Chapter 34 — Echoes of the Primordials

  I had already shaped the bricks—dozens of them, stacked and waiting. The next step was the pillars meant to support the ceiling. Simple in theory. In practice… the hardest thing yet.

  I wasn’t Eloran. Even though I carried forest mana, I couldn’t coax plants into towering supports. My control simply wasn’t refined enough. So I shifted to stone pillars instead.

  Lyra stopped me instantly.

  Her voice was sharp, uncompromising.

  “No. Pour your mana into the plants. Shape them.”

  I tried.

  I failed.

  Why did they keep giving me impossible things? I understood mana control mattered. I knew the gap between us was enormous, and I was willing to work to close it. But this felt deliberate—like they were preparing me for something only precise control could survive.

  It couldn’t be helped. I forced my mind into that familiar, cold determination.

  I poured mana into a small plant. It grew… barely. Pathetic. For this to work I had to feed it as if pouring life into it. Stretching. Thickening. Strengthening.

  Then I would have to do it again.

  Again.

  Again.

  So I worked through the cold night. Training had already stolen sleep from me these past days. Exhaustion was just another companion now. I pushed until my body collapsed, until I fell asleep mid-focus. It wasn’t the first time.

  But every time I reached that breaking point…

  My core adapted.

  It grew.

  Morning came. I washed at the stream, the water biting cold. Fenn had taught me how to purify with mana instead of brushing, but I still kept the habit—branch in hand, teeth scrubbed, water stinging my face awake. Nothing beat cold water for tearing exhaustion away.

  Then I went back to the plant.

  It was twisted. Wrong. The worst feeling… watching hours collapse into failure.

  But not everything was wasted.

  Experience remained.

  Instinct remained.

  I didn’t have to restart from nothing. I could rebuild.

  It had happened because I’d been too close to sleep. My thoughts blurred. My control slipped.

  So I restarted.

  Sharper this time.

  Steadier.

  By afternoon, when the pack gathered for the hunt, the pillar was halfway done.

  When the hunting group left, Fenn stayed with me. The plant finally stretched taller, straighter now—beginning to look like something that could support stone.

  Then, not long after the others departed…

  A voice brushed through the link.

  “It seems you have already met Eloran… seeing how you use mana as life to guide the plant.”

  Fenn froze.

  His head lowered instantly.

  Elder Fenris.

  But how? I couldn’t sense her aura at all. No presence. No pressure. Nothing. And why now—after everyone else had left?

  She did this on purpose.

  I turned and bowed as Fenn did.

  Her voice followed—calm, commanding.

  “Raise your heads.”

  Fenn spoke first.

  “Father has just left. I will inform him you are here.”

  Her reply was immediate.

  “No need. Today, I am here to speak with Yuu.”

  Fenn hesitated… then bowed.

  “As you wish.”

  He left.

  Fenris’s attention settled on me. Even without aura, her presence was overwhelming. Heavy. I understood why the pack respected her now.

  “Yuu,” she said softly. “We finally have time to speak one on one. Kael has told me everything—about what happened to you, and about the second core you carry. Your training goes well… but I came to warn you.

  Train to control.

  Or you will be devoured.”

  A chill ran down my spine.

  Kael told me once: every warning Fenris had ever spoken came true. Her voice wasn’t caution.

  It was prophecy.

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  Something will happen with my second core.

  “I will,” I said, forcing steadiness.

  Her gaze lingered.

  “Have you remembered anything… of where you came from?”

  My chest tightened.

  Last time, Kael stopped me from telling her anything. He feared she’d see me as a threat and end me. But now I understood.

  He didn’t fear her power.

  He respected it.

  Fenris wasn’t a tyrant looming over them. She didn’t want blind obedience. She wanted the safety of her bloodline.

  She watched them.

  Guided them.

  Prepared them.

  “Let us make a trade,” she said softly.

