Cain left at dawn.
The village of Glintmere watched him go with silent eyes and bowed heads. The path east wound through charred fields, across splintered fences, past homes reduced to cinders. He bore no fanfare, no blessings from a clergy, no magical gear forged by divine hands.
Only a bundle of supplies, a weathered cloak, and a smoldering spark buried deep inside him.
He welcomed the silence.
With every step away from Glintmere, the weight of mourning lifted, replaced by something sharper. The hunger he'd first felt in the presence of the merchant's pendant had not vanished. If anything, it had grown stronger. It wasn't the hunger of a body, nor even that of magic-starved veins.
It was the hunger of purpose.
His feet crunched over gravel. Twigs snapped underfoot. The world around him was still raw, recovering from the recklessness of Gem Masters who hadn't even paused to acknowledge the destruction they left behind.
Cain remembered.
And he would never forget.
His pace was steady, his mind clear. The road ahead was long, and the first town lay three days away on foot. But he was not concerned.
On the first night, he made camp by a fallen tree and devoured the dried meat Angus had packed for him. He meditated beside a dwindling fire, reaching inward to the space within him where the Annihilus fragment dwelled.
It pulsed faintly... dormant but watchful.
He spoke to it in silence.
"Show me," he whispered. "What I must become."
The fire flared, then died into coals.
That night, he dreamed again. Not of gods he knew, not of Zeus, but of thrones of bone and screaming stars, of skies devoured by mouths too vast for form. The dreams clawed at his sanity. But Cain welcomed them. For pain, too, was a teacher.
By the second day, the terrain began to change. Trees thickened. The road narrowed into little more than a game trail. Here, the scent of beasts hung heavy.
It wasn't long before he was surrounded.
Six of them—wolf-like creatures, fur black as pitch, eyes glowing like hot coals. Their breath steamed in the morning cold, and their paws made no sound.
Cain did not flinch. He had killed more beasts than he could count. Even in his old world they existed, but they were far too strong for a mortal here.
But he was no longer a mortal.
He waited until the largest one lunged. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the light returned.
Illuminate.
A flare of white light burst from his palm, a focused beam that struck the creature mid-air. It twisted, yelped, then fell twitching to the earth, its eyes aching.
The rest circled warily, unsure.
Cain raised his hand again, and this time, the light curved, forming a ring around him.
They hesitated. And in that hesitation, Cain moved.
Two steps forward, a sweep of flame. Another wolf caught the arc and fell in a screaming blaze.
The rest fled.
Cain stood alone, chest rising slowly.
Magic, once his birthright, was returning to him in scraps. But it was enough.
He knelt beside the charred corpses and placed his hand upon them. He didn't know why—not entirely. But a pull guided him, a whisper from within.
He felt it.
The faintest echo of power—residual energy within their beast cores. Normally, it would fade quickly after death. But here, it lingered.
And Cain consumed it.
A black mist rose from the bodies and sank into his skin. The Annihilus fragment pulsed.
Cain stood slowly, eyes glowing faintly.
'There are rules,' he thought. 'And I will break all of them.'
By the time he reached the outer edges of the next settlement on the third day, the hunger had lessened.
But it was far from gone.
The town of Redbraid wasn't much larger than Glintmere had been, but it had walls, guards, and a shrine to one of the lesser gods—Thalos, the Bringer of Crops. Cain passed through the gates with little issue, posing as a minor survivor from a neighboring hamlet.
No one questioned a half-starved traveler with ash-stained boots.
He entered the town square, where merchants hawked dried bread and worn-out tools. He didn't have coin, but he didn't need any.
He needed information.
He needed names.
And he needed more power.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Cain slipped into the shadows of the shrine. Its stone columns were cracked. Inside, a priest murmured prayers while children begged for leftover offerings.
Cain watched.
;Let them pray,; he thought. 'Soon, they'll be praying to stop me.'