The battlefield looked like the remains of a nightmare.
Trees lay uprooted, their roots exposed like broken ribs. Pits yawned open, some filled with twisted panther bodies. Blood stained everything—human red and monster blue mixing into dark, spreading pools.
Toma collapsed fully, the last of his strength gone now that the tail was no longer a threat. His wounds were deep, but his pulse still hammered in his neck.
Ilyas, teeth clenched, used his broken spear shaft as a crutch to lever himself free of the log that had pinned him. He hissed as he moved, but a wild, disbelieving grin tugged at his mouth. He was still alive.
Lena stood in place for a long moment, bow useless in her hand. Then she exhaled in a shaky rush, lowering it at last. Her cloak was torn, her quiver empty, her arms streaked with small cuts and bruises. But she stood.
Yara, breathing hard, checked the remaining fighters.
Two lay motionless, lost in the chaos. Another was pinned under debris but breathing, leg twisted but salvageable. Her eyes tightened at each confirmation and loss, but her hands moved efficiently, directing the others to pull survivors free.
Noctis's gaze swept the treeline.
He half-expected something else to emerge—a new predator drawn by the noise. His body stayed ready. When shadows moved, he flicked obsidian oracles into place, their faint pulses acting as invisible fences that deterred prowlers.
No new monsters came.
The forest, once full of motion and threat, settled into a tense, wary calm.
The group drew together, as much as the terrain allowed, around the fallen wyvern.
Up close, its corpse was immense. What had seemed like an unstoppable storm a few minutes ago was now just a broken body. Scales cracked, wings torn, eyes dark. It was horrible—and awe-inspiring.
They were alive. Not by chance alone, but by plan, courage, and more than a little luck.
Night approached as they worked.
They cut useful pieces from the wyvern—scales, bone, and venom sacs that could serve them later. They tended to their injured with herbs and bandages. They burned what they could not carry, unwilling to leave too strong a lure for scavengers.
By the time the stars appeared, they had left the clearing behind.
Their return to Noctis's cave was slower, quieter.
Toma was carried on a makeshift litter, face pale but determined. Ilyas limped with support. Lena walked near the front, head turning constantly, still half-expecting another threat to emerge. Yara, exhausted but unyielding, kept them organized and moving.
The cave felt different when they entered.
The same walls, same fire circle, same sketches. But now their presence filled it in a new way. It was no longer just Noctis's refuge. It was a place where they had survived something that should have killed them all.
The kin watched from its nook.
The egg's faint glow pulsed in slow, steady rhythm, as if acknowledging the shift in the air.
Noctis paused at the threshold.
He took in the sight of his cave filled with wounded, breathing, talking humans. The wyvern's death replayed behind his eyes in crisp detail—not as a fever dream of endless cycles, but as a single, finite battle shared with others.
He stepped inside and set to work without ceremony.
He directed where the wounded should lie, which herbs to use for which injury, how to bind a leg to preserve its strength. His movements were efficient, his words few but clear.
When the worst was handled and people began to drift toward uneasy sleep, he took stock.
Two dead. Several badly hurt. All changed.
The Silver Bridger remained at his side, cool and intact, a promise yet to be fulfilled.
As the fire burned low and the forest outside murmured to itself, the group sat in a loose circle again. They did not talk much. They did not have to.
They had gone through a storm together and come out the other side.
At the edge of the firelight, Noctis watched them.
He felt tired down to his bones. Scars burned and throbbed. But somewhere beneath the exhaustion and the familiar calculation—how to fortify, what to prepare next—there was something else.
A quiet, reluctant sense that this hunt had bound them in a way no vow or speech could.
They had shared terror. They had saved each other. They had killed a sky-tyrant that had ruled this valley for longer than any of them knew.
Tomorrow, there would be choices to make.
The Bridger to use. Paths to pick. New worlds or old ruins to seek.
Tonight, under a starlit canopy where a monster's scream no longer ruled the air, they simply existed in the small, fragile space between death and whatever came next—alive, scarred, and no longer strangers in the same way.
