammed into the beast from every direction as the layered anchors collapsed inward, crushing motion, distorting flow, and freezing momentum in the blink of an eye.
The Aetherfang's body contorted mid-air, locked in a stasis of movement. Even its Ether beam stuttered, warping unnaturally in its mouth.
Jack moved.
He blinked once, appearing directly in front of the beast, then activated a condensed anchor beneath his fists—Impact Point. He launched forward, twisting his entire body behind the blow, a punch reinforced by spatial compression and zero-point redirection.
The blow connected.
Time rippled. The beast crashed into the earth with a silent explosion of mist and force, its ethereal camouflage shattered, body spasming as the resonance of the anchors ruptured its internal flow. It didn't move again.
"Life signs… terminated," the Codex confirmed calmly. "Mana Stone detected. Mid-Grade classification. Extraction viable."
Jack stepped forward slowly, breathing hard, the adrenaline tapering as he approached the creature's corpse. Its body was already disintegrating into shimmering particles, returning to the mana-saturated earth from which it had come.
At its center—nestled within its fading ribcage—was a single, glowing Mana Stone. Oval-shaped, crystal-like, and pulsing with raw, unfiltered energy. It radiated a soft blue-violet glow, heavy with untouched potential. Jack reached out and took it, the stone warm in his palm.
"Authorization granted," the Codex said. "Initiating system upgrade…"
The air around Jack shimmered faintly as arcane lines of light traced across his arms, syncing with his soul core. He closed his eyes and let the energy pour into him, deeper into the Codex, unlocking pathways and functions he had yet to discover. When he opened his eyes again, the forest was quiet. The mist had thinned. And the night… was finally still.
The Codex upgrade settled into his body with a subtle hum, like the echo of a distant chime vibrating along his bones. Arcane threads pulsed faintly under his skin before fading, the new subroutines integrating seamlessly into his mind.
"Upgrade complete," the Codex reported. "New functions online: Enhanced Threat Mapping, Adaptive Anchor Memory, Zone Compression Overlay available for Acolyte-tier use. Remaining objective: Eliminate remaining Aetherfangs in this quadrant. Four detected."
Jack tightened his grip around the now-dim Mana Stone, tucking it into a reinforced pouch at his side.
"One down," he muttered. "Four to go."
He turned toward the northern ridge of the glade, where the fog clung thickly, denser. There, the Codex marked another thin spot in the boundary between worlds. The forest here was layered, riddled with micro-dimensional folds, like overlapping shadows of the same space.
The sanctuary wasn't a single place. It was a veiled network—a hidden domain where Aetherfangs hunted not just with stealth, but through non-linear movement, leaping between shallow folds of space.
Jack moved.
His footsteps were silent, his body low, weaving through narrow trails and spectral thickets. His Zone had contracted slightly for focus—a 100-meter compressed frame, shaped for rapid blinking and immediate spatial control.
The second Stalker came into view as he crept along a ridge that overlooked a dead ravine. It wasn't alone. Two of them prowled in tandem—one pacing the ledge, the other half-phased into a tree, its limbs anchored through ether like it was slipping between layers of the forest's skin.
"Warning: Aetherfang pack behavior detected. Threat level: elevated. Recommended strategy—Divide and isolate. Suggest zone trap deployment."
Jack dropped into a crouch, mind already turning.
"Let's try the new overlay."
"Acknowledged. Deploying Zone Compression Overlay."
A ripple spread outward, this time not wide, but deep. Layers of his Zone bent inward, tightening like a coiled spring, forming a spherical battlefield where he could control not just position, but direction, momentum, and escape vectors.
He took one careful step forward—then snapped his fingers. A resonance anchor was deployed under the first beast. It reacted instantly—blinking away—but not far enough. The compressed overlay adjusted, curving space mid-jump, and forced the Stalker's reappearance into a snare trap of frictionless air.
Jack blinked up and above, then dropped with a spiraling kick enhanced by the stored tension of anchor runes layered beneath his boots. He struck the beast mid-materialization, sending it crashing into the ravine.
The second Stalker shrieked—a high-frequency ether pulse—and vanished into a rift, bending reality as it entered a deeper fold. Jack didn't hesitate. He activated his Zone Blink, following it through the tear into the veil.
And into the next hunt.
The world twisted.
As Jack passed through the rift, space folded like parchment soaked in light. One step became three. Time slowed, then surged, and the air felt heavier—thicker, like breathing through mana-infused fog. Then it snapped into place. Jack landed on solid ground—or something like it. This wasn't the Mistvale Forest he knew.
