Chapter 113: Manifestation (3)
Maggie shot him a hard look, but this time, there was no reproach. Only a nervous tension, the kind you feel in muscles just before striking. Like a drawn bow. Like a storm still holding back its cry.
Elisa nodded slowly. Her eyes shone with a new glint, not the reassuring kind. Something deeper, older. A fire beneath the ice. A silent acceptance of what they were becoming—or what they had always been.
They set off again, without a single word exchanged, their steps devoured the damp earth, cleaving the mist like a blade. The moor closed behind them, swallowing their silhouettes. Like three shadows lost in the grey.
The Hunt had resumed.
There was no more hesitation. No room for doubt, nor for turning back. It wasn’t rage driving them, nor courage. It was something colder. Fear...
A visceral, absolute fear, but one they refused to yield to.
They walked as one enters a tomb. Or as one emerges from it.
Each standing stone they passed seemed to vibrate with a memory. A split sword, twisted armor, a beast’s fang embedded in the rock. The ground itself seemed to remember the screams. Dylan felt the muffled rumble of past conflict beneath his feet. He didn’t know if it was his imagination or lingering essence in the air. But he felt it. He felt something watching them. Not the Guardian. Not yet. Something larger. As if the land itself remembered them.
Then came the first howl.
It was a rending distance away, like a call, an invitation, as if the beasts around them were daring them to challenge them.
They didn’t stop, though; the Hunt doesn’t ask for permission, nor for any invitation. It begins by itself. It takes itself.