she_is_cameo

When Ethan Cross was seven, his home burned, his parents were slaughtered by a beast unlike any other, and a strange mark burned itself into his hand. The world told him it was just another rogue attack. The Guild sealed the truth. And the monsters kept coming.

Ten years later, Ethan is an E-Rank hunter at the bottom of the food chain—mocked, ignored, and barely surviving each raid. But beneath his quiet gaze hides a deadly purpose. The mark on his hand is not just a scar… it’s a key.

A key to unlocking forbidden power.
A key to uncovering the truth behind the Rift Wars.
And a key to destroying the very system that let his parents die.

As beasts grow stronger and corruption festers within the Guild, Ethan begins a journey that will shake the hunter world to its core. But power comes at a price—and the more Ethan learns about the truth, the more he begins to question who the real monsters are.

In a world where strength defines worth, how far will he go to rise?

Beastmarked

The days that followed were not days at all—but fragments.

Ethan couldn't tell when the Riftlight began to dim, only that the world above had started to change. The Hollow no longer whispered in scattered madness. It breathed. A long, slow inhale before the storm.

They returned to the Guild only to find it on high alert.

Guilders ran between war rooms and armories. Messages from other Outposts painted the same story—Bonebound activity had spiked across every Rift-border. Riftbeasts had begun organizing, moving not as wild things, but in patterns.

And worst of all: three other shards had gone missing.

"They're collecting them," Zeila said as she examined the Guild's ancient war maps. "Someone else is following the same trail."

Kael leaned on the table, jaw tight. "We break the gate, they open another."

"No," Ethan said quietly. "They awoke because we broke the lock."

He opened the journal again, now almost completely deciphered. His mother's notes were clearer now—as though the act of unlocking the gate had also unsealed her final warnings.

The Heart is buried beneath three converging Rifts. It is not just a weapon—it is memory. The last breath of the world before it broke. It cannot be destroyed… only contained. Or controlled.

And beneath that, a line he hadn't seen before:

If the Bonebound take the Heart, they rewrite the world.

Ethan closed the book. "We can't let them reach it."

Janek gathered the senior guilders in the war room that evening. The Guildmaster's face was grim.

"We've received a Riftping from the old continent," he said. "The vault beneath Ashvale has been opened. The last seal. The Heart is waking."

Janek eyed him. "You're not leading a team. This is suicide."

"I'm not leading anyone," Ethan replied. "But I am the reason it's happening. So I go."

Zeila stepped forward. "Then I go with him."

Kael raised his plasma rifle. "You're not leaving me behind either."

Janek hesitated, then nodded solemnly. "Then take what you need. The Guild will hold the Hollow's border. You stop what's trying to bleed through."

The skies above Ashvale were already torn. Black clouds spiraled like a Riftstorm brewing inside the heavens. Lightning struck in patterns—never random, never silent.

They arrived at the cliff's edge by nightfall. Below them, the Heart's Vault had opened—massive stone doors cracked wide to reveal a glowing chasm of Riftlight.

And in the center of them all stood the Tall One—the same silent figure who had watched Ethan from the shadows back at the Hollow.

Its eyes now burned brighter than ever.

"They've started the Rite," Zeila whispered. "If they finish the ritual, the Heart won't just wake—it'll listen."

Ethan unsheathed his sword, which now hummed with a soft, golden Riftlight.

"To them," Ethan said. "Unless we get there first."

And as the trio began their descent into the final vault, the Heart pulsed once beneath the earth.

The world was beginning to remember—and it wasn't sure if it wanted to forgive.

Chapter 36: Echoes of the Heart