  “Tell me everything you remember—how you came here, anything before arriving, anyone you saw.”

  “I saw no one,” I answered immediately.

  So I told her about my world.

  A world without mana.

  Without aura.

  Where people lived with nothing but fragile bodies and stubbornness.

  She didn’t look surprised.

  So I told her the part that unsettled me the most.

  “I remember the world…

  but no people.

  No faces.

  No names.”

  Her gaze sharpened.

  “If you are hiding anything, speak. I do not seek malice. I seek understanding. I am trying to comprehend what you are… and why someone like you exists here.”

  Her words hit harder than any blow.

  I didn’t even understand myself.

  “Why does this matter?” I asked quietly. “What can a weak human do that’s important? Kael thinks it was an accident. I came here by accident.”

  Fenris did not agree.

  Her voice grew absolute.

  “There is only one of you. That alone makes you important.

  A corrupted core and a normal one.

  Surviving forced awakening.

  Forming a true core from corruption.

  Absorbing a Devourer.

  No one has done what you have.

  Even I do not know what you will become.

  I cannot see your future.”

  My breath stopped.

  “You can see the future?”

  Her answer was calm, dismissive, yet impossibly heavy.

  “Forget that. It means simply that your existence stands beyond certainty.”

  Silence.

  Then her voice deepened—world-old.

  “Since you spoke of your world… I will speak of mine.

  This world is named Xylos.

  And this endless expanse you walk…

  is the Forest of Wrath.”

  My heart pounded.

  A continent of forest.

  Maybe larger.

  She continued.

  “Creatures here differ. Some wield a single element. Some wield many. Some wield none. Strength takes many forms—brute force, speed, intelligence, instinct. Some speak. Some never will.

  But then… there are beings that should not exist. Born not of nature, but from a foreign energy that destabilizes the natural order..”

  It clicked immediately.

  “Devourers.”

  Her eyes narrowed faintly.

  “Correct.”

  I leaned forward.

  “Tell me more. What are they? Why different forms? How are they created?”

  Her gaze turned ancient.

  “Before you learn what Devourers are… you must understand the black beings that struck Xylos.

  And the ones who stood against them.”

  The air grew heavy.

  “When the Primordials ruled, Xylos was stable. Life evolved at a steady rhythm. They were the strongest beings to ever exist. Born when impossible mana gathered—not only from Xylos, but from beyond it.

  They were the first creatures.”

  I held my breath.

  “Others lived beside them. Some guided. Some ruled.

  But all were absolute—etched into the world itself.”

  Her eyes faintly glowed.

  “The Primordials.

  Living laws.

  First guardians.

  First rulers.”

  Then:

  Darkness in her voice.

  “Then… they came. Creatures of ruin. Falling like shards of annihilation.

  Voidborne.”

  They did not think.

  Or perhaps thinking never applied to them.

  They simply destroyed.

  “But what followed… was the true nightmare.

  A Voidborn unlike the rest. A dragon of ruin.

  Its impact carved a crater into Xylos.

  The Primordials named it Vorthenix.”

  My chest tightened.

  “They were not united then,” she continued. “But the Voidborne threatened the world they were part of. So they united. Every Primordial vowed to end it.”

  They crushed the lesser Voidborne.

  But not that dragon.

  Even united, they could not overcome it.

  Attacks shattered.

  Powers broke.

  They burned everything they were… just to wound it.

  They immobilized it.

  It still attacked.

  It still reformed.

  They fought until only Dragons remained standing.

  Not victorious.

  Just alive.

  “Their final attack forced Vorthenix into slumber,” she whispered.

  “The battlefield became wasteland.

  Craters.

  Scars.

  It is said to still remain lifeless.

  Vorthenix sleeps.

  The Dragons recover still.”

  Silence.

  “That… was the Primordial Voidborn War.”

  Even hearing it felt like something no mind should carry.

  Fenris continued.

  “Only Life Force truly harmed them. Only it pierced ruin.”

