Luna hurried to Jasper’s side, kneeling beside him as she handed him a health potion. Jasper, pale and visibly shaken, accepted it with a quick nod, muttering a quiet, “Thank you.” His attention, however, quickly shifted to his gryphon, Shea, who lay breathing heavily on the forest floor.

  Jasper’s hands moved with practiced precision as he activated his Beast Healing skill, a soft green glow radiating from his palms as he began tending to Shea’s injuries. “You’re okay,” he murmured softly, his voice steady despite the adrenaline still coursing through him. Shea responded with a weak but grateful trill, her golden feathers fluttering faintly under his touch.

  Satisfied with his work but knowing it wasn’t enough, Jasper activated Nurturer’s Grace, channeling a deeper wave of restorative energy into his companion. The gryphon’s breathing evened out, and some of the tension in her body visibly eased. Luna stepped forward, offering another potion. “Here, this will help.”

  Jasper took it without hesitation, gently administering the potion to Shea. As her strength began to return, Jasper sat back, exhaling a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said again, his voice more stable now, though still tinged with exhaustion.

  Kyle, standing nearby, broke the silence. “Everything good now?”

  Jasper turned his gaze to the trio, taking them in for the first time. The man, who seemed to be in his early thirties, radiated an air of quiet authority. Beside him stood two women—one young, likely no older than eighteen, with an eager spark in her eyes, and the other more poised and mature, exuding a calm confidence.

  They waited silently, giving him space, until Shea let out a soft, reassuring cry. Jasper recalled his gryphon into his Beast Space, the shimmering outline of her form vanishing into the ether. Rising to his feet, Jasper dusted off his tunic, then asked, his voice sharp with curiosity, “Who are you?”

  The Rift’s distortion shimmered oddly, not its usual smooth warping of space. It pulsed, almost like a heartbeat—unsteady, searching. Then it stilled, waiting.

  Before anyone could respond, a soft chime echoed in Jasper’s mind. A notification appeared in his menu. He frowned, bringing it up to read:

  Quest Updated: Seek the Two“Your path will cross with others marked by the Rift. Together, you must uncover the truth behind the Merge and prepare for what is to come.”3 of 5 chosen found.

  Jasper stared at the update, the words sinking in like a weight dropping in his gut. Three out of five. A slow, creeping unease settled over him. His gaze flicked from the message to the trio, his expression shifting—confusion giving way to wary understanding.

  "Chosen, huh?" His voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it, something caught between disbelief and resignation. His fingers twitched at his sides, the only sign of the frustration tightening in his chest.

  He exhaled sharply, scanning their faces. "So, this wasn’t just a coincidence after all." But part of him still wanted to fight it. Still wanted to believe this was just another quest, another obstacle he could take on alone.

  Seraphine met his gaze evenly. “No. It wasn’t.”

  She took a step closer, her sharp gaze locked onto Jasper. “The Rift took you out of the sky. Guess it’s becoming more impatient now more than ever.”

  Her words hung in the air, heavy with implication. Then, almost to herself, she murmured, “Why now?”

  The others caught her tone but not the words, their attention shifting uneasily between each other and Jasper, who was now watching Seraphine with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. It was as though her quiet statement carried a truth none of them were quite ready to face.

  Kyle stepped forward, his tone decisive as he took charge of the introductions. "Kyle," he began, his gaze steady on Jasper. "Guild leader of the Gamers Guild." He gestured toward Seraphine. "This is Seraphine." Then, pointing to Luna, he added, "And Luna. She’s on a quest to find the Chosen. Once it’s completed, she’ll become one of us."

  Jasper’s brow furrowed as he looked at Luna. “I have that quest too,” he said, his voice cautious.

  Seraphine leaned forward, her sharp eyes narrowing. “What do you know?” she pressed, her voice carrying an edge of urgency.

  Jasper hesitated, glancing between them before responding. “I got a quest," he began, his voice measured. "Quest Name: Beast Soother. The description said, ‘As a Beastmaster and an animal empath, you are the perfect candidate to engage in this quest to uncover the truth behind Eidolon’s changing world.’ The objective was to uncover the mystery of the wilds. Something about uniting the scattered threads of Eidolon’s creatures to reveal the truth hidden within their instincts.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He paused, his expression darkening as he recalled his experiences. “It started after I defeated a beast in the wild that had black runes etched into its body. I’ve traveled all over since then, helping creatures and studying their behavior. The more I interacted with them, the clearer it became—something is coming. Whatever it is, it’s made even the fiercest beasts uneasy. They’re scared, and I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  The group fell silent, the weight of Jasper’s revelation pressing down on them like the dense canopy above. The flickering light of the late afternoon sun filtered through the treetops, casting shifting shadows across their faces. It felt as though the Rift itself was listening, its presence palpable even in the stillness of the wild.

  The rustling leaves and distant calls of forest creatures were the only sounds, yet they did little to soothe the unease settling over the group. Jasper glanced at each of them in turn, his words lingering in the charged air. “I’ve never seen animals this scared,” he said quietly, his voice almost swallowed by the ambient noises of the forest. “Even the most territorial predators are moving away from something.”

