Steel met bone.
The first creature lunged—its limbs jerky, head twisted unnaturally, teeth gnashing in a mouth that no longer needed to eat. Eudora ducked the swipe, drove his blade up into its chest.
Nothing.
The thing didn't bleed.
Didn't even scream.
It just cracked its jaw sideways and kept moving.
Marx roared behind him, shield-bashing another abomination back into the fog. "Aim for the joints!" he shouted. "They don't care about pain!"
The shieldbearer, Drogan, already had a gash along his thigh. Lys stabbed her spear clean through a fiend's eye socket, only for it to drag her down with it.
Eudora moved fast.
Not fast because of skill. Fast because of instinct.
He severed the left arm of a second creature, then the head of a third. One of them bit down on his shoulder, teeth raking through flesh—
—snap
It tore a chunk away.
He stumbled back—
—and watched it heal.
Slowly. Reluctantly. But surely.
Marx saw it.
And for a second, he looked at Eudora like he didn't recognize him.
---
Ten Minutes Later
They were surrounded.
Six became four.
Then three.
Then two.
Marx slammed his shield down on the last fiend, its ribs crunching like dry bark beneath his boots. The fog cleared just enough to show the devastation:
Bodies.
Black blood.
Chunks of bone, twitching, twitching, twitching…
The forest was silent again.
Except for the sound of Eudora's breathing—ragged, hoarse, but steady.
He turned toward Marx.
Marx was shaking.
Not from fear.
From exhaustion.
"Is it over?" he asked.
Eudora didn't answer. Because he wasn't sure. And because his side still hadn't stopped bleeding. His body wanted to heal. But this time… it hesitated.
The regeneration wasn't instant anymore.
It felt deliberate.
Like something inside him was choosing how much to give.
Or how much to keep.
---
At the Ruins of Asterfold
They found the relic buried beneath stone and ash. A jagged orb wrapped in blackened cloth, humming softly, like a dying heartbeat.
Marx stared at it, his face pale. "We shouldn't touch that."
Eudora reached for it anyway.
The moment his fingers brushed the cloth, a cold jolt ran through his spine. Visions flickered. Not his own:
A woman screaming in a room full of mirrors.
A child weeping over a city of fire.
A beast devouring its own reflection.
He pulled back, breath catching.
The relic had memories.
Marx grabbed his shoulder. "What the hell did you see?"
Eudora didn't answer.
He couldn't explain it.
Not yet.
"Let's move," he said.
They had to return.
Before the fog remembered them again.
---
Later – Bound Path Guild Infirmary
Two dead.
Three missing.
Only Eudora and Marx returned.
Varro didn't speak when they handed him the relic. He looked them over once—took in their wounds, the dirt, the dark in their eyes—and nodded.
"You live another day. Good enough."
That was the only praise they got.
Eudora staggered to his cot, body aching. The healing had slowed. It wasn't enough to call miraculous anymore. It was just enough to not die.
But beneath his skin, something stirred.
The fire of change.
The curse of survival.
Not stronger.
Just stranger.
He sat in silence, watching Marx across the room.
The man looked lost. Haunted.
He would break soon.
And Eudora could feel the clock ticking.
Not just for Marx.
But for himself.
Because whatever he'd brought back from the ruins…
…hadn't stayed in the relic.