Noctis moved through the ruins like a ghost that refused to fade.
What remained of the castle looked less like a building and more like the aftermath of two worlds colliding. Walls had been torn open, stone blocks scattered as if some giant hand had picked the structure up and dropped it onto itself. Staircases dangled into empty space, ending in midair. Hallways led nowhere, sliced in half and choked with debris.
Moonlight slipped in through gaps in the broken ceiling.
It touched sharp edges of shattered stone, skimmed over splintered beams, and turned bits of broken glass into tiny, cold stars on the floor. Long shadows stretched through open doorways and across collapsed corridors, distorting the familiar lines of corridors and arches into something eerie and unfamiliar.
Noctis stepped carefully.
His movements were precise and quiet, each footfall placed where it would not disturb loose rubble. The Echoframe at his wrist glowed softly, casting a pale, steady light that picked out details the moonlight missed: a scorched handprint on the wall, a melted candlestick, a shattered chandelier half-buried under fallen masonry.
He passed through what had once been a great side hall.
Torn tapestries dangled in ragged strips. A suit of armor lay in pieces, helmet crushed flat, breastplate bent as if bitten by something enormous. Noctis scanned each corner, each shadow, not only for threats, but for any hint of purpose—the reason this place had been chosen as the resting site for something as strange as a dream seed.
Deep in the heart of the ruin, the castle's main hall still clung to a hint of its old grandeur.
Columns, cracked but standing, lined a long chamber. Above, pieces of stained glass clung to the high windows, shards of color framing holes where the night stared in. The hall smelled of dust, old smoke, and something else beneath that—a faint, metallic tang that did not belong to stone or wood.
Noctis felt it before he saw it.
A pulse, soft at first, like a second heartbeat in the floor. Not sound. Not quite light. A presence.
He followed the sensation.
Near the far end of the hall, the remains of a grand staircase lay in a twisted heap. Once, it had probably split into two graceful curves leading up to a balcony. Now one side had collapsed entirely, and the other leaned drunkenly, supporting a mass of broken steps and splintered railing.
Half-buried in the wreckage, something glowed.
Noctis stepped closer, the Echoframe's glow dimming as another light grew stronger.
Lodged in fractured marble and tangled wood splinters sat a seed.
It pulsed with a deep crimson light, veins of darker shade crawling across its surface. Its glow was not calm or gentle. It burned. The energy pouring off it felt like fever—too hot, too fast, almost hungry.
Noctis had seen a dream seed before.
The white one had radiated quiet warmth. It had felt like an untouched promise, like the beginning of a story that wanted to grow. This was different. Where the white seed invited, this one seemed to dare him to approach.
He knelt slowly, placing one hand on the cracked stone to steady himself.
The closer he got, the more intense the pulsing became. The air around the seed shimmered faintly, as if heat waves rose from it. Tiny grains of obsidian dust on the floor near his boots shifted without wind, swirling in chaotic little patterns.
The entire hall gave a subtle, almost unnoticeable tremor.
It was as if reality here did not quite know what shape it wanted to hold.
Behind him, there was a soft rustle.
His kin—the small, scaled companion that followed him through so many worlds—moved closer. Its presence at his side was warm and tense. He could feel its protective instinct rising, a quiet warning in the way it pressed against his leg and hissed under its breath.
Before Noctis could reach out to touch the seed, the Echoframe reacted.
His vision flickered.
Scarlet light flashed across his inner interface, overlaying the ruined hall with a warning. Letters unrolled in front of his eyes in clear, ominous script:
Echoframe System Message:
ALERT: New Dream Seed Detected
Classification: Malefactor-Class Construct
Signature: Red (Hostile Substrate)
Anomalous Dream Access: WARNING
This Dream Seed differs from previous white-seed encounters.
Danger Level: Unknown
Do you wish to proceed into this dream?
[Accept] Or [Decline]