Chapter 25 — Threads of Control

  Cycle 22,841 of the Dragon Era — Day 133

  Twilight

  I woke up sharply.

  Not from danger—but from instinct.

  For a moment, I lay still, the weight of exhaustion still clinging to my body. Then memory surfaced.

  I had fallen asleep mid-practice.

  I sat up immediately.

  The light filtering through the trees was wrong.

  Too dim.

  Twilight.

  I exhaled slowly. I hadn’t slept long—but long enough that dawn was already close.

  There was no time to waste.

  After washing and clearing my head, I returned to the clearing and picked up a thin stick. No hesitation. No ceremony.

  I lifted it.

  The stick rose.

  Smooth.

  Controlled.

  I tried again—then switched to a stone.

  Same result.

  Not clumsy. Not unstable.

  That settled it.

  Yesterday hadn’t been a fluke.

  And the second thing I noticed… was exactly what I had suspected before.

  My core didn’t stir.

  There was no pull from my chest. No warmth draining inward. No resistance. The flow didn’t originate from me at all.

  The mana I was using wasn’t mine.

  It came from the air.

  From the ground.

  From the space surrounding the object itself.

  I wasn’t expending my own mana—I was guiding what already existed.

  Ambient mana.

  I let the object fall and stood there quietly, processing.

  This wasn’t casting.

  This was manipulation.

  And that distinction mattered more than I had realized yesterday.

  I already knew the rule.

  Mana exertion was off-limits.

  My core was unstable. Any attempt to force mana outward didn’t just fail—it turned inward, overheating tissue, burning from the inside. Yesterday had proven that clearly enough.

  Which was exactly why I wanted to try again.

  Not recklessly.

  Carefully.

  I stayed where I was supposed to be. I moved like I was practicing control—lifting, guiding, releasing ambient mana the way Cira taught me.

  No one watched.

  No one corrected me.

  Only when the clearing was quiet did I shift my focus.

  Inward.

  I gathered mana at my palm.

  Slowly.

  Deliberately.

  The moment I began exertion, the pain returned.

  Heat flared under my skin—sharp, immediate. Tissue screamed in protest as the mana tried to escape through flesh that wasn’t ready to channel it.

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  My teeth clenched.

  I didn’t stop.

  Because this time, I did something different.

  I split my focus.

  As the mana burned, I healed.

  Not after.

  Not once the damage was done.

  Simultaneously.

  The sensation was horrific.

  My skin blistered—and knit itself back together.

  Muscle tore—and reformed.

  Pain overlapped pain until it blurred into something almost abstract.

  But beneath it, something else happened.

  The damage stopped accumulating.

  The healing didn’t outpace the burn—but it kept up.

  Barely.

  My breath shook, sweat pouring down my back as I forced both processes to continue. Exertion. Healing. Exertion. Healing.

  Then—

  A flicker.

  Not inside my hand.

  In front of it.

  A flame.

  Small. Unstable. Real.

  I felt it before I saw it—the pressure leaving my palm, the heat no longer trapped inside my flesh.

  It worked.

  The realization nearly made me lose focus.

  The flame sputtered, my healing slipped for half a heartbeat, and agony surged again—

  “Enough.”

  Kael’s voice cut through the clearing like a blade.

  He had been watching the entire time.

  And I already knew the rule.

  Mana exertion was forbidden. Completely.

  Once the pain in my hand faded, another question surfaced.

  “…Aren’t we going on a hunt today?” I asked.

  Kael didn’t look at me when he answered.

  “No.”

  That alone felt wrong.

  The forest wasn’t quiet.

  Even without focusing, I could feel it—auras far beyond the territory. Strong ones. Not close, but present. Shifting. Pressing against the edges of my awareness.

  Something Umbra had told me once came back to me.

  If too much power is used… something stronger notices.

  “…When you saved me,” I asked carefully,

  “did the pack use their full strength?”

  Kael was silent for a moment.

  “Yes.”

  The answer tightened my chest.

  “So that means—”

  “You don’t need to worry about it,” Kael interrupted calmly.

  “They are already being dealt with.”

  “…By who?”

  “The Elder,” he said. “And the Guardians.”

  Only then did I truly focus outward.

  The auras I sensed weren’t random.

  They were converging.

  Multiple presences—ancient, powerful—moving with intent toward this region.

  But they weren’t reaching us.

  They were being stopped.

  Redirected.

  Broken apart before crossing an unseen boundary.

  And beneath it all—far deeper than the others—I felt something else.

  Not advancing.

  Not pursuing.

  A presence so vast it didn’t need to move to be felt.

  It didn’t press down on the forest.

