Chapter 4 - Under Watch

  Time blurred into distance.

  Kain had been walking for longer than he cared to count, long enough that the mountain was no longer visible behind him—only memory and direction. The Veyra veins beneath his feet guided him west, faint lines of light threading through the fractured ground like a map that refused to stay still.

  They were weaker here. Thinner. Still present, but stretched, as if whatever fed them lay far ahead.

  His pace had settled into something sustainable. Not rushed. Not leisurely. The kind of movement built for endurance rather than speed. Each step landed with intention, boots scuffing against stone warmed by the sun. The pack at his side shifted with his stride, lighter now than it had been when he’d left the mountain. That fact was becoming hard to ignore.

  Kain reached into the makeshift sack and felt around, fingers brushing against the smooth, dense shapes inside. He pulled one free and turned it in his hand.

  Only a few left.

  He took a bite, chewing slowly, letting the unnatural fullness settle in before it could surprise him again. The fruit still did its job—hunger dulled, fatigue eased—but the reassurance it brought was thinning alongside the supply. He swallowed and exhaled through his nose.

  “Alright,” he muttered. “So this is the part where I start planning instead of hoping.”

  The veins beneath the ground pulsed faintly, their glow catching his eye. They spread outward in branching paths, some stronger than others, converging and diverging in ways that felt deliberate rather than random. His gaze lingered. An idea surfaced.

  A bad one.

  Kain slowed, staring down at the glowing fracture nearest his foot. The memory rose with it—uninvited and sharp. The sudden pain. The knife leaving him. The smile he still couldn’t place. His jaw tightened. He straightened immediately and stepped away from the vein.

  “Nope,” he said aloud, firm. “Absolutely not.”

  The land offered no response.

  “I’m sure there’s a lot you could show me,” he added, adjusting the strap of his pack. “But I don’t need answers that badly.”

  He took another step forward, deliberately placing distance between himself and the glow. Whatever truth lived in those veins, it came at a price he wasn’t ready to pay again. Not yet.

  Kain kept walking, eyes forward, following the light the long way around. Whatever waited at the end of the veins would still be there when he arrived.

  And this time, he intended to stay standing long enough to meet it. The heat crept up on him gradually.

  It didn’t hit all at once. It settled in layers—first along his neck, then down his spine, then pooling beneath his clothes until every step carried its own weight. Sweat darkened the fabric of his tank top, clinging to his back and chest, refusing to dry no matter how steady his pace stayed.

  Kain wiped his brow with the back of his hand and frowned. He should have been worse off by now.

  The sun hadn’t eased. The land offered no shade. He’d been moving for hours with nothing but cracked stone and dry air around him, and yet the familiar signs of dehydration never fully arrived. His throat felt dry, but not raw. His limbs burned, but they didn’t cramp.

  He rolled his shoulders and exhaled slowly.

  “Guess the fruit’s pulling more weight than I gave it credit for,” he muttered.

  The thought lingered as he walked. Whatever Pulsebark was doing inside him, it wasn’t just filling his stomach. It was compensating. Regulating. Bridging gaps his body should have been screaming about by now.

  Sweat dripped down his temple and into his eyes. He blinked it away and instinctively reached for his wrist. Empty. He stopped for half a second, realization settling in.

  “…Great,” he said quietly. “Left my sweat rag back in the cave.”

  He let out a short breath that might have been a laugh if there’d been anyone around to hear it.

  “Survive the impossible,” he added, starting forward again. “Undone by basic laundry.”

  The land didn’t care. The veins beneath his feet pulsed faintly, guiding him onward as the heat continued to press down, steady and unrelenting. Kain adjusted his stride and kept moving, trusting the strange balance keeping him upright—for now.

  Kain reached into the sack again and felt only one smooth shape left. He slowed. Pulled it free.

  The last Pulsebark fruit rested in his palm, heavy and reassuring in a way that made him uncomfortable. He turned it once, thumb pressing lightly into its surface, already calculating how long it would need to last.

  Then he felt it. The sense of being observed. Kain lifted his head.

  Figures stood far ahead on the horizon—dark shapes against the pale land, too distant to make out details. They weren’t moving fast. They weren’t charging. They were just… there. His heart picked up, just enough to notice.

