The light faded.
But it did not leave quietly.
For a long time after the sky returned to blue, no one moved.
The corrupted land beyond the independent town was simply gone. No twisted roots. No pulsing soil. No air pressure distortion. Just flattened earth stretching for miles like it had been pressed by an invisible hand.
People slowly emerged from reinforced homes and watch posts.
Someone started crying.
Someone else started laughing.
A man dropped to his knees and began praying to something he probably had not believed in yesterday.
Ren stood on the ridge overlooking the town, wind pushing against his jacket.
Jonah spoke first.
"That wasn't a legend."
Ren did not answer.
Because he was not sure that was true.
It had felt like one.
Just scaled wrong.
Within hours, word spread.
Some said it was one of the Thirteen.
Some said it was an angel.
Some said the sky itself had corrected a mistake.
The town's leadership sent scouts into the flattened zone. They reported no residue. No organic matter. No signs of burning. It looked like the land had simply been rewritten.
Ren walked part of it himself.
No wrongness.
No whispering hum beneath the soil.
Just dirt.
Ren did not know why, but the clean removal unsettled him more than a battle would have.
It felt curated.
Their group had taken shelter in an abandoned industrial district miles from the nearest Hope.
Most of America had consolidated into one of the Hopes. This stretch of land was part of the forgotten in-between, half reclaimed, half rotting.
Some people stayed out here by choice.
Some because they did not trust walls.
Some because they had no legend and refused to live under someone who did.
Street gangs had evolved into protection rings.
And the world kept turning.
The next morning Jonah tossed Ren a pair of worn combat gloves.
"Hand to hand first." Jonah said. "Your legend doesn't matter if someone gets inside your guard."
Ren raised his fists. "You going easy?"
Jonah's expression barely shifted. "No."
They cleared a space inside a hollowed-out warehouse. Sunlight cut through broken ceiling panels. Dust floated in narrow beams.
Ren rushed him.
Jonah pivoted and tapped Ren's shoulder.
Ren stumbled forward like he had run into a wall.
"What was that?"
"You overcommitted."
Ren reset and swung again, faster this time.
Jonah did not dodge.
He let the punch connect.
But the impact felt wrong.
Ren's knuckles hit solid muscle, yet the force vanished completely, like punching into deep water.
Jonah did not move an inch.
"What…"
Jonah flicked him lightly in the chest.
Ren flew backward and hit the concrete, air exploding from his lungs.
Jonah had not stepped into it.
Had not wound up.
He just tapped him.
Jonah walked over calmly.
He extended a hand and pulled Ren up.
Ren stared. "You absorbed my punch."
"Yes."
"And that flick…"
"Was your punch."
Ren blinked.
Jonah rolled his shoulders.
"When you hit me, I took all the energy out of it. Stored it. Then I returned it to you."
Ren coughed. "That was one punch."
Jonah shrugged. "I usually disperse excess into the ground."
They reset.
"Again." Jonah said.
Ren attacked differently this time, lower stance, tighter swings.
Jonah let three hits land.
Each time, the impact dissolved into nothing.
Then Jonah stepped forward and tapped Ren's arm.
Ren spun and crashed into a steel support beam.
Pain flared, but not bone breaking. Controlled.
Jonah approached.
He picked up a loose bolt from the floor and tossed it upward.
Before it fell, it froze midair.
Hung.
Then dropped straight down.
Jonah had not touched it.
Ren stared. "You can absorb at a distance?"
"Yes."
"How far?"
"I do not know."
Jonah pointed toward an old steel crate suspended from a collapsed crane beam.
He flicked his fingers.
The cable snapped from sudden loss of tension.
The crate fell.
Before it hit the ground, it stopped midair.
All motion gone.
Then it dropped gently.
Ren swallowed. "What's your limit?"
Jonah's voice stayed calm.
"My legend tells me that if the Earth were falling, I could catch it."
Ren blinked.
"With strain." Jonah added. "Severe strain. If I train enough, I could catch it and live."
He looked down at his hands.
"But potential is not mastery."
He stepped back into stance.
"So we train."
This time Jonah absorbed Ren's strikes and redirected them into the ground beneath his feet.
The concrete cracked.
The ground kicked back.
Ren had to adapt or fall.
"Balance." Jonah said.
Ren shifted weight.
Jonah struck lightly, absorbing the momentum of Ren's dodge and feeding it back into him mid movement.
Ren stumbled sideways.
"Control your center."
Another exchange.
Jonah let Ren land a full combination.
Then he absorbed the stored energy from the entire flurry and released it into Ren's shoulder in one controlled burst.
Ren spun but stayed upright.
Breathing harder now.
Sweat forming.
He grinned despite himself. "That's unfair."
"War is unfair." Jonah replied.
By the end of the session, Ren's arms trembled.
His lungs burned.
But something inside him felt sharper.
Alive.
When Jonah rushed him unexpectedly, Ren reacted without thinking, slipping inside his guard and striking twice before Jonah absorbed the impact.
Jonah paused.
"That was new."
Ren tilted his head slightly.
He felt it too.
A flicker of instinct.
More aggressive.
More willing to close distance.
Billy's books had warned that legends bleed into their wielders.
Jonah studied him carefully.
"Your rhythm changed."
Ren flexed his fingers. "I know."
He did not dislike it.
That unsettled him.
They stopped when the sun dipped low through the warehouse ceiling.
The others had been watching quietly for part of it.
No one joked.
They had all seen the shooting star.
All felt how small they were compared to it.
Jonah handed Ren a bottle of water.
"You are improving."
Ren drank slowly.
"That thing in the sky…"
Jonah looked toward the horizon.
"If something that powerful exists, then the only thing we control is how strong we become."
Ren nodded.
His muscles ached.
His mind raced.
Somewhere out there, beings who could rewrite miles of land existed.
And if another shooting star ever fell.
He intended to still be standing.