It was the second day in the Forest of Ordeals—roughly around the third hour past noon—yet my mind felt hazy, like I'd been drifting through a thick fog, even though the mist itself hadn't returned. A strange tension clung to the air, subtle but growing, like pressure building before a storm.
We hadn't seen anything. Not a single beast, monster, ghost, or whatever else we were warned about. And that? That was what made it worse.
Something felt wrong.
I looked at Bruce. He seemed...off. His breathing was uneven, and every now and then he turned his head like someone was whispering in his ear. Mark had been uncharacteristically quiet, his hand clenched around his staff like he expected it to vanish. Isaiah had that faraway look again—calculating, focused—but even he kept glancing at shadows that weren't moving.
Only Vulpis, perched calmly on my shoulder, remained silent. No jokes. No commentary. Just a low, steady hum of awareness through our bond.
We stopped by a twisted oak to catch our breath. No one said a word.
Then Bruce flinched.
"Did you hear that?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly.
"What?" I replied. "I didn't hear anything."
But Mark nodded. "It was a voice. Sounded like—my mother?"
Isaiah turned to us, his voice low and uncertain. "There's no way she's here. None of this makes sense."
I looked around. The trees were too still. The shadows were longer than they should be. The thauma in the air felt—distorted. Bent.
And that's when I realized. This wasn't silence. It was suppression. Something was dulling our senses, not just physically, but spiritually. Something was whispering into our fears and weaving them into our surroundings.
Illusions.
Powerful ones. Ones designed to feed off your doubts.
And yet—I could still feel a thread of clarity. Faint, but present. Like a path no one else could see, a pattern of paradox gently resisting the pull. The Fool's Pathway wasn't immune, not at Verse IX, but it offered a whisper of resistance where others drowned.
I didn't say anything.
Not yet. If this was part of the trial… then it had purpose. Something designed to reveal us to ourselves.
And the worst part?
None of the others even realized they were falling into it.
We pressed on through the forest, each step heavier than the last. The fog wasn't outside us—it was within.
And it was only going to get worse.
As we pushed deeper into the Forest of Ordeals, the pressure grew unbearable. The illusions—whatever they were—had intensified. They gnawed at our minds like whispers we couldn't swat away. My head throbbed with phantom thoughts, and my breath came slower, heavier. A fog hung over our senses, thick and crawling.
It was dusk now. Shadows stretched like talons across the forest floor.
Above, the sky of Eclipsara unfurled into its rarest, most haunting beauty.
Three moons had risen—aligned in perfect harmony.
At the center loomed Ha'aba, the largest, glowing with a divine, tranquil white light. It bathed the canopy in a pale luminescence that made everything feel momentarily sacred.
To its left hovered Havan, smaller, its surface awash in a mysterious sapphire-blue glow. It pulsed with a kind of secret—like it knew something the rest of the world had forgotten.
And to the right, slightly larger than Havan but veiled in cold gray, was Roch Hakodsh. It felt out of place—somber, aloof—like a ghost among gods.
They only emerged together like this once every twelve days, a phenomenon spoken of in myth as The Triune Gaze. Some believed it was a sign of favor. Others, a test.
And tonight, it felt like the latter.
As I turned my head slightly, something flickered at the edge of my vision—a blur, darting past a crooked tree trunk.
I froze.
"Did anyone else see that?" I whispered.
No answer.
Only the sound of wind rustling dead leaves, and the ever-present hum of Thauma in the air, warped and waiting.
Something was coming. And none of us knew yet if it was real… or just the forest playing with our minds.
We pressed on through the forest, tension thick in the air.
Then—we saw it.
A hulking, malformed beast emerged from the gray fog, its body stitched from living shadow and coiling mist. Its eyes burned like dying coals, and thick drool dripped from its jagged maw, sizzling against the ground wherever it landed.
It didn't growl.
It existed, and the forest responded in silence.
We all exchanged a single, wide-eyed look.
Then—
"RUN!" we shouted in unison.
The beast let out a distorted shriek and lunged forward.
Branches tore past as we sprinted through the underbrush, leaping over roots and ducking under limbs. I dove beneath a fallen tree, rolling through the dirt and catching my breath just long enough to keep moving.
Mark hurled himself over a shallow river that suddenly cut across his path, landing on the other side with a splash and a grunt.
Isaiah zig-zagged like a madman, shouting, "They say crocodiles can't follow you if you run in curves!"
"It's not a crocodile!" I barked mid-sprint.
"DOESN'T MATTER!"
And Bruce… Bruce was swinging off tree branches like some kind of jungle spirit.
"Was this guy a monkey in his past life?!" I muttered as I dashed, catching a glimpse of him flipping midair with surprising grace.
The beast was still after us—fast, relentless, howling through the fog like a living nightmare. And deep down… a part of me wondered if it was even real.
But that didn't stop us from running like our lives depended on it.
Because maybe they did.
"Okay—strategy. We need a strategy," I gasped, dodging low-hanging branches as we ran. My mind spun in every direction, overloaded by panic and the roar of the beast behind us. "Shit…"
"What we need is a distraction," Isaiah said between breaths, trying to sound calm but clearly just as shaken.
"Got anything in mind, genius?" Mark snapped, panting hard. His sarcasm was strained—he was pushing himself to his limit.
"I—I can't lure it any longer!" Bruce wheezed. Sweat rolled down his brow, his palms raw and bleeding. "It's faster than me!"
"We need to use what we've learned this past week at Arcanum," I said, forcing calm into my voice. "Everything. We can't let that training go to waste."
A moment of silence. Then:
"Right," they all answered, in sync.
"Okay… I think I've got something."
We huddled behind a thick ridge of fog-veiled trees for a heartbeat.
"Mark," I said, locking eyes with him. "You're the fastest. This whole plan depends on whether you can keep moving and sense the Thauma line for the cardinal point at the same time. Can you do that?"
He grimaced, then gave a sharp nod. "I can do it."
"Good. Isaiah—you keep zigzagging like before. But now, use Silver too. Have her fly high and dive in to distract it. She's fast and light—it won't be able to track both of you easily."
"Got it," Isaiah replied, calling Silver to circle overhead.
"Bruce, you're with me," I continued. "You take cover just behind the slope to the right. When I give the signal, you hit that thing with everything you've got—a focused Photon Lance. Like the one Professor Nevaris drilled into us four days ago."
"Right," Bruce said, nodding with fierce determination. "One clean hit."
"And me?" Mark asked, breath still shaky.
"You keep going," I said quietly. "No matter what happens to the rest of us, you have to finish this. Find the cardinal point. Make it back."
"What?" he turned, eyes widening. "Are you serious? I'm not leaving you guys behind!"
"You think I want that?" I snapped—but not in anger. In urgency. "We don't have a choice. If one of us makes it out, we all have a shot. If none of us do…"
Mark's mouth opened, then closed. He gave a single nod, the kind that comes with heavy, reluctant trust.
"I'll buy Bruce the time. That thing's weak to radiant Thauma—it's probably bound to the Umbralis Realm," I said, turning toward the mist. "If the Photon Lance connects, it'll destabilize its body and force it back into the shadows."
"Then we win," Bruce whispered, gripping his focus crystal.
"No," I corrected. "Then we survive. For now."
Our eyes met once more. Then I stepped out of cover.
The shadow-beast was already searching, its massive snout swaying left and right in the thickening fog. A growl like cracking stone echoed across the trees.
"Now," I whispered.
The plan was in motion.
And either it would be enough…
Or we'd all become echoes in the Forest of Ordeals.