"Don’t tell this to anyone, but there’s a Wyvern in our area," Kyle’s mother said, her voice low and cautious.

  The sun was setting, casting warm hues through the small kitchen as they sat down for dinner. Kyle paused mid-bite, staring at his mother in disbelief. "A Spirit?" he excimed, his voice rising.

  Spirits. The very word sent a shiver down his spine.

  Unlike Beasts and Monsters—both of which could be categorized by their strength and intelligence—Spirits were an entirely different entity. Beasts were just wild animals. Monsters were slightly more dangerous and cunning; they could also use Shard abilities, but Spirits were beyond both.

  Spirits were Monsters who had evolved beyond their original selves, or perhaps they had always been like this. Their Shards weren’t something that could be harvested or retrieved; they seemed to have consumed the very essence of their Shards, becoming one with it. This transformation left them unnervingly powerful and at least as intelligent as humans.

  Kyle’s mother nodded grimly. "The adventurer told me. A Wyvern attacked their party. It didn’t stay long, just swooped in to grab a quick bite and flew off. They only survived because it seemed... weakened."

  “It was as if it was in a hurry,” She continued.

  Kyle frowned, recalling the unusual injuries he’d seen on the adventurers earlier. "That dy had a strange wound," he murmured. "So it was a Wyvern."

  A sudden thought struck him, and he leaned back in his chair, brows knitting together. "Do you think that’s why those hares ended up in that part of the woods? Could the Wyvern be resting nearby?"

  His mother’s expression darkened, her lips pressing into a thin line. "It’s possible," she admitted. "If it’s injured, it might be hiding somewhere close."

  Kyle’s appetite waned as the implications sank in. A Wyvern nearby wasn’t just dangerous, it was catastrophic.

  "Don’t worry," Kyle’s mother said as she stood, collecting her pte and walking toward the basin. "The adventurers will leave tomorrow to inform the baron. Keep this to yourself, it will only cause chaos if word spreads."

  Her calm tone had the desired effect, easing Kyle’s nerves somewhat. He leaned back in his chair, staring at his half-eaten pte. The thought of a Wyvern still loomed in his mind, but knowing the baron would handle it provided some relief.

  As his mother turned to leave, Kyle’s gaze inadvertently dropped to her legs. She was still wearing the short dress she had worn earlier. The faint scar on her thigh caught his eye, and before he could stop himself, he asked, "Mom, what’s up with that scar on your thigh? Why hasn’t it healed?"

  She paused, gncing back at him. After setting the pte down, she faced him fully. Without a word, she pulled the hem of her dress higher, revealing the entire jagged mark. The scar was faint but unmistakably deep, as if it had been burned into her flesh.

  "You tell me, Kyle," she said with a faint smile, though her eyes betrayed an edge of seriousness. "In what cases do scars not heal?"

  Kyle thought for a moment, then answered, "When the wound is cursed, or if it’s inflicted by a special weapon or... something simir."

  His mother nodded. "Exactly. Normally, my Shard abilities can heal anything on my body. But this scar isn’t normal." She hesitated for a moment before continuing. "A long time ago, during the war, there was a group trying to immortalize their leader. They sought to make him untouchable, eternal. To stop them, a hero appeared wielding a sword unlike any other. It was called the Mortal Shard."

  Kyle leaned forward, intrigued. "What was special about it?"

  "It could sever immortality itself," she replied, her voice quiet and heavy with memory. "The wounds it inflicted could never be healed, no matter how strong the healer or Shard ability. It is said that even someone like the Ghost Healer was not able to heal it."

  Kyle’s eyes widened as he stared at the scar, understanding its weight. "You mean... you were struck by that sword?"

  She pulled her dress back down, her expression unreadable. "That’s a story for another day." Then, with a faint smile, she turned to finish cleaning. "For now, let’s focus on staying safe."After that, Kyle’s mother quietly stood up and left the room, retreating into her room with the same soft grace she always carried. The door clicked shut behind her, but her words still echoed in his mind.

  This was a habit of his mother’s. A terrible habit, really. Randomly dropping fragments of insane lore from her past like they were casual remarks. Just tossing them into conversation like seasoning, and then leaving before Kyle could make sense of any of it.

  He sat there, slouched into the chair, staring bnkly at the table as his mind tried to untangle everything she'd just said. And then—

  His thoughts were cut off.

  A sharp pain jabbed through his head, familiar and sudden, like a spike driven right through the center of his skull. His breath caught in his throat. His fingers clenched against the wooden arms of the chair.

  His vision began to colpse inward. The room around him twisted, warping and fading into a wash of shadow and light.

  Another vision was coming.

  ***Darkness.

  Kyle blinked, or rather, the body he was in blinked, though he didn’t control it. The world was a narrow space, tight, metallic, suffocating. Cold walls pressed against both his shoulders, and his knees scraped against the hard, ridged floor beneath him. He was crawling. Belly ft, elbows pushing forward slowly, deliberately.

  He didn’t know where he was, but this wasn’t his body.

