It might have been the third day in the fog.
Or the fourth.
Time no longer held.
Beyond the boundary, the world had gone quiet in a way that felt final.
Kael passed three supply villages and two outposts. Doors stood open. Cooking fires lay cold. Bread hardened on tables, unmarked by mold or teeth.
No bodies.
No blood.
No signs of struggle.
The road stretched on, empty. A trade artery that should have been alive with carts and shouting—now stripped bare. Whatever had passed through here had taken everything with it.
Sound did not exist.
His boots sank into mud, but there was no impact. No splash. No rhythm.
Only the inside of his skull remained loud.
Thump. Thump.
His heart struck his eardrums with each beat.
When he turned his neck, cartilage ground against cartilage. The sound crawled through bone and echoed inside his head. His breathing rasped the same way—air scraping through him, loud and intimate, impossible to escape.
Kael kept walking.
The ground changed underfoot. The mud thickened. Greasy. Yielding in a way that made his stomach tighten.
He reached back and drew the dark-red longbow from his shoulder.
The moment his fingers closed around the grip, the wood pulsed.
Squelch.
The bow's surface rippled. Fine filaments split from the handle and drove into his palm. They slid beneath the skin, threading through meat and nerve. His fingers spasmed once, then locked.
The bow held.
It no longer needed his grip.
Pressure slammed into him from the left.
Not sound.
Not impact.
The air itself folded.
His skin prickled. Every hair stood on end. The space beside him compressed as if a wall were forming out of nothing.
Too fast.
Kael's left arm came up.
CRACK.
The world tilted.
Mud rushed up. He struck it hard, rolled once, and skidded to a stop. His shoulder slammed stone. His teeth clicked together.
Bile flooded his mouth.
His vision broke into gray snow.
The arm was still attached.
It did not function as one.
The forearm twisted backward at the elbow, wound tight like cloth wrung dry. Bone pushed against skin at the wrist. The bow did not fall. Thick cords of living fiber surged from the grip, burrowing deeper, anchoring into the ruined flesh.
There was no pain.
Only pressure.
Only heat.
The fog tore open.
Wind surged past him as the displacement cleared the air.
Kael dragged himself onto one elbow. His gaze lifted.
The thing filled the road.
A mass of bodies fused into a single shape, rising higher than the watchtowers he'd passed days ago. Flesh pressed against flesh. Human forms flattened together until nothing remained distinct.
Imperial breastplates glinted within the surface, crushed thin. Faces bulged outward—mouths locked open, eyes merged into clusters, limbs swallowed and reemerging elsewhere like roots.
The ground vibrated beneath it.
The air stank of rot and hot metal.
A name surfaced, unbidden.
[ WARNING: Divine reaction detected ]
[ ENTITY: GODSPAWN — INCUBATING ]
Kael laughed once. A short sound, brittle, almost surprised.
He turned.
Mud exploded beneath his feet.
Muscle tore as he drove himself forward, burning strength for speed. The fog ripped past him as he ran, the road vanishing into gray.
The pressure returned—closer this time.
The ground shook.
He leapt.
For an instant, there was nothing beneath him.
Then something vast struck his back.
The Monolith shattered. The weight vanished in a spray of fragments. The impact continued through him.
His lower body folded.
He did not feel it happen.
He flew.
Straps snapped. Gear scattered. The world spun and slammed back together in mud and darkness.
He slid to a stop.
Silence.
Kael lay face-down. His breath came shallow, uneven. The cold crept upward from below his waist.
He rolled onto his back.
His legs were gone.
Not severed—collapsed.
Thighs twisted together. Knees bent the wrong way. Bone punched through soaked fabric, white and slick, marrow glistening in the gloom. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading slowly.
The shadow moved.
Closer.
Kael's mouth opened.
No sound came out at first.
Then—
"Ah…"
His hands clawed at the mud. Fingers dug in, slipped free.
"No… no…"
The ground trembled again.
Something inside him broke.
He screamed.
It tore out of him, thin and raw. His body thrashed. His heels dragged uselessly through the mire.
Black tendrils burst from his spine.
They wrapped around the ruin below his hips, tightening. Bone ground against bone. The tendrils pulled, braced, locked.
Kael shrieked as the broken mass was forced upright.
He stood—crooked, shaking, held together by nothing that should have worked.
He lurched forward.
Each step produced a wet grind from inside the construct.
He screamed again and ran.
Not straight.
Not fast.
Just away.
The fog ahead darkened, thinning into a pitch-black void.
Kael hurled himself into it.
The sound cut off.