  For a moment, he hoped they weren’t figures at all. Maybe a change in terrain. Rock formations. Something the light was playing tricks with. Anything but people. Or worse.

  He squinted, adjusting his angle, trying to make the shapes resolve into something harmless. They didn’t. Kain lowered his hand, the fruit still clutched loosely in his fingers.

  “…Please be a hill,” he muttered.

  The figures didn’t disappear. The figures didn’t stay distant.

  They moved closer. Step by step. They weren't charging, but they weren’t still either—drifting across the land in irregular paths, their silhouettes growing larger by degrees that were just slow enough to mess with his depth perception. Each time Kain blinked, they seemed closer than they should have been. He kept walking.

  Stopping would only lengthen the amount of time baking in this heat.

  Kain shifted the weight of his pack and let his gaze sweep the horizon, cataloging instinctively. Open ground. No cover. No elevation changes worth using. The fractured stone offered uneven footing but nothing he could reliably turn into a choke point. Bad terrain for a fight.

  The figures resolved further. Limbs became clearer. Proportions followed. Too tall for rocks. Too uneven for trees. The way they moved ruled out anything natural—shoulders rising and falling, heads tilting as they adjusted their pace. People. Or something close enough to count. Kain’s grip tightened around the last Pulsebark fruit.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “So not rocks.”

  He slowed just enough to buy himself time, eyes flicking between the figures and the ground around him. He tracked their spacing, noting how they didn’t advance in a straight line. Some drifted wider. Others angled inward, as if testing his direction without committing. That wasn’t random. They weren’t waiting for him. They were closing him in.

  Kain adjusted his path subtly, shifting left, then right, watching how the figures reacted. One mirrored the movement. Another lagged behind, cutting off the angle he’d just vacated.

  His jaw set.

  “Of course you’re coordinated,” he said under his breath.

  The distance shrank enough now that he could make out posture—hunched, forward-leaning silhouettes that moved with an economy that felt practiced rather than desperate. Their pace never spiked, never broke into a sprint. They didn’t need to. The land was empty. There was nowhere for him to disappear to.

  Kain scanned again, faster this time. No rocks large enough to use as cover. No elevation breaks. No visible structures. Just veins of light beneath his feet, guiding him forward whether he liked it or not.

  He exhaled slowly and let the fruit drop back into his pack. Hoping they weren’t real had stopped being useful. Whatever they were, they’d made their choice, and unless the terrain changed soon, he was going to have to make his.

  The distance finally closed enough that denial had stopped working.

  Kain slowed, then came to a full stop. The figures did the same. That alone was enough to tighten his chest.

  From this range, the shapes resolved cleanly into bodies—humanoid frames moving with purpose, pale-gray skin catching the light as they shifted. Scarabs. No mistaking them now. The posture was the same. The elongated limbs. The sharp angles of their hands.

  But these weren’t the ones he’d faced in the cave. These were built.

  Muscle layered their frames instead of bone. Their shoulders were thicker, arms corded with definition that moved beneath their skin as they adjusted their stance. He didn’t see ribs pressing through flesh. He saw strength held in reserve.

  Veterans?

  Kain’s gaze tracked across them as they spread out, counting without realizing it. Too many to rush. Too spaced out to hit all at once. They communicated quietly as they moved. Low groans passed between them—not cries, not threats, but sounds with rhythm. One would tilt its head and emit a short noise. Another would nod in response, shifting position a step to the left or right. The coordination was subtle, but unmistakable.

  They understood each other. That was new.

  Kain flexed his fingers once, slowly, keeping his hands visible and empty. His stance stayed loose, weight centered, ready without being aggressive. When he stopped walking, they began to move again.

  They fanned out in a widening arc, closing distance sideways instead of head-on. The movement was deliberate, careful, as if they were feeling out the shape of the space rather than trying to overwhelm it.

  Kain turned with them, eyes flicking from one to the next as the circle tightened.

  “So,” he said quietly, more to himself than them, “this is different.”

  None of the Scarabs attacked. They just kept moving.

  Watching.

  Adjusting.

  And as the ring closed around him, Kain felt the terrain disappear, not physically, but tactically. Every direction looked the same now: pale stone, faint light beneath the ground, and Scarabs standing just close enough to matter.