  It held it steady.

  I swallowed.

  “…That aura,” I murmured. “The one underneath everything.”

  Kael nodded.

  “Elder Fenris.”

  The realization settled heavily.

  Whatever had been drawn here …

  by the power unleashed that night…

  It wasn’t being ignored.

  It was being intercepted—

  long before it could ever reach us.

  Then Kael spoke.

  “I need to leave today.

  To meet the Elder. To report everything that has happened.

  Cira, you are in charge.”

  Cira nodded.

  Kael left.

  After a moment, Cira spoke quietly.

  “I wonder how the Elder will react to all of this,” Cira said quietly.

  “Until now, it was clear she did not view you as a threat. But after what has happened…”

  She paused, ears flicking once.

  “I am not certain.”

  She turned to me suddenly, ears flattening.

  “Oh— I didn’t mean to scare you,” Cira said quickly. “It was only a possibility.”

  She steadied herself, then continued more calmly.

  “I am sure the Elder will understand. She is that kind of being.”

  Her gaze softened.

  “Do not worry about it.”

  “I hope so,” I replied.

  My attention drifted away from her—to the massive pile of cotton-like fiber stacked nearby.

  Asterspun.

  The same material my current clothes were made from.

  I frowned.

  “Why is there so much of it?” I asked. “That’s… excessive.”

  Cira looked at me as if the answer should have been obvious.

  She didn’t respond.

  At first.

  And then—

  It clicked.

  Her gaze back then.

  The pause when she’d looked at my shirt.

  The sudden decision to begin mana control training.

  I had been wondering what idea she’d gotten just from seeing my clothes.

  But this?

  This was ridiculous.

  Impossible.

  The stick training.

  The stones.

  The basic manipulation.

  They weren’t the goal.

  They were preparation.

  Asterspun wasn’t gathered for warmth.

  Or replacement clothing.

  It was gathered for me.

  She wanted me to make the cloth—

  the way she once had.

  Not with my hands.

  With mana.

  The realization sent a chill down my spine.

  Using my hands, maybe—somehow—I could manage it.

  But weaving fiber like that…

  Shaping it.

  Aligning it.

  Maintaining tension, consistency, structure—

  All through mana manipulation?

  I swallowed.

  This wasn’t training.

  This was madness.

  And so, it began.

  I was told to start.

  No further instructions followed.

  I would have to figure it out myself—how to sense the mana within asterspun, how to guide it, how to coax raw fiber into thread using nothing but control.

  It took an absurd amount of time just to understand how the mana moved inside the fiber—how it resisted, how it twisted back when pushed too hard. Turning that motion into something deliberate was another struggle entirely.

  Thread creation came even later.

  And when it finally did…

  Calling it a “thread” felt generous.

  It was uneven. Fragile. Barely held together.

  But it existed.

  My head throbbed from the focus it demanded, sweat clinging to my skin as I kept trying—again and again—correcting, adjusting, failing.

  Still, I continued.

  Kael had not yet returned.

  So I practiced.

  Again.

  And again.

  When the thread finally stabilized, it was… even.

  Thin. Clean. Real.

  I guided it carefully, afraid that any lapse would unravel everything. Slowly, painfully, the length grew—no longer jagged, no longer fraying at the edges.

  By the time I stopped, it was no longer than my finger.

  It would have seemed insignificant to anyone else.

  But it had taken everything I had.

  My focus shattered the moment I released it. My head swam, breath coming shallow as exhaustion crashed over me all at once.

  And then—

  I felt it.

  So did the rest of the pack.

  A presence.

  Kael.

  He had returned.

  The clearing stirred as he stepped out from the trees. His posture was the same as always—steady, composed.

  I watched him closely, searching for something—anything—to read in his expression.

  Kael spoke calmly.

  “I reported everything,” he said.

  “The Devourer. The threat. And what was required to end it. Yuu’s abnormal core… and the corrupt one.”

  He paused only briefly.

  “She listened to all of it,” Kael said. “And when I finished… she finally spoke.”

  His voice slowed.

  “She said she understood the situation.”

  I felt my breath catch.

  “However,” Kael continued, “she also said that even she cannot make the second core disappear. It is now part of Yuu’s existence.”

  The words settled heavily.

  “She said only he can save himself,” Kael added quietly. “By never choosing to use it.”

  He stopped.

  Just for a moment.

  Not in hesitation—

  but as if something else remained unspoken.

  Then he continued, deliberately shifting the conversation.

  “She told me to watch over you,” Kael said. “And she left a message for you.”

  His eyes met mine again.

  “Train to control your mana as soon as possible.”

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