(??? POV)
The smell of iron and earth was thick in the air.
Leaves trembled in the wake of the beast's snarls.
It had been meant to be a simple hunt. The creature was supposed to be just another wild beast, the sort that fetched good coin in the northern markets — pelt, fangs, marrow, all worth something to someone. The leader of the six, a tall woman in dark-grey armor streaked with forest dust, had led her group through dozens of such expeditions. She had faced wyverns, ash hounds, and worse. But this one — this striped, sinew-draped monster, this thing — was different. Its eyes burned with a dim white rage, and every movement seemed to blur at the edges, as though the world itself lagged behind its ferocity.
One of her men was bleeding out by her flank, his spear snapped; the mages were barely keeping a ward alive.
The beast lunged.
She thought she saw her death.
And then — it happened.
Reality bent. Not violently, not with the crash of thunder or light — but softly, as though someone had drawn back a curtain of air. The forest hushed. The creature froze mid-leap, its motion suspended by something unseen. And from the distortion ahead, a shimmer took form — pale, ash-toned motes spiraling outward like slow embers drifting through still water.
From within that spiral stepped him.
He was not like any being she had ever seen. His presence did not burn or freeze — it weighed. It pressed against the senses with a calm that was not peace but gravity itself. He wore a black robe with silver filaments that caught the faintest traces of ambient light, making him seem both real and imagined. His eyes were pale — too pale — like deep frost beneath a starlit lake, and when they lifted to her, she felt as if her thoughts were being quietly unmade and rewritten in silence.
The beast that had been moments from ending them collapsed. No sound, no strike, no flare of power. One heartbeat it was alive, the next it was dust and air.
No one moved.
Even the trees seemed to hold their breath.
"...What— what just happened?" one of the younger hunters stammered, voice cracking.
The leader lifted a hand to silence him, eyes fixed on the stranger. Every instinct screamed caution.
He wasn't human. She didn't know what he was, but she knew — this being stood above them.
When he stepped forward, the ground did not so much as whisper. He was weightless, yet his presence dragged the world with him.
"Be at ease," the stranger said, his voice quiet — not commanding, but inevitable. The words didn't just reach their ears; they settled into their minds.
The leader bowed slightly, lowering her blade. "You saved us, stranger. We… owe you our lives."
The man only inclined his head. "You owe me nothing. I simply passed by."
The others exchanged uneasy looks. One of the mages, a tall man with dark runes along his hands, whispered under his breath, "Passed by? Through what?"
But the leader silenced him again. She took a cautious step closer.
"You're far from any road. What brings you into the Fenreach Forest?"
The man turned his gaze toward the trees. "I am lost," he said simply. "I seek the nearest town."
His voice carried no shame, no confusion — as if even being lost was a deliberate state of existence for him.
The leader hesitated, studying his expression — calm, unreadable, ancient. Then she nodded slowly. "You saved us. The least we can do is guide you there. It's half a day's walk to Vaelrin Town."
The stranger's lips curved faintly — the shadow of a smile. "That will suffice."
The six relaxed, tension bleeding from their stances. The youngest of them even let out a nervous chuckle. "You, uh, travel alone often, sir?"
But before the stranger could reply, he knelt beside the remains of the beast — what little remained, anyway. Only charred motes and a faint shimmer of something that could have been ash or light.
He raised his hand slightly, and a thin stream of black dust flowed from the carcass — drawn upward like smoke caught in reversed gravity. It spiraled toward his palm and vanished into nothing.
None of the six noticed; they were too busy catching their breath, retrieving fallen weapons. Only the leader, watching from the corner of her eye, thought she saw something strange in the air — a flicker, a whisper, as if the forest exhaled something it had been forced to hold.
Alatar straightened.
He had seen the creature's death not through his eyes but through the Omen-Weaver's Gaze. Its last thought, its final panic, its dissolving instinct — all absorbed, unravelled, and made into ash. Within him, the Entropic Sight murmured, recognizing new structure, new fuel for the constructs of his will.
He looked toward the group again. They were mortal, fragile, and limited — but the sincerity in their gratitude had a quiet charm.
Perhaps this was what Barachas meant. To see the lesser races not as insects, but as mirrors of what one has forgotten.
The leader approached, her movements cautious but steady. "We're ready to move. You'll come with us?"
Alatar inclined his head. "Lead on."
They began their walk. The forest, moments ago alive with chaos, seemed to still around them — as though the trees themselves bowed in silence when he passed.
The group moved in formation, practiced and careful, weapons at their sides, keeping respectful distance from their savior. They whispered softly among themselves when they thought he couldn't hear:
"Did you see how the beast died?"
"No, it was like time just… stopped."
"Maybe he's a royal magister from the eastern empires…"
"Or a god."
Their words rolled off him like mist. Alatar listened, but his focus drifted — his perception expanded through the Chrono-Cognitive Field, threading the edges of time like fingers through silk. He felt the faint temporal pulses of each of them — life-force flickers, steady yet fragile. The forest stretched around them in serene rhythm; every sound, every step, every heartbeat mapped itself within his awareness.
Barachas's words echoed faintly in his mind: "Temper the ash, but never forget the frost."
He wondered, as they walked beneath the canopy, whether frost still lingered in him — or if the endless refining had burned it all away.
When the treeline began to thin and the scent of damp grass replaced the rot of moss and blood, the leader looked back. "We'll reach Vaelrin by dusk," she said. "You can rest there, stranger. The people are decent enough — though, forgive me for saying, you may stand out."
Alatar's eyes flicked to her, the faintest trace of amusement on his lips. "I imagine I will."
The leader smiled despite herself. There was something disarming about his calm — an old weight worn lightly.
They walked on, the sound of distant rivers joining the quiet rhythm of their steps. The forest behind them swallowed the remnants of battle, the ash scattering back into the soil.
None of them noticed how a faint whisper of that same ash lingered in Alatar's wake — unseen threads weaving through his shadow, pulsing faintly with the soul-echo of the slain beast.
Alatar felt it, though. The absorbed essence settling, reshaping, whispering of new potential.
And though his expression betrayed nothing, deep within the still chambers of his mind, the Primordial Eye stirred — its single awakened iris rippling faintly, as if recognizing the beginning of something vast.
The walk to civilization had begun.