They weren't moving.
Just standing there—silent, faceless, patient.
The mist hung thicker now, almost solid around their figures. Shapes of men, but not quite. No detail. No breath. Just outlines cut from shadow and fog.
I tightened my stance.
Still, they waited.
"What are they?" Eleanor whispered beside me, her voice barely audible.
"Wrong," Calixtus said. That was all he could manage.
The one I'd struck—its head now reformed, body unnaturally straightened—took a step forward. It didn't seem to care about damage. It didn't even seem to recognize pain.
Its motion was jerky. As if the limbs weren't connected right. Too loose at the shoulders. Too tight at the knees. The thing's arms swung out to the sides, fingers twitching with no rhythm, like it was relearning movement with each step.
Then it stopped again.
Watching.
They all were.
I could feel it now—something beneath the surface. Like a weight in the soil, humming just out of reach. Not threatening. Not hostile. Just… studying.
They wanted us to react.
Behind me, Thalia spoke, soft and steady.
"Three more just emerged on the left. And they're forming a crescent."
I didn't turn to look. "How many total?"
"Nine," she said. "No—ten."
"They're boxing us in," Eleanor added, her voice strained but composed.
I shifted my eyes to the trees. No sound. No birds. The forest was holding its breath.
"Kaelen," Thalia said again, this time more quietly. "If they move, we may not have time to scatter."
"They're not moving," I said.
"Yet."
The one ahead of me took another step.
Then another.
And then it began to run.
No form. No technique. Just raw, directionless acceleration—limbs flailing as it tore across the mossy ground toward us, faster than it had any right to be.
I met it halfway.
No hesitation.
Perfect Flow surged through me—mana sharpening muscle, slowing time. I sidestepped the erratic strike, pivoted, and brought my elbow into its side.
A crack—something breaking.
It stumbled. Buckled. I followed up with a kick to its knee, then pivoted into a blow to the back of the head.
The thing collapsed. For a second.
Then it spasmed—and stood again.
Not fast. Not slow.
It simply returned to standing.
Like pain didn't register.
Like nothing had happened at all.
Thalia cursed behind me. "Okay. What in the hell are we fighting?"
"I don't think we are," I murmured.
Eleanor looked at me sharply. "What do you mean?"
"They're not retaliating."
I turned slightly—enough to see them. Still watching. Still waiting.
"They're testing something."
We stood in silence for a moment, breathing through the weight of the forest.
And then, in perfect sync—
They bowed.
Not deep. Just enough to make it deliberate.
Their torsos dipped forward, arms still loose at their sides. The kind of bow given at the end of a performance—or before the opening of a hunt.
No sound accompanied the movement. No words.
Then, just as one—
They turned.
And disappeared into the trees.
All ten. Gone. Not fading, not vanishing. They just… walked away.
Thalia exhaled first. "That's not good."
Calixtus was already scanning the trees again. "We're not alone here."
"No," I said, voice low.
"And whatever's in here doesn't mind showing us that."
Eleanor knelt, touching her bleeding palm. Her fingers trembled—just slightly.
The first to tremble.
And the first day wasn't even over.
Whatever those things were, they weren't in the databooks.
Either The Institution was hiding something...
Or this was something else entirely.
They'd said the Veiled Forest evolved.
But this… this was different.
I turned one last time toward the trees.They were gone.
No sound. No trace. The mist swallowed everything behind them.
We all stood there, tense, quiet—waiting for something to change. But nothing did.
It seemed I had to take charge if we wanted to survive the day.
"We should go after them."
Calixtus turned sharply. "Did you already go insane?"
His voice wasn't mocking. It was edged with real concern.
"Go after them? Kaelen, whatever those creatures were—I'm not sure we could beat them."
I firmly said "They weren't trying to kill us."
"They attacked you," Eleanor said. "That thing ran at you."
"It did," I admitted. "But it didn't strike when it had the chance. It stood back up… then bowed."
Thalia crossed her arms, staring at the space where the figures had vanished. "So what, we follow them? Just like that?"
I glanced at the trees, the endless mist, the ground beneath us—unchanged. Familiar.
"We've already walked for hours," I said. "Same trees. Same roots. Same air. We were being pulled in a loop. There's no path away from this."
Thalia's eyes narrowed slightly. "You think it's herding us."
"No," I said. "It's inviting us."
