The late evening sun cast golden rays across the herb field as Uri walked swiftly toward Mclery, her long robe brushing the fragrant leaves below. The young boy sat on the ground, knees curled to his chest, staring blankly at a spot where shadows had long faded. Something had changed in him—Uri could feel it the moment she sensed that maniac mana earlier.
She gently crouched beside him, her voice firm yet kind.
"Mclery," she said, placing a steady hand on his shoulder. "What did Raven say to you?"
By the touch of Uri the vines that stragglers Mclery leg disappear.
Mclery's voice trembled. "He… he asked me to go with him. Said he could give me power—real power. The kind that would make people stop calling me just a herb boy."
Uri's jaw tightened. Her fingers unconsciously curled into the fabric of her robe.
"If he ever appears again," she said, her voice sharper now, "you must tell the Aushadhi clan elders immediately. Don't try to handle him on your own. Promise me that."
Mclery nodded slowly, still shaken. But the questions swirling in his mind refused to be silenced.
"Who is he, Uri?" he asked. "Why do you call him a traitor of the Aushadhi clan?"
Uri's expression grew distant, and a storm of old memories danced in her eyes. She slowly stood up, looking into the horizon as if she could still see the day her world began to crumble.
"Raven," she began, "was once the most powerful mage in the Aushadhi clan. Our greatest healer. But he… he wasn't satisfied with the sacred power of our clan. He wanted more. He believed that the Aushadhi arts—rooted in healing, balance, and peace—were a waste of potential."
Mclery listened in stunned silence.
"No one knew the darkness he was exploring in secret," Uri continued, voice lower now. "Until one day… he summoned the council. He claimed he had discovered a revolutionary path to increase magical strength. We were curious. Curious… and unprepared."
She took a breath, then turned to McLery, her eyes intense.
"He proposed something called the *Bloodline magic*—a taboo to merge mage abilities using genetic manipulation and intergreting Beast bloodline. He showed us his results. But not just on paper."
Uri paused, her hands trembling slightly.
"He had already killed seven Beast Clan mages. Used them as test subjects. And he didn't stop there—he asked us to form a hunt team. Said he needed fifty more mages from the Beast Clan. He promised that if we gave him this… he would share 'merger power' with us. Power beyond rank or clan boundaries."
Mclery's heart pounded. "And… did anyone agree?"
"No," Uri said. "I refused. I stood before him and said the Aushadhi would never become murderers. He… didn't take it well."
"What happened?"
"He challenged me to a Leader Battle. The clan thought I would win. I was seventh-ranked. He was only fifth. But in that battle… he showed us the strength he had stolen. Strength that came not from training, but from the blood of others."
Mclery's voice was small. "Did you lose?"
"I fought with everything I had but due to his physique of Beast he beacame strong And I won. Barely, because this beastly transformation have side effect of losing mind, like a wild beast." Uri said. "But when our Peace Guards came to arrest him… he vanished. Disappeared into thin air. Vanished before our eyes like mist."Uri said, her gaze distant with the weight of memory.
"We searched for him for days. Traced every mana trail, scanned every ridge of the belt. But Raven had truly vanished. Some believed the battle had left him too wounded to survive. Others… that he had simply run away into the shadows."
She walked a few paces forward, fists clenched at her sides.
"And I will never forget how he looked that day."
Mclery looked up, curious.
"Raven was tall," she said, voice now cold and clinical, "with skin pale like frost, as though all the life had been drained from him by his own magic. His eyes, once deep green, had turned an unnatural violet—glowing with unstable mana. His long black hair was tied back, but stray strands danced wildly around his angular face as if stirred by unseen winds. And across his exposed forearms… were glowing red marks—sigils burned into his flesh from the experiments he performed on others… and on himself."
Mclery shivered at the image. He remembered now—those eyes. They had pierced through him like a predator's gaze.
Uri continued, her voice tightening. "Those markings, those eyes… they no longer belonged to a healer. They belonged to a creature twisted by power. That day, I saw a glimpse of the 'merger power' of a beast and a madman he kept boasting about… and even then, he had only achieved half of it," she said, a shadow crossing her face. "And yet, with just that incomplete form, he nearly defeated me. I can only imagine what he has become now, all these years later."
There was a long silence between them.
Finally, Uri stepped closer again. "Mclery, I'm warning you—if you see him again, do not talk to him. You must come straight to me or the elders."
Mclery looked up at her, confusion still in his voice. "But… why me? Why did he come to me?"
Uri hesitated. "That… even I don't know yet. But we must find out. It could be that you're mana-less. Without mana, your presence isn't registered on the belt's surveillance systems. Perhaps that's why he came to you."
"Or…" she said with a grim look, "perhaps there's something more. Something even I don't see yet."
Mclery shivered slightly. "What if he comes again?"
Uri placed both hands on his shoulders now. "Then you run. And you tell us. You're not alone in this."
As she stood and turned to walk back toward the village, the sky darkened slightly. Not from the setting sun—but from a shadow that lingered beyond the edges of safety, watching… waiting.
And Mclery realized, in that moment, that his life was no longer small. No longer simple.
He had become a piece in a game far larger than he understood. And the next move… was no longer his alone.