The Scar was quieter than Adrian expected, and that was what had unsettled him the first time he stepped into the strange region.
It wasn't the kind of quiet that came with calm or peace. There was no sense of stillness you could settle into, no rhythm to it. It simply existed, stretching across the land in a way that felt wrong the longer he paid attention to it.
The only consistent sound was the soft crunch of his boots against the grey ground. Even that seemed too loud, as though it didn't quite belong there.
He had imagined something else entirely before coming here.
In his mind, the Scar should have been louder, filled with distant movement, strange cries, or at least some constant reminder that it was dangerous. Instead, it felt empty in a way that made him more aware of himself than anything around him.
The faint metallic scent in the air didn't help.
He had noticed it on the first day and assumed he would eventually stop paying attention to it. However, three weeks later it was still there, lingering at the back of his throat no matter how long he stayed.
Three weeks... He'd been here for three weeks!
The thought settled in his mind as he adjusted the strap of his bag and continued along the patrol route, his lantern casting a steady glow ahead of him.
The carved ward markers stood at regular intervals along the path, their symbols unfamiliar but reassuring in a way he hadn't expected.
He didn't understand them, but he had already learned what they meant in practice. As long as he stayed close to them, the chances of running into something he couldn't handle were lower.
"That's still longer than I thought I'd last," he murmured under his breath, more out of habit than anything else.
If someone had described this situation to him back in his previous life, he would have assumed it belonged in a story.
Something distant and controlled, where danger existed for tension but never felt immediate.
Actually standing here, walking through it with no guarantee of what might happen next, felt entirely different.
His thoughts drifted, as they often did, back to the Awakening Ceremony.
"No measurable frequency," he said quietly, repeating the words without much emotion this time, though they still felt slightly out of place.
It didn't make sense no matter how many times he went over it.
Everyone had something. Even the weakest results still registered as something, even if it was barely enough to matter. The system they used wasn't supposed to fail that completely.
And yet it had, at least in his case.
He exhaled slowly and shook his head.
"I would've taken anything, honestly," he added, almost absently, as though admitting it out loud made it easier to accept.
A weak spirit. A useless one. Something minor that didn't really change his situation in any meaningful way.
At least then it would have felt consistent with everything else he had seen.
Instead, he had been given nothing at all.
Still, things hadn't turned out exactly the way he expected either.
The Drakul behaved differently around him.
Every child in the empire knew what they were. Soul consuming creatures that leaked through the Vorheim seal in the Scar, driven by a single instinct — find soul energy and take it.
You could easily identify them by their horns.
One horn meant a Hollow, barely conscious and easy enough to drive off if you kept your head.
Two horns meant a Crawler, dangerous to anyone without a spirit bond. The further into the Scar you went the higher the count.
It took him a few days to realize something was off about the way the drakul reacted to him.
At first, he assumed it was coincidence, or distance, or simply luck. But after several encounters that didn't quite line up with what he had been told to expect, it became harder to ignore.
Creatures passed him without reacting. Others drifted close enough that he should have drawn attention, only to veer away slightly as though something about him didn't register properly.
It wasn't invisibility. He knew that much. If he moved too suddenly or made enough noise, they would still react.
But there was something off about how they perceived him.
"They don't notice me properly," he said, frowning slightly as he continued walking, trying to put the thought into words that actually made sense.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say they didn't see him as something worth responding to.
He wasn't sure which explanation was more accurate, and neither of them were particularly comforting.
"I guess that's one way to survive," he muttered, though the words didn't carry much conviction.
It was useful, at the very least, and right now that mattered more than whether he liked it or not.
---
The change, when it came, was subtle enough that he almost missed it.
Adrian slowed slightly as he walked, his attention shifting without fully understanding why. For a moment, he thought it might just be his imagination again, but the feeling didn't fade.
Something was different.
He came to a stop and looked around, his grip tightening slightly around the lantern as he tried to pinpoint what had caught his attention.
At first glance, nothing seemed out of place.
The same empty stretch of grey land extended in every direction, broken only by the occasional ward marker standing where it always had.
Still, the air felt… sharper.
Colder in a way that didn't match the temperature.
"I'm not imagining that," he said quietly, more to himself than anything else, as though confirming it out loud would make it easier to trust.
He turned his head slowly, scanning the area again, and this time his gaze dropped to the ground.
His footsteps had curved.