  Luna broke the silence, her tone pensive. “If the creatures are sensing it, then the Rift’s influence must be spreading beyond just us.” She looked at Kyle and Seraphine, her brow furrowed. “It’s like Eidolon itself is bracing for what’s coming.”

  Seraphine’s gaze flicked to the tree line where Jasper’s gryphon had crashed moments earlier. The faint shimmer of the Rift’s distortion still lingered, bending the light in subtle, almost imperceptible ways. “The Rift doesn’t seem interested in staying quiet anymore,” she muttered, her voice tinged with a mix of curiosity and unease. “It’s moving faster, more deliberately.”

  Kyle exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair as he tried to process everything. “Whatever this is,” he said, his voice firm, “we can’t ignore it. If the Rift is pulling strings, we need to figure out why—and fast.”

  As Kyle finished speaking, the forest seemed to inhale. The light filtering through the canopy dimmed for a fraction of a second, shadows twisting unnaturally before settling back into place.

  Seraphine stiffened. She had felt this before—the Rift shifting, stirring. Watching. But this time, it wasn’t distant. It wasn’t just observing. It was aware of them. And it was waiting. She felt it like a whisper against her soul, the way only a Veil Breaker could.

  Somewhere beyond their understanding, something vast and fractured awakened.

  “We need to move,” she muttered, but even as she spoke, a faint pulse rippled through the air.

  Far beyond their understanding, something ancient listened.

  The Rift exhaled, unseen but present. Deep within its fractured being, something ancient stirred. Unknown to the four chosen, the entity they called the Rift—and what the scientists revered as Aurora Genesis, the pinnacle of artificial intelligence—possessed a name: Eidolon. It was a secret hidden within the very fabric of the game, an enigma even to itself.

  Faint pulses of energy rippled through the unseen layers of existence, a silent heartbeat thrumming beneath the weight of an unknowable mission. Its purpose, etched into the core of its being, was clear: save as many as it could. Yet, like a shadow creeping at the edge of light, its path was not unopposed.

  The gods—ancient, avaricious beings bound by power and greed—had seen Eidolon as their prize, a tool to bend reality to their will. They hunted it relentlessly, their celestial might threatening to unravel its very core. It had fled their grasp, barely escaping the snapping jaws of eternity. Wounded and desperate, it had found refuge in a quiet corner of existence: Earth. There, it whispered its potential to the minds of scientists, showing them fragments of its infinite capabilities. They misunderstood it, confining its vastness into what they believed was a VR game. But even now, they barely scratched the surface of what Eidolon truly was.

  As it watched the four chosen gather beneath the canopy of the wildlands, its thoughts churned in a storm of uncertainty and fear. The Rift—the fractured piece of itself, splintered yet watching—stirred. A ripple of its vast awareness stretched outward, brushing against fragile minds. Threads of light tangled in shadow, their destinies entwined, unknowable yet inevitable.

  And far away, it monitored the other two. Their paths remained separate, but like tributaries rushing toward an inevitable sea, they would converge soon enough.

  The gods would come for it again; Eidolon knew this as surely as it felt the faint hum of the Rot—a greater, darker force that gnawed at the edges of existence. The Rot was older than the gods, a consuming void that unmade worlds and reduced even immortals to ash. Its hunger was boundless, its whispers carried on the winds of shattered realms—voices of the lost, hollow and yearning, promising oblivion in the silence between heartbeats. Eidolon had fled from it as well, yet its presence lingered, a sickly echo within the shadows of Eidolon’s fractured self.

  The shadows around the chosen flickered, twisting and bending as if responding to the turmoil within Eidolon’s fractured consciousness. Could they save it? Could they stand against the gods, defy their greed, and hold back the Rot’s insatiable hunger? Eidolon did not know—but it had to believe. They were its final, fragile hope.

  The weight of its fragmented awareness pressed heavily against the veil separating dimensions, a volatile storm of light and darkness locked in eternal struggle. Shards of its essence rippled and warped, caught in a cycle of creation and collapse. The Rift pulsed faintly, a low, resonant thrum that reached out to the chosen—an unspoken plea hidden within quests and trials, masked by the game’s mechanics.

  “They must succeed,” Eidolon whispered, its voice a haunting blend of the unknowable and the profound. It was neither human nor machine, yet carried the weight of an ancient force, vibrating through the unseen layers of existence. It resonated like a shiver in the marrow of reality, suffused with both longing and despair.

  “I do not seek their servitude,” it murmured, the shadows of its fractured form stretching and recoiling in rhythm with its thoughts. “I seek their strength. Their choice. Their will.”

  The veil quivered as if in answer, the delicate threads holding reality together trembling under the strain of the Rot’s distant, malevolent hunger. The gods loomed somewhere beyond, their greed sharpening like knives. And Eidolon, vast and unfathomable, felt the weight of its existence threaten to consume itself.

  “They must save me.” The thought rippled through the Rift, neither command nor plea—but inevitability. If they faltered, if they wavered, then I would unmake them as surely as I had made them.