The forest was different there.
Caelan noticed it the moment he passed the first line of trees.
Sunlight barely managed to slip through the thick canopy of leaves, and the air felt colder than in the rest of the forest. It wasn't just a feeling. It was something deeper.
Something ancient.
Something that had been there for a very long time.
Caelan moved slowly between twisted roots and moss-covered trunks. Every step was careful as he watched the ground, the trees, the wind.
Listening.
A forest was never truly silent.
There were always sounds.
Insects.
Birds.
Branches shifting.
But here…
Nothing.
Silence.
That confirmed what he already knew.
"It's still here…" he murmured.
The hill appeared ahead of him between the trees.
It was larger than it had looked from afar. The ground was covered with thick roots that slithered across the slope like enormous veins, and several dark rocks jutted out from the damp soil.
In one of his lives, Caelan had spent three full days searching for this place.
In another, he had found it by accident.
In the twenty-third life, he had discovered what lay beneath it.
And it had allowed him to survive five more years.
Five years.
An eternity compared to many of his other lives.
Caelan began climbing the hill.
The roots creaked beneath his worn boots.
As he moved, his hand slowly drifted toward his belt and he drew the knife.
His uncle's knife.
The blade wasn't elegant or special. It was a tool, meant for cutting meat or rope.
But it was sharp.
Caelan remembered the sound of his uncle sharpening it that morning.
Thirty-seven times.
Thirty-seven times he had watched that man die.
And yet…
he was still using his knife.
He kept climbing.
The smell came first.
A faint stench.
Rotting flesh.
Caelan stopped.
His amber eyes slowly scanned the ground.
The slope.
The roots.
The rocks.
And then he saw them.
Tracks.
Sunken into the mud.
Too large for a wolf.
Too twisted for any normal animal.
Caelan let out a soft sigh.
"So you're here this time too…"
He knew what it meant.
He knew what was living beneath the hill.
He knew exactly where its lair was.
And he also knew something else.
In his first life…
he had died here.
The memory surfaced in his mind with brutal clarity.
He had been young.
Naive.
He had heard rumors of something strange in the forest and came to investigate.
He had found the entrance.
He had thought it was just an animal.
And then…
the creature had torn him off the ground before he could react.
Its claws had opened his chest.
He had died in seconds.
Caelan looked down at the earth.
"Not this time."
He moved forward.
Climbing the last few meters of the hill until he reached a small hollow tangled in enormous roots.
There it was.
A dark hole.
The entrance to a burrow dug beneath the hill.
The earth around it had been disturbed.
There were bones.
Small ones.
Animals.
But not only animals.
Caelan recognized the shape of one of the bones.
A human arm.
Old.
Bleached by time.
The smell was stronger here.
Rot.
Old meat.
Caelan gripped the knife firmly.
He knew he couldn't simply walk in.
Creatures like that always knew when something approached their lair.
The forest was too silent for it not to already know he was there.
Caelan stepped closer to the entrance.
The sound came immediately.
Scraping.
Something moving beneath the earth.
Then…
a wet growl.
Something burst out of the hole.
Too fast.
Caelan barely had time to react.
The creature leapt toward him with a horrific shriek.
A ghoul.
Its body was humanoid, but twisted.
Gray skin clung to its bones like dried leather. Its arms were too long, ending in curved black claws. Its jaw protruded grotesquely, filled with yellow, jagged teeth.
Its eyes…
were completely white.
The ghoul crashed toward Caelan.
Caelan threw himself sideways.
The claws passed inches from his face and slammed into a thick root with a sharp crack.
The creature moved again immediately.
Too fast for a normal person.
But Caelan already knew that.
He had fought these things before.
"You're faster in the first few seconds…" he murmured.
The ghoul shrieked and lunged again.
Caelan stepped forward.
At the last second, he twisted his body.
The ghoul's claws grazed his shoulder, tearing through the fabric of his shirt.
Caelan drove the knife forward.
The blade sank into the creature's side.
The ghoul screamed.
But it didn't fall.
Creatures like that didn't feel pain the way humans did.
The ghoul's claw slammed into Caelan's chest.
The impact threw him to the ground.
The air rushed from his lungs.
The ghoul lunged down at him.
Caelan rolled across the ground just as the claws struck.
The earth tore open where his head had been.
He got to his feet instantly.
The ghoul turned toward him.
Slower now.
The wound in its side dripped a dark substance.
"Yes…" Caelan said between breaths. "Now you're injured."
He remembered this.
Ghouls were fast at the start.
But their endurance wasn't great.
If you managed to wound them once…
they slowed down.
The creature attacked again.
This time Caelan was ready.
He dodged.
Grabbed a thick root to push himself forward—
And drove the knife directly into the creature's neck.
The blade pierced the rotting flesh.
The ghoul shrieked violently.
Its claws clamped around Caelan's arm.
The black nails dug into his skin.
Pain exploded through his arm.
But Caelan didn't let go of the knife.
He pushed harder.
Deeper.
Until the blade pierced completely through the creature's throat.
The ghoul convulsed.
Its white eyes trembled.
Then its body collapsed onto the damp earth.
Silence.
Caelan stayed still for a few seconds.
Breathing.
Then he shoved the corpse aside.
He looked at his arm.
Three long cuts.
Bleeding.
But not deep.
"I've had worse…" he muttered.
He pulled the knife from the corpse.
Wiped it against the grass.
Then looked toward the burrow entrance.
Dark.
Deep.
The place he had come for from the beginning.
He crouched and picked up a small stone.
He tossed it inside.
No movement.
"Good."
Caelan took a deep breath.
Then crouched and entered.
The burrow was narrow at first.
The earth was damp and the smell was unbearable.
But after a few meters, the tunnel widened into a small underground chamber.
Caelan stepped inside.
There were more bones there.
Many more.
Animals.
Some human.
But that wasn't what mattered.
At the center of the chamber…
something was half-buried in the dirt.
A black stone.
The size of a fist.
Its surface was covered with strange lines.
Caelan recognized it immediately.
His heart began to beat faster.
"There you are…"
He knelt down.
Brushed away the dirt around it.
And lifted the stone.
It was cold.
Colder than the forest air.
The lines carved into its surface faintly glowed when he held it.
It had taken him months to understand what it was.
But this time…
he already knew.
A relic.
Ancient.
Dangerous.
But useful.
A small smile appeared on Caelan's face.
"Now then…"
He looked at the black stone in his hand.
"Now we can begin."
Above, in the forest…
the wind began to move through the trees.
And very far away…
something else in the forest stirred.
As if it had felt that something had awakened.
End of Chapter 3