The cabin was silent, save for the low creak of wooden beams and the occasional rustle of wind pressing against the frost-rimmed windows. Nestled deep within Forest Vale, far beyond the guild walls, the place felt like it had been forgotten by the world.
A perfect hiding spot or a cage, depending on who you asked.
Bren sat cross-legged on the floorboards, sweat clinging to his bare chest as he tried to steady his breathing. The faint glow of the sigil etched across his chest pulsed like a second heartbeat, matching the erratic rhythm of his own. His muscles trembled, sore and sluggish, and his heart thundered from the last brutal set of drills.
Across the room, Sergeant McEvoy stood like a granite pillar, arms folded, expression unreadable.
Bren wiped the sweat from his brow, glancing down at his shaking hands.
"He's still in my head. Nythor. I don't know how much longer I can hold him back."
"You'll learn," McEvoy said flatly. "That's why you're here."
A silence settled between them. Outside, the wind stirred the trees with whispering limbs. Distant. Ethereal. It was almost like voices were calling for something lost.
McEvoy turned without a word, reaching into a wooden chest and pulling out a flat, silver box. He opened it slowly. Inside lay a glowing sigil stencil—an archaic marking that pulsed with ancient energy.
"This is the first," he said.
Bren frowned. "Tattoo?"
"More than that. A stabilizer. It'll help with the corruption… if you can endure it."
Bren's gut twisted. "Endure what?"
McEvoy smirked, a rare flicker of amusement—though it held no humour. "The pain."
The moment the sigil etched itself into Bren's forearm, searing down like molten frost. He screamed.
The sensation was unlike anything he'd ever felt: not just heat or cold, but something deeper. Like fire carving into his soul.
[System Notification]
You have received your first stabilizing sigil: [Ashborne Line]
Resistance to corruption +2%
Physical resilience +1
Warning: Compatibility unstable. Recalibrating...
The mark glowed blue at first, then flickered violently to black as his aura tried to reject it. His body arched, veins bulging, breath catching in his throat.
But the sigil stayed. It fused.
Merged.
McEvoy nodded, arms behind his back.
"Good. That demon power has given you strength, but you don't know how to wield it, not with discipline. Not with control."
Bren didn't answer. His fists clenched on his knees, the trembling in his arms no longer just from pain, but from frustration. From fear. From the weight of something old and hungry stirring beneath his skin.
McEvoy stepped forward and knelt.
"You want to survive what's coming? Then we start from the ground up. No magic. No shadow tricks. Just raw muscle. Iron will."
He grabbed Bren's arm and held it up.
"You're weak here." He squeezed his bicep, then tapped Bren's chest. "And especially here." His finger moved to Bren's temple. "This is where the demon wins if you don't beat him first."
The words hit hard. Bren flinched, but didn't pull away.
He knew McEvoy was right.
"For now," McEvoy said, rising to his feet, "we break your limits before the corruption breaks you."
The next few weeks blurred into a single, punishing cycle.
Wake before dawn. Train until exhaustion. Rest. Repeat.
There was no magic to ease the strain. No shortcuts. No comfort. Only pain and purpose. Until the weeks progressed.
Push-ups until his arms gave out. Sprints through the thickets until his legs collapsed. Sparring drills using wooden poles until his knuckles bled. Combat routines drilled so deep they followed him into his dreams. Until he became stronger.
And always, always—the voice.
"You waste time on flesh when you could dominate with force,"
Nythor whispered, his voice slick, cold as a void.
"Let me in, and I will make you more than this pathetic shell."
"Not yet," Bren thought, biting back the surge of shadow that clawed at the edge of his mind. I have to earn it. Master it.
Every time he felt the corruption rise, he focused on the sigil. On the pain it caused. The anchor it gave.
[System Notification]
Mental Resistance Check Passed
Nythor's influence: Suppressed
Stability Level: 57%
By the second week, something shifted.
Bren stood in front of the cracked mirror above the basin, blinking at his reflection. A streak of black now ran through the roots of his golden hair—barely visible, but there. The original patch near his crown had widened. His light blue eyes appeared darker in a certain light.
