Then, without warning, the creature stopped feeding.
Its long, twisted limbs froze mid-motion. The air itself seemed to still — even the wind dared not move.
Slowly, its head turned.
Those hollow, bleeding sockets fixed on me.
For a heartbeat, the forest held its breath.
It had seen me.
I pressed my back against the tree, heart hammering, my body rigid as stone. But no — it didn't move to attack. There was no mindless rage in its stare, no hunger in its silence.
It was not a beast.
It was aware.
Then, it spoke.
The sound that escaped its mouth was neither human nor animal — a trembling murmur that twisted through the air like smoke. The words were alien, layered and ancient, each syllable scraping against my skull as if they carried weight beyond sound.
I didn't understand them — not truly — yet something in me felt their meaning, like an echo awakening in the hollow of my soul.
This creature was not merely alive.
It thought.
It knew.
And as the echoes of its voice faded, it spoke again — this time, the sound more deliberate, almost mournful.
"ᚨᛚ… ᚱᛖ… ᛏᚨᛚ…"
The words twisted midair, and somehow, they reshaped themselves in my mind—
a voice I could understand, though it had never been spoken in my tongue.
"Are you… the Chosen One?"
The question pierced me deeper than any blade.
The Chosen One?
Did it mean what the girl had said—the seeker of the Eternal Truth?
How could this creature, this grotesque being of flesh and shadow, know that name?
I swallowed, my throat dry, and without knowing how, I found myself replying in the same strange language—words forming on my tongue as though they had always been there.
"What… kind of Chosen One do you speak of?"
The forest seemed to darken around us. The crimson moonlight trembled through the trees.
The creature tilted its head, the folds of its half-melted face shifting like wax in heat. Its expression was impossible to read—yet, somehow, I felt the emotion behind it.
Pity.
Recognition.
Fear.
Its voice came again, distorted, almost human
but the meaning slipped through me like water through trembling hands.
And then, just as suddenly as it had noticed me
it fell silent.
It turned away, its body twisting unnaturally as it melted back into the shadows of the forest.
Within seconds, it was gone.
Only the sound of dripping blood and the whisper of unseen things remained.
I stood there, sword in hand, my breath uneven.
The forest around me pulsed faintly, alive and listening.
And in that dreadful stillness, a thought returned to me—
the words of the little girl, echoing faintly in my mind:
"Find the Eternal Truth of the world…"
But now, I wasn't sure if finding it would save the world—
or destroy it.
I didn't know what it meant—
the words, the creature, the title it had given me.
The Chosen One.
The sound lingered in my mind, heavy and foreign, echoing like a curse I could not understand.
I looked down at my trembling hands, the faint traces of blood still clinging to my skin.
"Am I… the one it spoke of?" I whispered into the emptiness.
But there was no answer—only the rustling of distant leaves, like laughter too quiet to be heard.
The truth was simple and cruel.
I knew nothing.
Nothing of this world. Nothing of my past. Nothing of why I lived while others lay rotting beneath the crimson sky.
Only a single fragment of identity clung to me, fragile yet defiant against the void:
My name.
Carten Ardnol.
That was all I had.
And so I began to walk—toward the only place left to go.
Toward the Fortress of Ascalin.
The forest deepened around me as I pressed forward.
Each step sank softly into the earth, swallowed by roots and shadow. The deeper I went, the quieter the world became. The wind vanished, the leaves stopped their murmuring. Even the strange creatures that once filled the sky were gone, as if the forest itself held its breath.
It should have comforted me.
No monsters. No sound. No danger.
And yet…
the silence felt wrong.
I stopped once to listen, but all I could hear was the faint rhythm of my own heartbeat.
The deeper I went, the more that sound began to feel borrowed—like it didn't belong to me.
A chill crept down my spine.
I tightened my cloak, clinging to the map I'd taken, its edges torn and damp with blood.
And then, as I pushed through a final wall of thick vines, I saw it.
The forest ended abruptly, opening into a vast, desolate clearing.
And there—beneath the unmoving crimson moon—stood the Fortress of Ascalin.
It was not what I expected.
Not a fortress of stone and banners, but a monument of ruin and silence.
Its towers, once grand, now stood fractured—half-swallowed by creeping vines and black mist that curled like smoke against the walls.
The gates had long since fallen, their iron twisted and half-buried in the earth.
A thousand cracks ran through the black stone, glowing faintly red beneath the moonlight, as if the fortress itself still bled.
It looked less like a fortress and more like a temple built for forgotten gods—massive, ancient, and broken. The air around it was heavy, thick with something that felt almost sacred, yet wrong.
I lifted my gaze to the sky.
The stars were gone—swallowed by darkness. Only the crimson moon remained, suspended motionless above the fortress, its light burning like an open wound across the heavens.
A cold wind passed through the ruins, carrying whispers I couldn't understand.
And though I had never been here before, a strange feeling stirred in me—
not fear, not wonder, but something quieter.
Familiarity.
It was as if I had stood here once, long ago, before I had a name, before I had a life.
And now, I had returned.