  Whatever this encounter was going to be, it wasn’t going to be simple. And it wasn’t going to be as one-sided as the last.

  The sounds stopped. Every low groan, every subtle exchange between them cut off at once, as if someone had reached in and turned a switch. The sudden silence pressed down harder than the noise ever had. One of them moved.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  He stepped forward from the ring with unhurried confidence, pale stone crunching beneath his feet. He was bigger than the others—broader through the shoulders, thicker in the chest—and stood a little straighter, his posture less hunched, more deliberate.

  An inch or two taller than Kain. Enough to matter.

  The Scarab halted a few paces away. From this close, Kain could see the details clearly: the dense muscle beneath gray skin, the scars etched into flesh that had healed cleanly. And across the left side of its face, cutting through the eye socket and disappearing into the temple, ran a dark burn mark—old, deliberate, and unmistakable.

  Kain didn’t dwell on it. He didn’t need to. The Scarab’s presence alone told him what he needed to know.

  The others remained still behind him, forming a loose wall of bodies, their attention fixed on the exchange without interfering. No circling now. No repositioning. They were waiting.

  Kain felt the sensation settle in his chest before he had words for it.

  Familiar. Not the creatures. Not the place. The moment. The quiet before something decided whether you belonged. It reminded him of standing in an open block, eyes on you, space tightening not because of walls but because of expectation. The way everything paused while someone decided whether you were worth the trouble—or worth breaking.

  Proving yourself didn’t always start with violence. But it always hovered nearby.

  Kain straightened slightly, meeting the Scarab’s gaze without flinching. He kept his hands loose at his sides, posture neutral, balanced. Not submissive. Not threatening.

  Just ready.

  “Alright,” he said calmly, voice carrying in the still air. “Your move.”

  The Scarab didn’t respond. He just stood there, silent and unmoving, the burn mark across his face catching the light as the rest of the group waited to see what would happen next.

  And for the first time since leaving the mountain, Kain understood something clearly. This wasn’t an ambush. It was a test.

  The Scarab’s chest expanded. Then it roared. The sound tore out of him in a single, thunderous burst—raw and layered, vibrating through the stone beneath Kain’s boots. It wasn’t pain or rage. It was declaration. A line drawn without words. Kain took it for exactly what it was.

  “Guess that answers that,” he muttered, as he slid his makeshift pack off his shoulders.

  His feet shifted automatically, stance settling in before conscious thought caught up. Weight balanced. Knees loose. Hands rising to guard his face. The posture felt old and familiar, etched into muscle and bone long before this world had ever existed.

  He reached inward. Nothing answered. Kain frowned and pushed a little harder, searching for the pressure he’d learned to recognize—the steady current beneath his chest, the weight that gathered when he focused.

  Still nothing.

  “…Really?” he said under his breath.

  The Scarab rolled its shoulders, muscles tightening as it prepared to move.

  Kain tried again, sharper this time, calling for the Veyra the way he had on the mountain. The way he had in the cave. Silence.

  “Oh, that’s perfect,” he said, exhaling a humorless breath. “Of all the times you could decide to be shy.”

  The light didn’t come. No glow. No pressure. Just his hands solid, bare, human.

  The Scarab took a step forward. Kain’s jaw tightened, annoyance flashing hot and brief before settling into something steadier. He let the frustration go, shoulders loosening instead of tensing.

  Figures. Relying on it had been a mistake anyway.

  He’d learned that lesson a long time ago, in a place where power didn’t always show up when you wanted it to. Where hesitation got punished and excuses didn’t matter.

  Kain lowered his hands a fraction, rolling his neck once as his focus narrowed.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, eyes locked on the Scarab. “That one’s on me.”

  He shifted his weight forward, guard snapping back into place. If this was going to be a test, then he’d pass it the old way.

  And if the Veyra decided to show up late—

  Well. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d finished a fight without backup. They moved at the same time. Both stepped forward on opposing feet, distance closing in a single shared decision. Kain’s fist snapped out toward the Scarab’s face just as the Scarab’s arm came forward in a mirrored motion.