  Then her gaze hardened.

  “As for Devourers… they were born when elemental forces were destabilized by that foreign energy.”

  She explained the elemental forces.

  Rivers.

  Mountains.

  Land.

  Neutral.

  Watching.

  Silent.

  Until that foreign energy shattered their neutrality.

  They tried to destroy it.

  They absorbed it instead.

  They twisted.

  They became Devourers.

  “The cycle cannot be ended. As long as Vorthenix releases that foreign energy… Devourers will return.

  Destroy one with anything but Life Force, and the destabilized mana simply disperses. Mana gathers again. An elemental structure absorbs it.

  Another Devourer is born.”

  “At first, they are formless,” Fenris said. “Nothing but destabilized mana wrapped in instinct. But once they kill… they take shape.”

  “A Fire Devourer that slays a Rattin becomes a Rattin of flame. If it kills a Varok after that, it reshapes into a burning Varok. Every creature it devours… becomes another form it can assume at will.”

  My breath slowed.

  “They are not shapeshifters by choice,” she continued. “They are imitations. Hollow reflections of the lives they consume. Walking echoes.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly.

  “That is why Devourers are unpredictable.”

  I swallowed.

  It made sense.

  Then she continued.

  She spoke of the fall:

  Bodies gone.

  Civilizations erased.

  Species ended.

  But not Will.

  “Primordials were too deeply woven into Xylos to fade. When they died… their Will fused into the world. Into mana. Into instinct. Into life itself.”

  They did not linger as gods.

  They endured as pressure.

  Presence.

  A relentless demand:

  Evolve.

  Survive.

  Become stronger than what killed us.

  And life obeyed.

  “Those who endured devastation… who refused extinction… who adapted instead of breaking…

  Those are the ones whose Will deepened.”

  Her gaze sharpened.

  “We are not blessed by privilege.

  Bloodlines are not luxury.

  They are burden.

  Proof of survival.

  Proof of endurance.

  Proof of Will.”

  Her eyes locked onto mine.

  “Understand this, Yuu.

  Blood means nothing.

  What matters…

  is who refuses to fall.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  My mind was still reeling, trying to hold every word in place, afraid that if I let a single thought slip, something important would vanish with it. I didn’t want to forget any of it. Not the Primordials. Not the war. Not the Will. Not the warning.

  Silence lingered between us.

  Then Elder Fenris finally broke it.

  “Enough.

  My work here is done.

  I have warned you.

  Train your control.

  You will need it.”

  Her tone shifted—no longer calm, but edged with something sharp and fierce, as if touching those memories awakened an old, buried wound. The atmosphere itself seemed to tense around her.

  I opened my mouth.

  I still had questions.

  So many questions.

  How long had she been watching over the fellow Fenrir-blooded?

  Where were the Voidborne now?

  Were any Primordials still alive… truly alive?

  But I didn’t speak.

  Something in her presence made it clear:

  This conversation was over.

  And then she was gone.

  No sound.

  No lingering aura.

  As if she had never been there at all.

  I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and returned to the stream where Fenn waited nearby. I moved closer.

  “Fenn,” I asked quietly, “how long has Elder Fenris… watched over you all?”

  He blinked.

  He didn’t know.

  No one did.

  She had simply always been there.

  When I asked about the Primordials… he told me only the Dragons were believed to still live. Everything else… gone.

  As for the Voidborne…

  He grew serious.

  Some didn’t fall during the war.

  Some still remained.

  Hidden. Wandering Xylos. Waiting.

  The thought alone was enough to make my chest tighten.

  Her warning echoed in my mind.

  Train. Or be devoured.

  My resolve hardened.

  I turned back to the pillar.

  The plant I’d been shaping now stood tall and straight, firm enough to finally be cut and used as proper support for the ceiling.

  It wasn’t perfect.

  But it was progress.

  And right now… progress was everything.