It had taken them three days to find the clearing.
Tucked between broken hills and dense, twisting woods, it offered a view of the horizon, defensible terrain, and a small spring-fed pool—a miracle in a realm where death lurked behind every crooked tree. The monsters hadn't come this far yet. For now, it was quiet.
For now, it was theirs.
Elias drove the first crude stake into the ground.
"Alright," he said, exhaling. "Let's build a kingdom."
Ryker leaned on his chain whip, which he now used like a grappling tool more often than a weapon. "This is a terrible kingdom. Not one screaming peasant yet."
Kaela snorted from where she was binding logs with scavenged Realm-fiber rope. "Give it time. We'll put up a sign: 'Now Accepting Survivors.'"
They laughed, tired but together. The past days had been a blur of trial and blood, but now they had a moment—just one—to breathe.
And in the quiet, something human stirred.
Elias sat on a flat stone as Kaela built the fire. Ryker worked nearby, sharpening a scavenged spearhead. Their hands moved out of habit now, like people who had lived with war too long.
"Back home," Elias said softly, "I didn't have a single friend."
Kaela looked up. "What?"
He shrugged. "People didn't get me. Always in my head. Teachers said I was a 'gifted learner.' But all that meant was I could solve problems no one else saw… until I made things worse trying to fix them."
Ryker chuckled. "Sounds about right."
"I used to play strategy games. Build empires. Simulations, you know? Always thought if the world did end, I'd be the guy with the plan."
He looked around. "Now I am."
Silence followed.
Then Kaela leaned back and stared at the cloudless sky.
"I was a dancer," she said. "Competitive ballet. Trained since I could walk. My mom—she was intense. Like… crazy intense. 'Perfection or nothing' kind of person."
Elias frowned. "That's not what I expected."
She smiled bitterly. "Yeah, well. When the Realm dropped me here, I thought it was a dream. Then I realized—I wasn't scared. Not really. I'd spent my whole life dancing around pressure. This was just… different choreography."
She met Elias's eyes.
"You taught me how to trust someone else's rhythm."
A beat passed.
"Gross," Ryker said.
They both looked at him.
"What?" he added. "I mean, you're both emotional geniuses, and I love that for us—but I'm not about to drop a tragic backstory. My life sucked. That's the story."
Kaela raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"
He hesitated, eyes drifting toward the woods.
"Grew up bouncing between foster homes. Most of 'em sucked. Got kicked out of school a few times. Learned early that hitting things solved more problems than talking did."
He paused.
"Except when it didn't."
Elias said nothing. He saw something raw in Ryker's face—something more honest than sarcasm.
"First time I felt anything real," Ryker continued, "was when I got my power here. Shockbound. Like… the world finally gave me a way to fight back that mattered."
He stood, tossing the sharpened spear into the dirt with a thunk.
"I like that it hurts me a little when I use it. Reminds me I'm not untouchable."
Kaela stood, stretching her arms with a yawn. "That's the most Ryker thing I've ever heard."
They all laughed again.
A kingdom without walls. But a kingdom with a heart.
That night, a storm moved across the edge of the woods—lightless, thunderless, but wrong.
Somewhere, far from the camp, a man ran.
He was young. Thin. Bloodied. His name didn't matter—no one here knew it.
He was one of the 1000.
And he was being hunted.
Trees whipped past him as he sprinted, breath ragged, a small pulse of light in his palm sputtering with the remnants of a defensive spell. Behind him, the sound of water slithering over rock echoed through the forest.
Not footsteps.
Dragging. Sloshing. Breathing.
He stumbled over a root and fell. Rolled. Got up.
Then he looked behind him.
And saw nothing.
No eyes. No movement. Just trees.
Then, slowly, the trees bent.
Something enormous stepped between them—a shape like a centipede coiled around a whale, with dozens of limbs and a single glowing mouth that took up half its face.
He screamed.
The Leviathan lunged.
There was no fight. No chase. Only the quiet cracking of bone and a wet, final silence.
Moments later, the creature rose—twenty feet tall, skin glistening like oil, eyes made of fog and hunger.
It turned.
And began to move toward the clearing.
Toward the scent of fire.
Toward the scent of them.