- Back At The Loose Camp For Wanderers -
The loose camp fire flickered between two figures, casting long, sifting shadows across the loose camp for wanderers. The flames barely provided warmth, it’s glow a feeble, exhausted thing.. too weak to push back the weight of the gloomy night pressing down from all sides. Beyond the light, the world remained still, the vast emptiness of the wasteland stretching outward, swallowing sound, swallowing movement. swallowing even the tiny warmth in the air..
In the loose camp for wanderers... Two figures sat opposite each other.
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One, Dark blue hair. Deep brown eyes. His expression, too meek to be called an expression in this world.. Haran.
The second, pale gray hair. Calm yellow eyes which seems to hold depths of mysteries at his gaze....
The loose camp fire separated them, yet in the stillness, it felt as though it connected them instead. The silence stretched between them, unbroken, fragile. The kind of silence that wasn’t born from comfort.. but from the quiet weight of something inevitable.
Haran was the first to speak. his voice light, inviting, too inviting in this forsakened world... where not even the grasses can be trusted.
"You were there, weren’t you?"
His voice was measured, careful, but there was something else beneath it... something patient.. searching.
Agon didn’t react at first. He simply lifted his hand and took another sip, letting the warmth spread through his chest before settling the cup on his knees, tilting his head slightly, he allowed the firelight to catch the edge of his face. His expression was unreadable, but his deep yellow eyes, calm and watchful, reflected the fire like twin embers.
Haran didn’t press. He simply waited calmly..
Agon exhaled slowly... finally he spoke.
"Yeah."
A single word. Simple.
And yet, the moment it was spoken, the air itself seemed to change.. tightening, twisting around them.
Haran’s gaze didn’t waver. "You fought the Lords of Teka."
Agon gave the barest tilt of his head. "Me and my team."
The admission hung there, settling between them like fragile dust. The loose camp flames crackled. Somewhere in the distance, the wind howled, carrying with it the scent of something cold, metallic.
Haran leaned back slightly, his calm expression betraying nothing. "Impressive," he said, voice casual, as though they were simply discussing the weather. "Most wouldn’t have walked away from that."
Agon didn’t answer.
There was no need to.
Instead, Haran shifted the conversation slowly. "You know," he mused, turning his attention to the camp fire, watching as the flames twisted, curled. "There’s an interesting thing about we Wanderers."
Agon’s eyes didn’t leave him. He already knew where this was going.
Haran continued. "When a Wanderer kills a beast... Do you know they could consume something called larvae worm, and it’s found not only in one, or two species of beast... but in all.... The moment you consume it, you gain their abilities and evolve at a much faster rate.."
He said, pausing after that as the flames crackled.
"And if they consume more?" Agon asked, tilting his head slightly.
Haran’s lips curved into something resembling a smile. "Then they become something greater. The more they take in, the less they remain what they once were. Until, eventually…" His fingers tapped idly against his knee. "They transcend."
Agon said nothing.
Haran watched him carefully. "You already knew that, didn’t you?"
Agon exhaled softly. "Maybe."
The loose camp fire between them shifted, casting their faces in fleeting shades of light and shadow. The conversation should have felt harmless... just words, just theory.
But it wasn’t.
Not here.
Not between them.
Haran’s posture remained relaxed, there was no sharpness to him. No coiled tension beneath the surface, it was just a silent waiting, silent assessing.
Agon met his gaze. He had seen this before in his previous life before he transmigrated..
A man weighing his options.
A man deciding whether or not to act.
The silence stretched again. The fire burned on.
Haran wanted to speak but then... Something happened
A subtle shift at first. A flicker of the fingers.
Then with his hand against his mouth, a cough hit him....
Sharp. Violent
The first droplets of blood splattered against the dirt, dark, glistening under the firelight. His breath hitched. His body tensed. A tremor ran through his limbs.
Agon watched.
Calm. Unmoved.
"Nice try." Agon had already knew this was going to happen..
His smile was slow. Almost lazy.
"But next time," he continued, voice almost kind, "pick the right person."
