We landed hard.
The fissure I had torn through space had spat us out somewhere in the wilderness—far from the Academy, far from its reach.
The sky above was streaked with gray clouds, and the sun hung low on the horizon like a tired eye. Around us, the forest stretched in every direction, vast and ancient, trees twisted by time and untouched by civilization.
I groaned and pushed myself to my feet. My body ached, and my Mark pulsed faintly beneath my skin like cooling embers. Nearby, Kieran was already upright, scanning the surroundings with sharp, calculating eyes.
Darian climbed to his feet with a grunt. "Well… that was dramatic."
Elara coughed, brushing dirt from her cloak. "Sylas, remind me next time to land somewhere that isn't a cliffside or cursed ruin."
"Sorry," I muttered, steadying my breath. "Didn't exactly have time to pick coordinates."
Kieran turned to face me. "You opened a gate through space. Unstable and raw—but effective."
He paused.
"And very, very loud."
The Bounty
We traveled west, deeper into the forest, staying off known roads and avoiding mana signatures. By the second day, we passed a remote outpost—just close enough to hear the news from passing travelers.
"They're calling him the Marked Heretic," one voice said over a tavern fire.
"A bounty on all of them," another whispered. "Five thousand gold marks for Sylas. Two thousand for the others."
"Dead or alive?"
A silence. Then—"Preferably alive. The Council wants answers."
I sat in the shadows beneath a pine tree, the hood of my cloak drawn low. Kieran stood beside me, still and silent. Elara and Darian stayed behind in the woods to keep watch.
"They've officially made you a threat," Kieran murmured.
"I didn't expect anything less."
He looked at me. "They fear the Mark."
"They should."
Because even I didn't know what it was fully capable of yet.
Campfire Conversations
That night, we made camp near a riverbend. Elara started the fire with a controlled mana spark, and Darian hunted down a pair of wild pheasants with frightening ease.
We didn't talk about the Academy.
Or the Council.
Or the way the crowd had looked at me when the Mark flared.
Instead, we talked about the stars.
"See that one?" Elara pointed with a stick. "That's Raelith's Veil. Old sailors used to believe it was a goddess's wedding dress floating through space."
Darian snorted. "Romantic nonsense. It's just a cluster of flame-twined dust."
"You're a flame-twined dust," Elara shot back.
Kieran chuckled quietly, but his gaze never left the treeline.
I appreciated the silence.
For a while.
Then Darian finally asked what we were all thinking.
"So what now?"
I looked at the fire. At the flickers of orange that reminded me of the surge I'd unleashed in the Council hall.
"We can't go back. The Council will hunt us to the ends of the world."
"That's not what I meant," Darian said. "I mean… what's the endgame?"
I met his gaze. "We find out what the Mark is. What it wants. And how to stop what's coming."
"Which is?"
I took a slow breath.
"The return of the Forsaken. The rise of the Harbinger. And something worse that even they're afraid of."
Kieran nodded grimly. "And if we don't?"
"Then the world burns."
First Contact
The next morning, we were ambushed.
Not by beasts.
Not by bounty hunters.
But by a messenger from the forgotten continent.
It happened just after dawn. I was collecting water when I saw her—a woman standing on the surface of the river. No ripples, no splash, just… standing there.
Her outfit was unlike anything I'd seen before. A mixture of cloth and metal, gears embedded in her shoulder pauldron, lenses rotating across her left eye like a targeting device.
"Name?" she asked.
"Sylas," I replied, hand slowly drifting to my dagger.
"Marked?"
I hesitated.
She held up a metal tablet, pressed something on its surface, and a projection of my face appeared in red light above it. Wanted posters, translated into symbols I didn't recognize.
"You are."
She didn't draw a weapon.
Instead, she bowed.
I blinked. "What are you doing?"
"My name is Cira Volen. Agent of the Ouro Division, Forgotten Continent. I've been tracking the Mark for three months."
I narrowed my eyes. "And you found me."
"Yes. Because you activated the Beacon."
She pointed to the sky.
I looked up.
The stars were shifting.
Not visibly. Not fast.
But something in the night sky was no longer where it should have been.
"The Harbinger has begun to stir," Cira said. "You bear the Mark of the one who either ends him… or replaces him."
Ouro Division
Around the fire that night, Cira explained everything.
Or at least, everything she was allowed to.
The Forgotten Continent wasn't just hiding. They were watching. Preparing.
For centuries, they had known of the Forsaken—beings once worshipped as gods, now sealed behind reality by relics of unspeakable power.
But the seals were weakening.
And so, they created the Ouro Division—a task force of seers, relic-hunters, and combat scholars trained to monitor Pathway Convergences across both continents.
"You're not the first to bear the Mark," Cira told me. "But you are the first in this age to survive it."
Elara folded her arms. "Why show yourself now?"
"Because the Beacon was never meant to be triggered without guidance. Without it, the Mark will consume him."
Darian tilted his head. "Consume?"
Cira nodded. "The Mark awakens potential. Memories. Paths. But each one pulls you closer to a fate not entirely your own. Left unchecked, it will remake you in its image."
"So what do we do?" I asked.
Cira looked at me seriously.
"You train. You unlock what's inside you—but carefully. And when the time comes, you choose what kind of god you want to become."
A New Path Begins
We moved west after that, deeper into untamed land—toward a relay station Cira claimed would lead us to an outpost of the Ouro Division. Along the way, she taught me techniques for controlling the Mark's flow.
Not suppressing it.
Listening to it.
We discovered that the Mark responded not just to thought, but to choice. Intent shaped its form. Emotion shaped its strength.
I unlocked a new ability: Temporal Dissonance—a field that could slow the perception of time around me for brief windows, allowing me to react to movements before they occurred.
It wasn't magic.
It was the warping of reality through Divin Force, funneled by the Mark's resonance.
Cira watched closely. "You're advancing faster than anyone we've seen."
"That's not always good," I replied.
"No," she agreed. "But it means the Harbinger will notice."
And he did.