They moved at dawn.
Cyril, Miren, and ten other cultivator-slaves—each collared and muzzled. The Flow-seals at their necks setting the stakes, they were ready to detonate at Dren's command at any time. Cyril walked in silence, the three pulses he aligned still beat like drums beneath his skin.
They marched past the outer walls, beyond it was the wilds: untamed land distorted by Flow, and brimming with Spoil beasts.
That morning, Dren's voice rung through like law.
"The wild is filled with Spoil. Bring back what lives within… or don't return at all."
This wasn't just a little hunting game.
It was a crucible, like a king moving his pawns.
Miren walked beside him, quiet and sharp-eyed. Freshly equipped. Her cloak covering her completely, but when the wind made it flutter, Cyril could see the blades hidden underneath.
She didn't speak since they left.
She didn't have to.
He knew this was more than a hunt.
It was a test
***
The first strike came quick.
An Ember-Spoil pack—five razor-hounds with fiery spines and ember-lit eyes—erupted from a ridge.
One lunged at a younger slave
Cyril reacted instinctively. Flow surging from his sternum, kinetic and raw. It slammed the hound sideways, bones cracking against a boulder. The rest scattered, shrieking flame and smoke.
Miren spun mid-stride, ducking a hounds jaw, and slittting a throat in one smooth motion. Her blade hummed—Cyril caught the glimmer dancing behind it, trailing like afterimages.
Seconds. That's all it took.
The senior cultivators began harvesting cores—small and flickering, barely worth the effort.
"Ember-spoil. Weak," one muttered, flicking blood from his knife.
"If these scare you, go dig your grave now."
The younger slave grimaced at his words.
Cyril just stared into the horizon.
Taking in the scenery of the new world he'd grow to call home.
***
Later, the terrain gave way to shattered rock. The sun down. That's when the Brand-Spoil came.
A vulture descended without warning—its wings were like stone, feathers like daggers. Sigils pulsed along its beak. Its cry so loud that it slightly altered the Flow in the area.
One cultivator was crushed. Another immolated, screaming as a torrent of molten sand swallowed him whole.
Cyril tracked its movements. Not wild. Patterned. Flow coiled and struck in loops. The Vulture was learning as it attacked.
He baited a dive. Miren blinded it mid-air with a flash of Flow—sending its own cry back at it, stunning the beast just long enough for Cyril to release another shockwave, redirecting it into the sky.
It crashed to the ground in a heap of fire and stone. Its heart still throbbing when they carved it out.
A Brand-core.
Dense.
Useful.
Dangerous.
But Miren wasn't looking at the core.
She was looking ahead.
***
On the third day, they reached a canyon.
Shard-Spoil territory.
The air shifted, it was tight now. Flow wasn't moving like water anymore—it twisted, splintered. A dead woman's corpse hung from the canyon wall, arms outstretched like art. No wounds. No blood. Just hollowness.
That's when the Seraph came.
It didn't emerge.
It formed—a mirrored silhouette born of mist and quartz. Its body shimmered like shattered glass stitched together by light. Its mouth moved in voices that weren't its own.
"Don't flinch… You don't flinch for these…"
Cyril froze. That was Miren's voice—his memory of her, perfectly repeated.
It lunged.
They scattered. The air cracked—Flow lashed backward. Terrain twisted beneath them, and for a heartbeat, Cyril couldn't differentiate up from down.
One cultivator vanished mid-step—swallowed by a wave that reversed time for only him. A second dropped, blood pouring from his nose as the Seraph reflected his own flow back at him.
Miren moved.
No blade this time.
No direct strike.
She summoned a memory.
A shimmer of her past self split from her—a clone trailing with perfect symmetry. It ran left when she moved right. The Seraph struck the clone, its quartz claws slicing through illusion—just as the real Miren emerged behind it.
"Now!"
Cyril braced.
His Flow surged from his spine and upward, stabilizing. Then from his sternum—force and focus. He struck, a kinetic blast timed with the Seraph's now staggered movement. The impact fractured its chest, splinters of glass exploding outward.
Still, it wasn't dead.
Not yet.
It shifted again—splintered into mirrored shards that danced through the air like flying swords in a fantasy novel.
Miren raised both arms.
She shimmered as she moved her arms round, and suddenly images of her appeared. Her movements—memories. The way she dodged the Brand-beast. The exact pattern she cut down a guard in the cells. Her Flow weaved these moments into a shield around her.
"Cyril—hit its center!"
He focused. Mind and intent. He didn't fight the Flow. He guided it.
He didn't aim at its body, but its reflection.
He finally struck.
Glass shattered.
The Seraph screamed—not mirrored now, but raw. Its body convulsed, folding in on itself until only fragments remained.
Its core glistened faintly, unstable.
A Shard-core.
Miren wrapped it in a silk weave, storing it silently.
"We're going deeper."
Cyril was breathing hard. His hands shook.
That wasn't a victory.
It was a hellish fight for survival.
***
The canyon darkened.
Flow moaned.
Even the sun fell back.
"Crown-Spoil," Miren murmured.
"We're close."
The shape ahead was wrong. Massive. Shifting. A silhouette made of stormcloud and limbs that didn't move the way they were supposed to.
"This is where we leave."
Cyril turned. "What about the se—"
"Cracked days ago," she said.
Calm.
Final.
"Still, we only get one chance."
Screams echoed already. The other cultivators not noticing their absence.
Miren grabbed his wrist.
"Now or we'll die screaming."
No hesitation.
They slipped into a crevice along the canyon wall—hidden, downward.
Shrieks of terror sounded behind them.
And they didn't look back.
***
Beneath, the wild was different.
Tunnels branched into the dark. Flow pulsed, broken but alive.
Cyril could feel it—not just as a tool or weapon.
But as a current that recognized him.
Not as a slave.
Not as prey.
But something…rising.
And the whisper that followed him into the dark didn't speak his name.
It spoke a truth.