The forest went silent.
Not quiet—silent.
No wind.No leaves.No birds.Even the river in the distance seemed to stop flowing.
Every sound in the world recoiled from Rafe as the third layer inside him cracked fully awake.
Lyn staggered back, eyes wide with terror.
"R… Rafe…?"
Mara lay unconscious.Selene was paralyzed.The Seer stood frozen, staring at Rafe as if she were witnessing something she had only seen in nightmares.
Rafe wasn't glowing.
He wasn't radiating power.
He wasn't surrounded by flames or shadows.
What came out of him was worse.
Stillness.
A stillness so unnatural it warped the air around him.A stillness that felt like gravity remembering something older than time.A stillness that didn't belong to a human body.
The Traceborn reacted first.
Its mask flickered violently as it recalculated, retreating another step even though it was designed to never retreat.
Symbols scrolled across its face faster than the eye could follow.
"Unknown resonance.Data corruption.Protocol override required."
Its voice cracked mid-sentence.
Rafe lifted his head slowly.
Too slowly.
His movements didn't look like they belonged to a child.Or a person.Or anything alive.
His eyes glowed faintly—Not light.Not shadow.A muted blue, as if reflecting a sky no one else could see.
The whisper echoed again.
"Let me out."
Rafe's lips did not move.
But the Traceborn heard it.
Selene did too.
Her eyes widened with horror.
"No… no, Rafe, don't listen—!"
Rafe blinked.
Once.
And the forest bent around him.
The Traceborn jolted backward, its mask distorting as if its sensors were being crushed.
"Spatial disturbance detected.Stability compromised."
The Seer whispered, voice trembling:
"He's… slipping."
Lyn cried out and ran to him—Only to be thrown back by an invisible force, a soft barrier that pushed her away gently but firmly.
"Rafe! RAFE!"
She hit the ground and scrambled up again.
But the barrier stayed.
Rafe wasn't controlling it.
Rafe wasn't doing anything.
He wasn't breathing.He wasn't blinking.He wasn't present.
Something else stood in his place.
The Traceborn steadied itself and switched modes.
Its blank mask shifted into a series of red lines.
Lethal mode.
Not capture.
Eliminate.
Selene gasped.
"No— you can't— he's only a child—!"
The Traceborn lifted its arm. A spiral of condensed blue energy formed at its hand.
"Primary threat detected.Neutralization authorized."
It fired.
The beam should have vaporized Rafe.
Instead—
It stopped a meter away from him.
Frozen mid-air.
A perfect sphere of blue energy hung motionless, humming helplessly against an unseen pressure.
The Traceborn recalculated in a panic.
This wasn't magic.
This wasn't defense.
This was something the machine had never been programmed to understand:
A conceptual rejection.
The world simply didn't allow the beam to touch Rafe.
The Traceborn tried again, firing rapid bursts.
Each one froze.
Hung.Faltered.Died.
Rafe slowly lifted his hand.
Not like a fighter.
Not like a mage.
Like a puppeteer testing a string.
The Traceborn trembled.
Yes—trembled.
Its voice glitched, high-pitched and broken.
"Error. Error. ERROR.Subject classification… invalid.Threat rating… catastrophic."
Rafe's head tilted slightly.
The stillness deepened.
The Seer whispered, barely audible:
"That's not a Primordial.That's… something else."
Selene's breath caught.
"What… what is he…?"
The third layer inside Rafe pressed harder.
The whisper grew clearer.
"Let me show you what you are."
Rafe's fingers curled.
The frozen beams in front of him vibrated—
Then reversed direction.
Straight back at the Traceborn.
The machine threw up a shield, but the reversed beams weren't energy anymore.
They were something denser.Heavier.A concept sharpened into a weapon.
They ripped through the Traceborn's barrier—
And through its arm.
Metal and synthetic muscle burst into shards.
The Traceborn staggered for the first time in its existence.
Its mask flickered wildly.
"Catastrophic threat confirmed.Full retreat protocol—"
It didn't finish.
Rafe stepped forward.
No sound.No breath.
Just inevitability.
The machine scanned frantically.
"STOP."
It wasn't a command.
It was a plea.
Rafe lifted his hand again.
The world bent.
The Traceborn's mask cracked.
Just a hairline fissure—But enough to make the machine scream in static.
Selene shouted:
"RAFE! THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Lyn sobbed into her hands.
"Please stop, please stop—!"
Mara, barely conscious, whispered:
"Kid… don't… lose yourself…"
For a split second, the whisper inside him faltered.
The third layer hesitated.
Recognition.Attachment.Restraint.
A rare weakness.
Rafe's hand trembled.
The stillness around him shook.
The Traceborn seized the moment and launched its escape routine, its body collapsing into fragments of light that shot into the forest canopy.
It fled.
Rafe exhaled a sound that wasn't quite human—
Then collapsed.
The stillness shattered.
The forest breathed again.
His body hit the ground.
Lyn screamed and ran to him.
Mara dragged herself forward despite the pain.
Selene dropped to her knees beside him, hands glowing with diagnostic spell light.
The Seer stared in pure disbelief.
"He wasn't supposed to do that," she whispered."No human should be able to do that.No Primordial either."
Selene pressed her hand to Rafe's chest.
His heartbeat was faint.Erratic.Struggling.
Lyn grabbed his shirt, sobbing.
"Rafe, please… wake up…"
Selene looked up slowly.
And said the words no one wanted to hear:
"He's fading."
Lyn froze.
Mara's face twisted in panic.
Even the Seer looked shaken.
"Fading…?" Mara whispered. "What does that mean?"
Selene's hands trembled.
"It means… if we don't anchor his soul right now—we're going to lose him."