The sanctuary dimension existed in a parallel space but felt entirely alien. Trees floated, their roots dangling into nothingness. Stone paths spiraled like ribbons through the air, forming Escher-like corridors suspended in weightless geometry. The sky was not a sky, but a veil of deep ether—a moving aurora of translucent color. Blues, purples, and golds bled into one another like ink swirling in water.
"Welcome to the inner veil," the Codex intoned. "Leyline saturation: 86%. Reality structure—unstable. Zone-based spatial manipulation favored."
Jack's Zone Drive pulsed in response. The entire space was made for him. No laws of physics. No gravity to bind him. No terrain to limit his blinks. It was a battlefield of pure will and awareness.
The three remaining Aetherfang Stalkers appeared like phantoms from the ether—materializing from streaks of distorted light. They stalked across the floating ridges, claws clinking against magic-forged stone, their translucent bodies rippling with pure mana.
Each one bore a brighter glow than the last. A synchronized pack. Coordinated. Acolyte beasts with shared instinct.
"Engage with caution. Enemy Ether signatures resonate in tri-phase configuration. Simultaneous blinking and beam attack pattern probable. Suggest: Zone Threading Protocol."
Jack closed his eyes briefly, then exhaled. It seemed like he was beginning to fully trust the codex to aid him in battles. In his past fights with Mundane gang members, he hadn't really needed it's help but now, against foes as strong as him, things changed.
"Thread it."
His Zone shifted—not expanding or compressing, but spatial threads weaving through the battlefield like latticework, weaving between floating platforms and suspended root bridges. Anchor nodes interlinked, creating pathways through space only he could travel.
The Stalkers moved. Three blinks—instantaneous. Jack didn't move from his place. Instead, his threaded anchors activated, pulling him between positions mid-attack. His body flashed left, then right, then upward, as he skipped across invisible threads of space. Ether Beams lanced through where he had been milliseconds before, tearing through floating stones, going through the anchor points he had created.
He countered.
"Anchor Flash: Vector Burst."
His fist slammed forward, compressed space firing like a railgun. The force of the compressed space canceled the Ether Beam, the force continuing to travel till the first stalker was caught mid-blink, its body convulsing as the anchored burst struck it through its shimmering skull. It blinked out—instantly dead, dispersing into light. The other two roared and blinked in opposing angles, triangulating him.
He smirked.
"Got you."
"Zone Lock: Cross-Veil Compression."
His entire battlefield folded inward for a moment—an origami of space. The last two stalkers found themselves forced into the same blink vector, overlapping as their anchors twisted space into alignment. Jack appeared directly above them, his arms glowing with spiraling glyphs, the glyphs representing the anchor point that mutliplied the kinetic output of his strike.
"End of the hunt."
He dropped—fists enhanced with stored momentum, anchored drag, and zero-point stabilization. A dual impact struck both beasts at once.
Silence.
Then a tremor through the veil. The sanctuary shimmered, the light beginning to collapse, as if exhaling. The beasts were gone. Their remains left behind two gleaming Mid-Grade Mana Stones, resting atop a spiraled stone platform.
"Target termination confirmed," the Codex intoned. "Four Mana Stones acquired. Extraction portal forming. Total sync with sanctuary dimension: 92%. Evolutionary threshold approaching."
Jack gathered the stones with deliberate care, slipping them into his pouch as though handling sacred relics. Each one pulsed faintly with residual mana—proof of his trial, and a stepping stone toward his evolution. His breathing was calm now, steady as the tension within his chest slowly eased. Around him, the Zone began to recede, the spatial lattice unraveling thread by thread until the forest returned to its natural stillness.
He had done more than survive the sanctuary. He had commanded it. Yet his eyes wandered beyond the ridge, deeper into the mana-soaked heart of the sanctuary. He could feel it—clusters of lingering presences, hidden in shadow and distance. More Aetherfangs. Stronger ones. The air thrummed faintly with the pressure of unseen beasts, their signatures pulsing like echoes in his spatial awareness.
Jack clenched his fist.
These had been juveniles. Small, wild, barely coordinated—but still dangerous. He had prevailed, but only by relying on the Codex, on preparation, on the training drilled into him by Jacien and Nico. If he pressed further, he risked drawing the attention of elder Aetherfangs—those that had survived far longer and learned to bend the laws of this pocket dimension.
Or worse...
His thoughts drifted to the origin of this space—a parallel sanctuary overlapping Mistvale, hidden from the mundane world. It was artificially created or perhaps grown through unnatural means. That meant there was a source. A core. And likely, a guardian. Perhaps a Master-ranked Aetherfang. Or something even older.
Jack exhaled slowly.
Not yet, he thought. He had what he came for. Greed, in places like this, was a shortcut to death. He turned back toward the camp, his movements light but cautious, every sense alert. The stones in his pouch thrummed with promise. The Codex would awaken anew. But for now, survival was victory enough.