The world past Star City's battered wall was nothing like the neon chaos they'd left behind. Here, the wilds pulsed with a sleepy threat—half-rusted signposts overrun by blackberry, the bones of old trams tangled in moss, Gate-magic hanging in the air like a memory waiting to pounce.
Tian Qiren and Yan Yue slogged through the brush, rain tapering to a mist that silvered the ruined landscape. Qiren's sinwave mark glowed fainter—suppressed, but restless—while the Rune Wisp on his shoulder hummed, a flicker against the twilight. The hydra cub waddled after them, all three heads sniffing hopefully at suspicious puddles.
"Remind me why we didn't just take the sewer route?" Yan Yue asked, nearly tripping as her boot tangled in a knot of glowing roots.
Qiren grinned, lifting a soggy branch so she could slip by. "Sewer's full of relic slimes, mages addicted to cryptic graffiti, and… Mei Lin's fan club. Trust me, wild's safer, if you don't mind bugs."
Yan Yue huffed, swatting at a moth the size of a textbook. "Next time, someone else gets to pick our research site."
The outer districts were lawless, still scarred from the Cataclysm and never fully reclaimed. Here and there, makeshift barricades from years ago sagged beneath wind and age; wild Gate plants sprouted in luminous clusters, emitting errant sparks. Every sound—beetle click, distant monster snarl—was magnified, as if the ancient magic watched their every move.
They scavenged for supplies in an old tram-stop half-swallowed by vines. Qiren pried open a street food crate ("Sausage buns, only mildly fossilized!") while Yan Yue scanned the rails with her battered field tablet. Its runic lens flickered each time she pointed to the horizon.
Something on the concrete caught her attention: a faded pattern, half-obscured by moss—an old field sigil used by the Halfmoon Institute, her home division.
She knelt, tracing the glyph. "There was an research post here, back before the Disaster. My mentor, Professor Nang, survived this district. She told me once the wilds remember everything—especially the magic."
"Your professor know how to fight hydra cubs with one shoe?" Qiren asked, eyeing the cub as it gnawed determinedly on his muddy lace.
Yan Yue shook her head, smiling. "He said you only survive the wild by listening. Most researchers never made it this far out." Her glance was wistful, distant. "They called us weird behind our backs in the Institute—out here, weird might be the best survival trait."
A piercing shriek jerked them upright—a feral relichound, all back arch and gnashing teeth, bolted from the undergrowth. Qiren's mark pulsed red. Without thinking, he slid between Yan Yue and the beast, focus tightening. The system window flashed:
[System Option: Mimic—"Relichound Dash" OR Tame—(High Risk: Unknown Bond).]
He reached deep, drawing on his earlier lessons with the hydra and the Rune Wisp's calm aura. As the relichound lunged, Qiren's palm glimmered. Energy laced between his hand and the beast. For a tense heartbeat, it snarled—then, sensing kin or magic, it backed away and trotted warily beside the hydra cub.
Yan Yue let out a sigh. "That makes two for the circus. If you start attracting owlbears, I'm recording it for the thesis."
"Only if you promise not to add my shoe size," Qiren shot back.
They pressed on, gathering edible roots, a half-charged relic lantern, and enough clean rainwater to last through midnight. The Rune Wisp guided their route, floating ahead when magic thickened, returning to Qiren's side when energies spiked too wildly even for monsters.
Rain finally faded, and the clouds pulled back to reveal a bruised purple dusk. The city, distant, sparkled behind checkpoint lights—no sanctuary for them tonight. In a hollow beneath an overturned tram, Qiren set up a makeshift shelter of tarps and beanbags ("gate scavenger luxury," he claimed). Yan Yue tucked herself in with a thermal jacket, hydra cub purring against her knees, and watched shadows crawl through the brush.
Quiet settled—thick, peaceful, and nerve-wracking all at once.
"Why'd you really come out here, Yan Yue?" Qiren asked, breaking the silence. "Every researcher I know hates getting shoes dirty."
Yan Yue paused, voice small. "I needed proof. That what I do matters. The Ministry will keep chasing anomalies—monsters, people with marks—until they've locked every miracle away or ruined it trying. If you survive, people just call you lucky. If you fight—try to heal or understand—they call it a threat." She swallowed. "If I can help you, maybe I can prove something… to myself, and to them. And maybe, next time, they won't run from someone like me."
Qiren considered this, then nodded. "For what it's worth, I think you're the bravest person I've met. Even if you can't cook worth a damn."
She smiled, hugging the hydra cub. "Good thing you have monster friends. They'll eat anything."
Deep night gathered around them. The world outside the shelter rustled with distant monster calls, Ministry searchlights blinking now far away. Qiren checked the tarp's knots, then sat close to where Yan Yue watched rain trickle through the tram's steel ribs.
Suddenly, the system mark on his hand tingled, a faint vision flickering: in the brush beyond, shadows coiled—larger, more organized. A monstrous silhouette roamed, twice as big as the Thunderjaw from the city, crowned with energy, eyes reflecting a chilling, familiar intelligence. The system pulsed a warning:
[Crown-Level Threat Detected. Predatory signature: scanning. Prepare for contact.]
Qiren's heart pounded. He exchanged a look with Yan Yue, whose own scanner glowed an urgent, anxious gold. They could run, but there was nowhere safe—and monsters, it seemed, weren't the only things hunting the marked and the bold in these wilds.
Above their camp, moonlight slid through the trees—and with it, the promise that surviving the city had only been the first, easiest step.