Calixtus exhaled sharply. "That's somehow worse."
I nodded. "Whatever caused this—whatever made them—wants us to come to it. And if it wanted us dead, we wouldn't be standing here."
A silence followed. Heavy.
"We can turn around," Eleanor said. But there was no real conviction in her voice. She already knew the answer.
I pointed into the trees. "That direction. That's where they went."
"And if we go," Thalia said slowly, "we're walking into something that's been waiting."
I met her gaze. "Yes. But waiting doesn't mean welcoming."
She held the stare for another breath.
Then nodded once.
Calixtus grunted. "If we die, I'll haunt you."
"Fair." I said.
We stepped into the mist again.
———
I wondered a couple of things.
How did it cut Eleanor,
And why her?
Did it sense that she was the weakest link, not physically, but mentally?
There are a few theories. None of them would help their mental state, so I kept them to myself.
As we were walking, the scenery began to change.
It was like we were not in The Veiled Forest anymore.
Thalia asked "What even is this place?"
I didn't answer Thalia.
Because I didn't know.
The trees were thinning. Not in number, but in definition. Their bark no longer resembled wood. It looked smoothed out, blackened—like stone left to cool after fire. Veins of dim violet light traced their surfaces, pulsing with an unnatural rhythm, like breath drawn through hollow lungs.
Eleanor's steps had slowed.
Not from fear—something else. A disorientation. I could see her eyes adjusting and readjusting, as if the shapes around us refused to stay still.
Even the air was different. No longer heavy with mist, but charged. Like the moments before a storm—but the sky above hadn't changed. Still hidden. Still cloaked in that perpetual green twilight.
Calixtus murmured, "This isn't the forest. It's… something else."
He was right.
The terrain beneath our boots had changed texture. The moss gave way to obsidian-like plating. Smooth, seamless, humming faintly beneath our feet.
We stepped into a narrow passage—chambered by spires of that same black stone. Their surfaces carved, not randomly, but with precision. Lines spiraled and split into glyphs I didn't recognize. Not Varean. Not any known script.
"Runes?" Thalia asked, stopping beside one of the pillars. "No… older."
She reached out to touch one. I stopped her.
"No."
She glanced at me, confused—but something in my tone made her withdraw her hand.
Good. I didn't want to test what counted as sacrilege here.
I commanded, "Thalia listen to the frequency, if any, that is present here."
"Okay..."
Thalia narrowed her eyes, angling her head slightly, like she was listening through the stone.
Her fingers hovered near the pillar, not touching—just sensing. A frown crept across her face.
"It's the same pitch," she said quietly. "Sub-harmonic. Very low. Like it's buried in the bones of the place."
Calixtus ran a hand through his hair, his expression grim. "So it wasn't a creature we sensed earlier."
"No," I replied. "It was this."
Not just the chamber. Not just the runes or the trees or the mist.
All of it.
Eleanor stepped closer to me. "Then what is it?"
I looked at the dark walls.
"No idea. There was nothing about this in the data plate." I answered
"I did not want to cause panic before, but we are not in Thalorica anymore."
Everyone had horror on their face.
Eleanor froze. "What do you mean… not in Thalorica?"
Calixtus turned sharply. "That's not possible."
I didn't answer immediately. I let the silence settle. Let them feel it.
The air here was different. Heavier. Not just in pressure—but in structure. Like every breath was being filtered through something ancient and unseen.
"The mana density," I said. "It's too concentrated. It wraps, not flows. The echoes in the stone, the mist… all of it. This place doesn't operate under our continent's natural laws."
"But—" Thalia began.
"You've felt it too," I cut in. "Don't pretend you haven't."
She stopped. Didn't argue.
Because she had. We all had.
This place—wherever it was—had been watching us from the moment we landed. Letting us think we were still in control.
I exhaled slowly.
"This isn't just an isolated zone of the Veiled Forest."
"It's another layer," I said.
"Another world stitched beneath ours."
After a moment, I said.
"Calixtus, try going through the wall."
"Very well..."
He phased through it, only with his head in order to see what was on the other side.
Calixtus returned, the mist curling off his shoulders like steam.
"Void," he said again, quieter this time. "Nothing. Not blackness. Not shadow. Just... absence. Like there was no space at all."
Eleanor's eyes narrowed. "That's not possible. Even spatial compression leaves distortion. You should've felt pressure."