Haran’s breathing grew ragged. His body shuddered. More blood... thicker this time. His fingers clenched against the ground, nails digging into the dirt, but the strength was already leaving him.
His gaze flickered to Agon... confusion at first, but sudden realization...
Then, nothing.
His body stilled.
The fire crackled on, indifferent.
Agon exhaled, leaning back slightly, watching as the gloomy night swallowed the last remnants of Haran’s existence.
The world remained silent.
And in that silence, Agon simply smiled.
****
The loose camp fire was dying. Low embers crackled, flickering faintly in the night breeze, their glow barely enough to keep the creeping dark gloom at bay. Smoke rose in thin, winding tendrils, swallowed by the hollow vastness above.
Agon sat still, calm, his fingers curled loosely around the cup in his hand. Across from him, Haran’s body or what seemed to be his body lay slumped against the dirt, his lips parted slightly, the ghost of a smile still etched onto his face. Red ichor mixed to a ash foam, trailed from the corner of his mouth, thick and wet, soaking into the dust beneath him....
Silence.
Only the loose camp fire remained, spitting and crackling softly, filling the space where words should have been.
Agon exhaled, slow, measured. Then, without hurry, he set the cup down beside him.
The drink inside was already finished...
"Thanks for the drink," he murmured, his voice barely more than a breath. His yellow gaze flickered over the corpse, lingering just long enough. "I think this is where we part ways."
A pause.
Then, a quiet chuckle, a humorless thing..
He shifted slightly, brushing the dust from his cloths, the motion was smooth, unhurried, calm. His eyes glinted in the dim light as he tilted his head slightly, observing the way Haran’s body or what seems to be his body had gone still like an uncontrolled puppet. Utterly, completely still.. devoid of all life...
Not even the smallest trace of breath. nor even a whiff of a twitch...
He had been dead for a while now.
Agon knew that from the beginning.
His fingers flexed absently at his side. The faint sensation still lingered, the memory of it.. Haran’s smallest movement, the barely perceptible tap of his fingers against his own cup. So slight. So subtle.
But not subtle enough.
Agon had seen it all. The way the liquid had shifted on his cup, the faint ripple that should not have been there. His detection had flared instantly, catching the process in motion. The poison had been slipping into Agon’s drink, just by Haran lightly tapping his own, slow and methodical... It was as if he was using spatial ability...
But Haran had miscalculated.
Agon had acted the moment he saw it. His mist had curled, unseen, opening a portal within his own cup... small, precise, seamless. The exchange had been instant. His drink transported, replaced with Haran’s own. A perfect switch.
And so, Haran had poisoned himself...
A fitting end for a man
Agon let his gaze linger for a moment longer. Then, with a slow inhale, he turned away.
His boots pressed into the dirt as he rose to his feet, the loose camp firelight stretching his shadow long against the ground. He did not look back.
But before he could take another step...
His detection screamed.
Agon froze slightly.
The camp fire flickered violently, the embers twisting unnaturally, as if the very air had been disturbed. A pressure sank against the gloomy night, thick and suffocating.
Then, something far worse.
The absence...
He could no longer sense Celia.
He could no longer sense Jess.
He could no longer sense his remaining teammates... Uvan. Lovia..
The realization settled, cold and sharp. The silence that followed was deafening. The world itself seemed to hold its breath at the absence..
Then in that moment.... A laugh erupted...
It came from everywhere.
It came from nowhere.
A sound that did not belong to the world.
Deep. Amused..
It did not echo. It expanded, stretching through the loose camp space, wrapping around all the existence here, sinking into the marrow of reality. breaking and burrowing through all that seemed to not exist...
Agon’s lips curled slightly.
"So," he knew the one who died wasn’t Haran real body....
His fingers flexed at his side, slightly as if it has waited long enough..
"You’ve finally arrived." He knew it was just his avatar that got poisoned..
Darkness stirred deeply, churning through everything...
"With your real body"
The world shuddered....
Haran have finally arrived with his real body...
And the battle was about to begin....