  He could feel the subtle ache in his joints and the quiet burn in his forearms. Sweat clung to his skin. His breath echoed softly in the space, bouncing off the walls like whispers in a crypt. The smell of oil, rust, and something faintly electric clung to the air.

  Just like all the other visions, he couldn’t control the body. He could only feel what it felt, see what it saw, and think in parallel with the person he now inhabited.

  Ahead, faintly, he noticed a narrow beam of light poking through a small slit in the floor, a broken panel perhaps. He felt the body shift, crawling toward it in careful silence, metal creaking under slow, practiced movement.

  Then a voice.

  Not from around him, but… inside his left ear. There was a strange pressure, like something lightly pressed against it. The sound was clear, distant yet direct, impnted, like a spirit whispering directly into his skull.

  “A guard is approaching the vent opening through which you were supposed to exit.”

  Kyle stiffened.

  It wasn’t his thought.

  It was someone else's voice, speaking into the body he now wore like a borrowed cloak.

  “Does it really matter, Prof?” the man he had inhabited said, low and cocky, ced with a smugness that nearly made Kyle groan. The tone was strangely confident, almost like the guy was enjoying himself. “I’ll be out before he even blinks.”

  The body slithered forward, smooth and practiced, like it had done this a hundred times before. There was no hesitation. Every inch forward was calcuted. Kyle could feel the tautness in the muscles, the tension in the shoulders, and the precision of someone who knew how to move.

  Then came the vent opening.

  The man reached it and stopped, pcing one palm softly against the panel. The metallic grating was cool to the touch, Kyle could feel the skin tingle with anticipation. The footsteps were close now, measured, heavy, and rhythmic.

  A smirk.

  He popped the vent open with a careful, silent motion, barely a sound escaping.

  And then, he waited.

  The footsteps neared. Just as the guard stepped into position beneath the vent, the man dropped silently and effortlessly, like a shadow from the ceiling.

  He nded softly on the balls of his feet just behind the guard. He knocked the guard’s legs with a low, quick kick to the back of the knee. The guard staggered backward, completely off bance. Simultaneously, his arm snaked around the guard’s neck in one fluid motion, locking beneath the chin.

  The strangution was silent, brutal, and clean. The man’s arm tightened, the guard’s legs kicked weakly, and within seconds, he was limp.

  All of it was done in silence, in darkness, as if it were just another step in the pn.

  The man moved like a whisper.

  Every footstep was a calcuted note in a symphony of silence, the well-lit corridor offering no shadows, yet he used every angle, every blind spot. His compact bck clothes clung tight to his frame, giving him the mobility of a feline and the presence of a ghost.

  A guard turned the corner. One swift, continuous motion, a blow to the throat followed by a knee to the stomach, and he was crumpled and dragged to the side before a breath could leave his lips.

  Another stood by a wall panel, yawning.

  A silent dash. Elbow to the neck. Catch. Lower to the ground.

  Like that, one by one, they fell. No arms. No shouting. Just a quiet trail of unconscious bodies left behind him like the tail of a snake.

  Then came the door.

  Large. Steel. Smooth and silver, set at the very end of the corridor like a full stop in this strange story.

  The man exhaled, calm and composed. Behind him, a handful of unconscious guards y sprawled, neatly out of sight. Then came a crackle in his left ear, Prof’s voice.

  “This is it. You’re clear; no one else is coming.”

  “Perfect,” the man muttered.

  He turned the door’s manual lock, old-fashioned, analog, and pulled a slim metal baton from one of the guard’s belts. With a precise jam between the lever and frame, the door was sealed tightly from the outside.

  Then, he crouched.

  Sliding up his left sleeve, he revealed a strange wrist-bound contraption: a small, nozzle-like structure etched with worn symbols. He tapped it twice.

  With a faint hiss, white smoke hissed from the gadget and trailed through the thin gap beneath the door, curling like a snake’s tongue into the room beyond. He leaned back to avoid any fumes that escaped.

  He waited.

  Ten seconds.

  Twenty.

  Then—

  BANG. BANG. BANG.

  The door rattled with the sound of bodies crashing into it. Muffled voices rose, shouting, coughing, panicking.

  He didn’t flinch.

  He leaned casually against the wall beside the door, arms folded, a slow smile tugging at his lips. Kyle could feel it, too, not just the expression but the confidence. This wasn’t arrogance. It was well-practiced confidence. He had done this before.

  Two minutes passed.

  Three.

  The noise dulled.

  By the five-minute mark, there was silence. Heavy, dense silence.

  Then, the man reached into his pocket and popped a small silver pill into his mouth. He chewed.

  “I hope this works,” he muttered under his breath, almost like a joke to himself.

  Finally, he pulled out the baton and unlocked the door.

  It creaked open.

  First came the cloud of fading white smoke, still lingering in the air.

  The next thing he saw was a pile of jumbled bodies. Half a dozen guards y in a heap, faces pale, and their breath coming in short gasps. They'd fallen into the corridor like armored dominoes.

  He stepped aside, watched them fall, and walked over their bodies without a hint of care.

  He was inside.