"I didn't," he said. "I felt… I'm not sure entirely"
A silence fell between us.
No one moved.
I turned to face the chamber's center again. Something was coming—felt, not heard. The stone beneath us vibrated, not with sound, but with meaning. Like it was remembering something ancient.
"Thalia," I said, "how far does the resonance go?"
She closed her eyes. Listened.
"…Everywhere," she whispered. "It's not being broadcast—it's being grown. This entire place is the source."
"Or a seed," I said.
That word landed harder than expected.
Calixtus muttered, "You think this place is alive?"
"I think it's made to become something. Or birth something."
And it wasn't just the forest that wanted us here. This space—this pocket—was curated. Shaped. Like a hand had plucked us out of the world and placed us into something waiting to be observed.
Before anyone could respond, the runes across the pillars flickered.
A slow pulse. Then another.
The lines of light began to animate—tracing inward, toward a central circular depression in the floor. Like veins carrying mana toward a waiting heart.
I stepped forward instinctively.
A presence met me.
Not visually. Not through sound.
But through something deeper. Something felt behind the bones, behind memory. As if someone had reached into my life and flipped through the pages.
And then I heard it. Not aloud. Not with ears.
You came.
One voice. Many mouths.
Thalia inhaled sharply. "Did you—"
"Yes," I said.
We all heard it.
The voice—if it could be called that—wasn't speaking words so much as wrapping intention around thought.
Eleanor staggered slightly, hand to her temple.
"Where is it coming from?" she whispered.
"It's not from," Thalia murmured. "It's within."
I didn't understand what this was.
But I had a name on my tongue.
I didn't know how I knew it.
Faceless Sovereign.
The air bent as I thought it. Like the sound itself had weight.
Calixtus hissed between his teeth. "Don't say that name."
"I didn't," I said.
His eyes widened. "Then how did I hear it?"
Thalia turned slowly toward me. "It's watching us again."
"No," I said.
"It never stopped."
From the central depression in the floor, a shape began to rise—not a figure, not a person. Just a ripple of light, vertical, tall, and flickering. A silhouette that refused to resolve.
A humanoid distortion. Featureless. Shifting.
Not physical. But present. Like a memory given form.
The Sovereign did not step forward.
It didn't need to. Its voice did.
You are here because I allowed it. You remain because I require it.
"Require what?" Eleanor asked aloud, trembling.
The shape pulsed once.
Witness.
We stood still—helpless, unwilling spectators.
Then the stone floor beneath the shape shimmered.
A vision appeared. But not like an illusion or projection.
More like a window. A fracture in reality.
And through it—we saw something else entirely.
Not the Veiled Forest.
Not Thalorica.
But something buried. Layered beneath.
Cities floating in fractured gravity. Skies torn and stitched with glowing rivers of energy. Creatures vast and blind, crawling across ruins that spanned continents.
It was not a dream.
In our heads, it resonated
"Nadirum."
And this was only the doorway.
One moment, we were surrounded by black stone and veins of violet—sigils pulsing like breath. And then—The sound bent. A low frequency snapped inward like a closing lung, and the world folded.
I blinked.
The mist was back. Green. Wet. Familiar.
The trees rose around us like before, their roots twisted through the moss, bioluminescence humming low and steady.
The Veiled Forest.
The real one.
Or… the one we'd left.
I turned to the others. Thalia's eyes were wide. Eleanor had dropped into a crouch without realizing it. Calixtus was frozen, hand outstretched mid-step.
We'd been placed back.
Like pieces returned to the board.
The distant sound of a horn echoed through the trees—Instructor Justinian's signal. Clear, crisp.
The exam was starting.
As if nothing had happened.
But we remembered.
Every breath in the pocket dimension. The runes. The Faceless. The Sovereign's presence. The cut on Eleanor's hand had sealed, but the scar remained.
"I remember," Thalia whispered. "Every moment."
"I do too," Eleanor said softly.
Calixtus didn't speak. His expression was unreadable.
I glanced down at my hand. Dirt from the obsidian chamber still clung to my fingers.
No illusion.
No dream.
"We were taken," I said quietly.
"And now we're back."
The trees swayed above us, calm. As if none of it had ever occurred.
But the Sovereign had sent us a message.
And deep within me, I knew—he'd left something behind.
In all of us.