Journey Through a New World in Search for Strength
The Rift spat them out into a world unfamiliar — skies pale and streaked with veins of crimson, forests blackened but alive with whispering winds. The ground beneath their feet pulsed faintly, as if the world itself still breathed in its endless suffering.
They marched forward, battered and silent, until the forest gave way to jagged hills and, beyond them, a distant scatter of lights. A town.
Cautiously, they approached. Walls of weathered stone, gates creaking on rusted hinges. Guards eyed them warily but allowed passage — travelers were rare, but strength was welcome here. Inside, the streets twisted like scars, torches casting flickering shadows against buildings of rough timber and cracked slate. The air reeked of iron, sweat, and the faint sweetness of preserved herbs.
A hunter's town. A place where survivors carved out fleeting safety by trading blood for coin.
They stayed.
They became beast hunters.
Wooden boards were covered with desperate scrawls. Contracts inked in shaking hands: Rank 3 packs near the marshes. Rank 4 sightings on jagged cliffs. Rare crystals offered for higher risks — the kind that promised growth in power for those willing to pay in flesh and bone.
They split into teams, returning with fresh scars and dripping trophies. Coin weighed heavy in their pouches. The townsfolk began to nod as they passed. Respect, slow and quiet, grew around them like ivy climbing old stone.
The general rarely left the command hall, buried in maps and fragments of intelligence. He was already planning their eventual return home. But for the others, survival became routine — blood, contracts, exhaustion, and fleeting moments of warmth around a fire.
Solace and Lyra fought side by side at first, their coordination flawless. Shadows answered both their calls, twining between sword and spell. Jane led larger hunts with brutal efficiency. Cass's laughter returned between lightning strikes and close calls. Orion's magic sharpened; vines erupted from fractured stone, roots piercing thick hide, his healing mending what could not be avoided.
But then came Vaelen.
A veteran hunter. Silver hair, measured gaze, words few and wise. He taught Lyra subtleties in shadow manipulation — flicks of the wrist, delicate timing, techniques that made her strikes quicker and deadlier. She laughed more around him.
Solace noticed.
He said nothing. He vanished before campfires were lit, taking contracts others shunned. Rank 5 beasts fell beneath his katana, but victory felt hollow. His body ached. His chest ached more.
Lyra noticed the absence.
Her eyes searched for him when stories were shared and laughter echoed, but he was never there. She sparred harder. Her shadows became razors. Yet each night, she sat longer by the fire, waiting, until the flames turned to embers.
Weeks passed.
They rose in rank slowly, painfully. Rank 4 to Rank 5. The gap between them and death narrowed with each hunt. Rank 5 beasts were cunning — abominations of bone and hunger, their intelligence cruel. They stalked the night. They learned patterns. Each mission left them battered, potion flasks drained, spirits frayed.
Jane's tactics became ironclad. Cass's lightning strikes shattered stone. Orion's vines shielded them from death and healed them afterward, his magic now so refined it hummed like song in the aftermath of battle.
And Solace…
Solace hunted as if death was preferable to doubt. His katana became extension and instinct, shadows taking whatever shape he demanded — whip, spear, reaper's scythe. But jealousy gnawed, deeper than any wound.
He watched from the shadows as Lyra sparred with Vaelen, laughter in her breath, confidence in her steps. He turned away.
Then came the rumor.
A temple deep in the Wraithwood. Buried beneath centuries of rot and silence. Inside — relics older than memory. Power, waiting for those strong enough to claim it.
Their last hunt before going home.
The general approved the expedition but did not lead it. His eyes were fixed on the Rift's stability. So Jane took command. Solace, Lyra, Orion, Cass, Vaelen, and a handful of veteran hunters gathered beneath a waning moon, steel and magic ready.
The Wraithwood swallowed them whole.
Roots twisted like serpents. The air clung to skin, thick with whispers too faint to understand. The temple emerged from mist — stone cracked and half-consumed by the forest, glyphs pulsing weakly against its facade.
Orion deciphered the runes, his magic a gentle glow as ancient doors groaned open. Stale air rushed out, cold and heavy.
Inside, guardians stirred.
Twisted amalgamations of flesh, bone, rusted armor — creatures that had once been men, now cursed sentinels bound to protect silence. Rank 5.
The first clash was chaos.
Cass's lightning seared the dark, leaving afterimages burned into retinas. Orion's roots erupted, binding one guardian's limbs and snapping them like brittle twigs. Jane carved through another with merciless precision, every swing calculated.
Solace danced through the fray, his shadows slicing deep into rotted bone and blackened sinew. Two guardians fell beneath his blade.
Lyra fought at his side, her magic sharp and fluid. But when Vaelen shielded her from a crushing blow, something inside Solace cracked.
He surged forward, reckless. A guardian's claws raked his ribs, sending him sprawling, blood hot against cold stone.
Lyra's shadows lashed out, binding the beast's face, dragging it back. Her breath was sharp with panic.
"Don't be foolish," she whispered, eyes glistening.
He forced himself to his feet, pain burning bright.
The last guardian emerged. Rank 6. Bone and molten stone, a beast wreathed in flame and hatred.
It charged.
Jane's blade shattered armor plates. Cass's lightning burned deep, searing nerve and marrow. Orion's roots pierced flesh, holding the creature still for a moment that felt like eternity.
Solace stepped forward, katana gleaming black-violet in the gloom. He drove the blade into the creature's heart.
A roar, choked with fire and death. Then silence.
They stood in the aftermath, battered and trembling.
At the temple's heart lay treasures beyond greed — crystals pulsing with pure, undiluted power. They reached for them.
The crystals dissolved on contact, sinking into veins. Strength surged through Solace's body, weightless and crushing all at once. Rank 6. The threshold crossed.
They returned to town in silence. Word spread fast. Hunters whispered their names with reverence.
But the general sent word.
The path home was open.
Preparations began.
Their time in that strange world was ending.
And this hunt had been their last.
To be continued.