His muscles had thickened—not drastically, but enough. He felt heavier. More solid.
He didn't mention it to McEvoy.
Instead, he embraced it.
Week two came like a storm.
"Again," McEvoy barked, tossing him a training staff.
Bren caught it mid-air, spinning instinctively into the stance he'd been drilled on. They circled. Staves clacked like thunder. McEvoy moved with brutal precision, and when he disarmed Bren with a shoulder feint, Bren surged forward without thinking—faster than before, sharper.
His body moved before thought.
"You're learning," McEvoy grunted. "But not enough."
"I can feel it," Bren gasped. "My body… changing... getting stronger."
"Good. That's the corruption trying to shape you. Let it burn through you but don't let it win. You shape it. That's the difference between a vessel and a monster."
On the final week of training, Bren collapsed into bed with a low groan, every joint aching like splintered stone. Across the room, McEvoy sharpened a dagger by lantern light, the rhythmic scraping steady as a heartbeat.
Bren stared at the ceiling. The sigil on his chest glowed a violet-black. Faint lines had begun to spread beneath his skin—veins tracing outwards from the sigil marks on his body.
Not tattoos.
Sigils.
Magic embedded in his very flesh. Healing him from the inside out.
When he closed his eyes, memories that weren't his flickered behind his eyelids. Visions of obsidian wings. Fallen cities. A sky set ablaze with ash.
He sat upright with a strangled gasp.
"You felt it again, didn't you?" McEvoy asked without looking up.
Bren nodded. "It's like… his memories are bleeding into mine. Sometimes, I can't tell where I end, and he begins."
"That's the corruption," McEvoy said. "But it's also power. If you master the difference, you'll become something none of them expect. Not hunter. Not demon. Something new."
Bren's fingers drifted to one of the glowing lines on his forearm. His veins pulsed faint violet beneath the skin.
"Do you think I can stop it? All of it?"
McEvoy finally met his gaze.
"I think you'll either become the thing that ends this war or... the thing that starts the next."
Bren didn't sleep that night. The visions came in waves like dreams not meant for mortals.
So he chose to stay awake.
The next morning, the mirror didn't just reflect change—it reflected rebirth.
Bren stepped toward it slowly, breath catching in his throat.
His once shaggy golden hair was now a deep, glossy black—cropped shorter, messier in a way that looked deliberate, wild. Strands curled slightly at the ends, falling just over his brow. His jawline had sharpened, cheekbones more pronounced. A faint shadow lined his features, not from fatigue, but from structure—intensity.
His shoulders were broader, his frame thicker with muscle. Not bulky—sculpted. Every inch of him looked like it had been carved for war. He stood taller, nearly eye level with the doorframe now. His voice, when he spoke had dropped, deeper, commanding.
And his eyes—
They glowed faintly.
Not enough to shine outright, but under the right light… a dark blue base rimmed with violent violet sparks. Like a storm hiding behind calm seas.
The sigils on his forearms, neck and chest pulsed softly, symmetrical now, speading slightly up his body like living ink etched in magic. Power didn't just radiate from him, it clung to the air around him.
He didn't look like Bren.
Not the boy who'd wandered into the guild by accident. Not the frail E-Rank who'd stumbled into the Trial of Death.
This was someone else entirely.
This was what Leia had described on that first day... an elite.
The kind of hunter who turned heads without trying. The kind that commanded attention by simply existing.
Bren stared at the stranger in the mirror.
Not broken. Not lost. Not prey.
He rolled his shoulder slowly, flexing his fingers as the mark across his chest pulsed one final time before dimming.
[System Notification]
Phase One: Training Complete
Physical Attributes: Enhanced
Corruption Resistance: Stabilized at 68%
Status: UNKNOWN ENTITY
Alert: Appearance Change Registered – Identity masking advised.
He gave a small, humourless laugh.
"Guess no one's going to recognise me now then."
From behind, McEvoy stepped into view, arms folded.
"They won't. Not at first."
Bren didn't turn. He kept his eyes on his reflection.
"That's fine," he muttered. "Let them see what I've become."
Because the boy they remembered was gone.
And whatever he was now?
It was just the beginning.