Chapter 32 – The Forest Hungers
That night, a Veilborn creature breached the forest wards.
It tore through the tree line with inhuman grace—spindly limbs, glassy eyes, and a mouth that twisted reality where it opened. Several sentries from House Yuncao's newly assigned guards were found dismembered at dawn.
Qingsai and Lucen tracked the creature deep into the Veilgrove, a cursed section of Emel where the boundary between worlds thinned.
The creature whispered Qingsai's name.
> "Soulkindled… Brightborn… come… return what she stole…"
Qingsai's Lucentia shimmered instinctively, but the light faltered.
> "You fear your own light," Lucen warned. "That is its greatest weakness."
In a moment of clarity, Qingsai let go of fear—channeling not only Lucentia, but a whisper of Flame and Aether.
He struck the creature with a prism-bolt of truth and fire.
The Veilborn disintegrated—leaving behind not blood, but a fragment of spirit memory.
> A warning.
> "The Balance is breaking… The Six must not awaken."