When Spirits Bleed

The woods whispered.

Not with wind, but with voices.

Low, brittle sounds, like broken teeth gnashing inside the trees. The fog here didn't float; it clung, wet and sentient, coiling between roots and stone like something that remembered dying.

Kael stood just past the old ranger checkpoint at Timberline Trail, a faded national park boundary 50 miles outside Portland. He wore a reinforced tactical coat stitched with soul-absorbing thread and a holster for the reforged saber Zeke had named Ashwake.

Behind him, Selene adjusted the straps on her crossbow rig, expression grim.

Zeke double-checked a palm-sized spirit monitor that glowed faint green.

They weren't here for a hike.

They were here because something in this forest had started eating souls.

———————-

Earlier That Morning – Clinic War Room

———————-

"The reports started four days ago," Selene said, flipping through crime scene photos on a spirit-synced tablet. "Three hikers, two campers, one ranger—gone. No blood, no bones. Just ash. Laced with spiritual residue."

Kael leaned forward. "What kind of residue?"

"Something ancient. Hybrid signature. Not shadeborn. Not pure Fade either. It bleeds spirit… but it feeds on flame."

Zeke looked up. "So this thing's hunting you?"

Kael didn't blink. "Then let's hunt it back."

———————-

Now – Timberline Forest, Mid-Afternoon

———————-

The deeper they walked, the quieter the woods became.

Birds stopped chirping. Insects disappeared. Even the wind grew still, like it refused to pass through whatever veil they were approaching.

Zeke scanned the horizon with a soul-lens monocle. "We're near it."

Selene held up a charm—one of her spirit-woven fetishes. It immediately crumbled to ash in her palm.

"Closer than we thought," she said, loading a blue-rune bolt into her crossbow.

Kael gripped Ashwake.

The blade pulsed faintly in his hand, not glowing, but breathing. Reacting.

There was something here.

They stepped into a glade surrounded by twisted pines and rocks slick with moss. In the center stood a massive boulder, cracked open down the middle like a split egg. The inside glistened black. Like obsidian. Like mirror glass.

Zeke scanned the space. "Picking up distortion. Flame echoes. Strong ones."

Kael moved toward the crack.

Selene reached for him. "Wait—"

Too late.

The crack opened wider.

And something stepped out.

It wore a man's body, but its eyes were hollow black sockets filled with drifting flame. Its skin looked stitched together, and its chest bore a spiraling sigil that matched Kael's mark—but inverted. Where Kael's spiraled inward, this one spiraled out, as if devouring instead of gathering.

Kael froze.

The thing smiled, and its voice rippled in two tones—one human, one wrong.

"Azuran. We remember you."

Kael stepped forward. "Who are you?"

"I am the scar you left behind. The soul you failed to burn." The thing tilted its head. "We are the Ember-Eater. And we hunger."

It raised one hand.

The glade warped. Fog surged from beneath the roots. Dozens of faint, skeletal forms slithered into view—lost spirits, gnashing and crawling, all of them bound to the Ember-Eater by tendrils of burning thread.

Selene cursed. "He's devouring trapped souls and binding them into a hive-form. He's not a spirit. He's a furnace."

Zeke backed up, adjusting his gauntlet. "This isn't a scout. This thing's a first-wave reaper."

Kael drew Ashwake.

The blade hummed blue as it cut through the air.

The Ember-Eater screamed and the dead charged.

———————-

Combat Initiation – Glade of Wraiths

———————-

The first spirit struck like a banshee, clawing toward Kael's head. He ducked, spun, and severed it midair with a clean arc. It evaporated, the thread snapping.

But three more took its place.

Selene fired, two bolts ripping through spectral torsos, each erupting into azure flashfire. Her voice rang out:

"Cut the threads! That's the only way to free them!"

Zeke slammed his gauntlet into the ground. A pulse of magnetic energy rippled outward, shattering three advancing shades. Then his monitor blinked red.

"Pull back! He's channeling something through the stone—"

Too late.

The Ember-Eater roared.

From the stone crack, a blast of inverted flame shot outward—black-blue fire that bent gravity, heat, and sanity. Kael took the hit full force, flung backward across the glade.

He hit a tree, bones rattling, vision splitting. His coat smoked. His mark throbbed in pain.

The Ember-Eater stepped forward.

"You cannot burn what has already died."

Kael struggled to rise. The flames licked at the edge of his vision. Every movement felt like dragging a mountain.

But then…

He heard the voice.

"Flame is not what burns. Flame is what remembers."

His vision flickered. For a split second, he wasn't in the glade.

He was in a white hall, lined with torches that burned upside down. A figure stood before him, tall, crowned, draped in gold and ash.

His own face.

"Remember, Sovereign. Fire that forgets is just heat. But fire that remembers—that's divinity."

Kael blinked.

The glade returned.

The Ember-Eater raised both arms now, ready to consume them all.

Kael stood.

His mark spiraled open, wide as his whole chest now.

His body ignited—not in blue, but white.

The Ember-Eater paused.

"What are you—"

Kael vanished.

Reappeared midair.

Struck.

"Celestial Cut – First Memory!"

Ashwake screamed as it carved down, severing every soul-thread in a single white arc of burning memory.

The Ember-Eater shrieked—its body tearing apart, not from pain… but from the echo.

Kael landed, panting.

The glade fell silent.

The spirits faded.

The fog retreated.

The Ember-Eater collapsed to its knees, form glitching between a man, a shadow, and a black sun.

Its final words slithered through the air:

"The Sovereign remembers.

Then the Devourers will awaken.

The Rift is opening… again."

And then it was gone.

———————-

Aftermath – Edge of Timberline

———————-

The team sat in silence beside a scorched firepit as the last of the warding runes faded.

Zeke stared into the coals. "You erased that thing like it was made of paper."

Kael didn't speak.

Selene offered him a thermos. "You accessed memory-state. Full merge. That wasn't just you fighting."

Kael finally looked up. "It was a fragment. Of him. Of me."

Selene nodded. "You're syncing faster than we expected."

Zeke glanced at him. "Do you remember why you burned that thing in the first life?"

Kael hesitated. "Not yet. But I think it wasn't the only one."

Selene stood, brushing ash from her coat. "We'll need help."

Zeke agreed. "You need your Fivefold. Three isn't enough."

Kael stood too. "Then it's time we found the next."

———————-

Elsewhere – Kyoto, Japan – Spiritual Ruin D47

———————

Inside a temple half-swallowed by time, a girl moved like water over blades.

She wore black wrappings over her arms, a long sash around her waist, and carried twin spirit-knives that glowed with moonlight.

She struck once.

A training dummy crafted from stone shattered.

Behind her, an old monk bowed.

"Rin," he said. "He awakens."

The girl paused.

"…Azuran?"

"Yes. And he remembers."

She sheathed her blades, expression unreadable.

"Then I will go to him," she said. "And I will see if he still deserves that name."