The world was dying, and yet, it was blooming.
Cyrus Solith moved through a terrain that had been a rainforest barely two weeks ago. Now, a wet, heavy snow fell, dusting enormous ferns and exotic, unrecognizable flora that were trying desperately to survive them.
The biome was an atrocity, the scent of pine needles and damp earth was layered with the metallic tang of newly exposed minerals and the sickly-sweet decay of things that didn't adapt fast enough.
"This place is tiring", he thought, pulling the collar of his jacket up higher.
He wasn't a cartographer, but surviving Tessera for as long as he did. as he measured it, one-nine-eight of them in fact, made him a keen observer. Any structure, any temporary stability, was usually found in the wake of the latest disassembly.
He cut his momentum instantly, his worn-out sneakers planting hard on the slick ground.
A sound. Not the drip of melting snow or the faint rumble of the planet settling into a new form of itself. This was a growl.
He counted them instantly. Six.
A horde of wolves slowly walked in from behind the skeletal root system of a massive, frozen tree. They weren't natural predators.
Their evolution was accelerated, grotesque, thick, mottled fur, claws like obsidian shards, and the disturbing, serpentine curve of their lower bodies that made their four legs move with an unnatural speed.
They were six feet tall at the shoulder, muscle and hunger, the ugly, persistent byproduct of the world's bio-engineering.
Cyrus felt the usual spike of adrenaline, quickly tamped down by habit and the dull, ever-present ache of social exhaustion. He didn't usually want to fight. He only ever wanted to be left alone to walk and count.
But the Chimera didn't scatter. They were focused, their yellow eyes fixed not entirely on him, but on a point behind them.
They're guarding something.
He sighed internally. Killing six Chimera wolves was less effort than trying to flank them in this miserable weather. He moved.
The first move was fast, a near-instantaneous pivot. He was as fast as a high-speed fighter jet, the kind of speed that existed briefly, intensely, warping the air immediately around him before he cut the momentum again, hair flowing, coat fluffing. He was in the middle of the horde before they could fully commit to the lunge.
His speed, however, was just a distraction.
His hand shot out, not to punch, but to touch the grotesque, elongated head of the nearest Chimera. As his fingers brushed the damp fur, a curved, faint blue line on his left wrist began to glow.
"Iteration Two"
He whispered the command, a necessary incantation to focus the disruptive energy.
The Pattern pulsed once. The effect was silent and invisible, but devastating. The Chimera's head was instantly detached, a clean, high-velocity cut that bypassed bone and tissue structure entirely. The body collapsed before the head even hit the ground.
He spun on the ball of his foot, his elbow connecting briefly with the snout of a second beast, activating the Pattern again. A third, leaping from behind, found his open palm grazing its throat.
One touch, one kill. No blood splatter, just sudden, heavy stillness.
The remaining three, confused by the instantaneous collapse of their pack mates, hesitated, a fatal error. Cyrus didn't need to chase them.
He initiated three more simultaneous touches in the space of a single breath, his movement a controlled chaos of hand to head contact.
The Arc Pattern on his wrist faded. He released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He didn't look at the mess of fur and claws.
All the gore was one of the many things he didn't like about his power; he hated looking at unnecessary things.
He continued walking in the direction the Chimera had been protecting.
It wasn't a trove of Tesserae. It was a structure. Specifically, a cave on the side of a freshly rearranged rocky rise.
Cyrus stopped, the faint scent of stone and cold air hitting him. "A cave? In the rainforest? And I thought I've seen everything." He spoke only to himself, the words barely audible over the rustle of the frozen leaves.
Her instructions had been frustratingly vague, and he hated vagueness.
He ducked into the shadow. The interior was cool, oddly quiet, and structurally sound. Too normal. He took three cautious steps before his foot sank.
Sinking sand. In a cave.
"Really?" He sighed again, the sheer absurdity of Tessera's random malice wearing on his limited patience. He needed to be quick. Activating Severance on sand was stupid and wasteful, but effective.
"Plus one, iteration."
The Pattern glowed. The sand beneath him did not combust, but it tore apart, the destructive capability of the Pattern generating localized slashes.
The moisture in the sand evaporated, and the organic components charred, turning the immediate area into a dark, unstable crater.
He launched himself upward, propelled by his own physical force, hitting the cave wall. He didn't drop. He used the brief moments of contact, running vertically, horizontally, occasionally dropping into a controlled fall, feet seldom touching the sinking sand.
The passage seemed endless, the tunnel spiraling deeper across the earth. Finally, his forward progress was arrested by a sheer, solid rock face.
He swore quietly. "But she said it was here… Or did the Cave move?"
He punched the wall. The rock broke easily, too easily, crumbling into soft, pure dust. He pressed his left ear against the broken surface. A draft, warm and dry, hit his face.
"Beyond this is air".
He brought his left hand up, his fingers touching the edge of the fracture. He didn't want a hole; he needed a passage.
"Plus three iteration."
The Pattern flared, stronger this time, the blue glow a sharper hue. He dragged his hand down and across the rock face. It was segmented, cut into enormous chunks, each cleanly separated from the next.
He pushed the chunks aside, revealing a space beyond.
His eyes, which had been dull with exhaustion and habit, widened slightly.
The interior was vast, the air thick with a preserved stillness. At the center of the chamber, illuminated by an inexplicable, soft, glowing light. A face, the ghost from one-nine-eight Shifts ago…flashed in his mind. "Come and get me, Cyrus".
"This is where it begins…. But not where it began."