Adrian stared at them for a moment, his brow furrowing as he tried to recall the path he had taken.
"I didn't walk like that," he said, the words coming out slower now as the realization settled in.
He knew the route. He had followed it enough times that he didn't need to think about each step.
And yet the evidence in front of him didn't match that memory.
A cold sensation suddenly hit him before he could think it through any further.
It wasn't gradual or subtle. One moment the air felt slightly off, and the next something pressed against him from the inside, sharp and immediate, pulling at his chest in a way that made it hard to breathe.
Adrian staggered forward, instinctively trying to steady himself as his vision blurred at the edges.
"What is—"
The rest of the sentence didn't come out properly.
The pressure wasn't something he could push against or step away from. It wasn't external in any way he could identify. It felt like something reaching into him and finding… nothing.
He forced himself to turn, even as his body resisted the movement.
Something was standing behind him.
A creature with four horns.
The recognition came immediately, even through the disorientation.
"A Shade," he managed, his voice hoarse than he intended.
It hovered a short distance away, its form flickering in a way that made it difficult to focus on directly.
He tried to step back, but his legs didn't respond the way he expected them to. Everything felt slower, heavier, like his body was no longer fully under his control.
For a brief moment, an oddly clear thought passed through his mind.
So this was it.
This was how his second life would end. Just one mistake in the wrong place.
'That's… a bit disappointing' he thought, the reaction feeling strangely mild given the situation.
The Shade drifted closer.
Then something struck it from the side.
The sound came a fraction of a second later, sharp and abrupt, breaking through the pressure that had filled the space.
The force sent the creature skidding across the ground, its form flickering violently before it collapsed in on itself and vanished.
The weight pressing against Adrian's chest disappeared just as suddenly.
He drew in a sharp breath, the relief making him sway slightly before he managed to steady himself.
When he looked up, an old man was walking toward him.
Jarvis.
Adrian recognized him. He was one of the oldest workers in the Scar region. Almost eleven years of active service and he'd survived through every ordeal.
"Shade," the older man said as he approached, his tone as even as ever. "Four horns. They disorient before attacking."
Adrian let out a slow breath, still trying to steady himself as the lingering effects faded.
"I noticed that part," he replied, his voice a little rougher than usual but otherwise steady.
Jarvis stopped in front of him and extended a hand without hesitation.
Adrian looked at it briefly before accepting it, allowing himself to be pulled back to his feet. The movement felt more stable than he expected, though the cold sensation hadn't fully faded yet.
There was a short pause before Adrian spoke again.
"You've been following me," he said, glancing at him rather than making it a direct accusation.
"Yes."
The answer came without hesitation.
Adrian exhaled quietly, something between a sigh and a faint laugh.
He'd heard rumors that Jarvis always looked out for new workers and it turns out they were true.
"And you were just going to let that happen?" he asked, not sounding particularly upset, more curious than anything else.
Jarvis considered the question for a moment before answering.
"You were still moving," he said.
Adrian looked at him for a second, then down at the ground where he had been moments earlier.
"I was on the ground, almost dead" he pointed out.
"But you were still alive."
Adrian paused, then let out a small breath.
"I guess that's technically true," he admitted, brushing a bit of dust from his sleeve as he straightened.
He hesitated briefly before adding, "Still… thanks."
Jarvis gave a small nod, accepting the acknowledgment without comment before turning slightly.
"Stay closer to the markers," he said. "You drifted more than you should have."
Adrian glanced back at the uneven trail of his own footsteps and frowned.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I see that now."
He followed after him without adding anything else.
The ward markers stood ahead of them in a steady line and Adrian kept his eyes on them as they walked.
But as he moved, something caught at the edge of his attention.
A faint pull. Deep in his chest, underneath everything else. Like a sound too low to hear properly but present enough to feel.
He slowed down slightly.
It hadn't been there before the Shade attacked. He was certain of that.
He pressed a hand against his chest for a moment, then dropped it.
It didn't feel like the cold sensation the creature had left behind. It felt older than that. Like something that had always been there, buried so deep he had never noticed it until now.
It was the same sensation he'd felt back in Rivergate city.
He looked south.
Past the ward markers, past the pale scrub, past the third line he had never crossed, the ruins sat in the grey distance like they had been sitting there since before the city behind him existed.
Something down there was awake.
And whatever it was, if his hunch was right, was most likely waiting for him.