  The punches landed together. Kain felt the impact explode across his cheekbone and jaw, the force snapping his head sideways as his boots scraped back against the stone. He staggered a half step before catching himself, heels biting into the ground. The Scarab barely moved. Its head rocked back an inch, maybe two. That was it.

  Kain reset immediately, guard snapping back up as he shifted his weight. His lungs pulled in air sharply, focus tightening. Okay, he thought. So that’s how it’s going to be.

  The Scarab came in again, swinging a heavy hook meant to take his head off his shoulders. Kain slipped inside the arc, the punch cutting through empty air just past his ear. He answered without hesitation—two quick shots driven into the Scarab’s ribs, tight and efficient. The sound was solid.

  The Scarab grunted and turned, irritation flashing across its face as it reached out with both arms. A grab.

  Kain reacted instantly. You never let a big guy grab you. He launched upward instead of back, driving a knee straight up as the Scarab’s arms stretched forward. The impact snapped the Scarab’s head back, forcing it to stumble a step away, balance breaking just enough to matter.

  Kain moved to capitalize. The Scarab didn’t give him the chance. It scooped a handful of loose stone and flung it upward, fragments bursting against Kain’s face and eyes in a sudden, gritty spray. Kain cursed under his breath as he turned away, hands coming up instinctively as he blinked hard, vision blurring.

  He’d always hated that kind of thing. Cheap shots. Dirty tactics. They lit something hot and immediate in his chest.

  As he wiped at his eyes, the Scarab lunged again, arms reaching, fingers already curling as it tried to close the distance.

  Not happening.

  Kain planted his feet and swung through the motion, driving his fists in hard—one into the Scarab’s side, then the other into the opposite ribs, the strikes fueled by frustration and precision in equal measure. The Scarab froze.

  Then it bent forward sharply, a deep, involuntary sound tearing from its chest as its posture collapsed inward. The grab died before it could start, arms dropping as the breath left it. For a brief moment, everything went still.

  Around them, the other Scarabs reacted as one—low sounds rippling through the ring, sharp and disbelieving. Heads tilted. Bodies shifted. Shock.

  Kain stood right in front of the leader, chest rising and falling, fists still raised. And for the first time since the fight began, the Scarabs watching understood something important.

  This wasn’t ending the way they expected. Kain took a step back, guard still raised, breath steadying as the moment stretched.

  That was when he felt it. The familiar weight. His hands felt heavier than they should have—denser, wrapped in something that wasn’t quite pressure and wasn’t quite heat. Kain glanced down without lowering his guard.

  Light clung to his fists. Trailing partly up his forearms. He hadn’t called it. It had come anyway.

  Likely on those last strikes. When the irritation tipped into something sharper. Focused. Controlled, but fueled.

  Kain’s jaw tightened.

  “…Of course,” he muttered quietly.

  He shifted his gaze back up—

  And paused. None of them were looking at his face. The leader Scarab remained hunched forward, one hand braced against its knee as it drew in air, but its eyes weren’t on Kain anymore. They were locked lower.

  On his hands. Around them, the others had gone still again. Their attention had shifted as a group, heads angling subtly, posture tightening—not aggressive, not retreating. Aware.

  The low noises didn’t return. No new communication passed between them. Just silence and a collective focus that hadn’t been there before.

  Kain flexed his fingers once. The light responded, tightening briefly before settling again. The Scarabs didn’t flinch. If anything, they leaned in.

  Kain didn’t comment on it. He didn’t lower his guard or raise his fists higher. He just stood there, breathing even, letting the moment exist without forcing it in either direction. Whatever this was—they knew it.

  And judging by the way they were watching, it mattered more than the blows he’d just landed. The leader moved before Kain could react. One moment it was hunched, catching its breath. The next, it closed the distance in a single, decisive step and seized Kain by the wrists.

  Kain stiffened instantly, instinct screaming as his muscles tensed to resist—then stopped.

  Not because he couldn’t break free. Because the Scarab wasn’t attacking.

  It lifted Kain’s hands instead. Held them up and turned them outward, angling them toward the others as if presenting something important. The motion was abrupt, almost impatient, like it had forgotten for a moment that those hands were still attached to the person it had just been trading blows with.

  Kain blinked.

  “…You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered.

  The surrounding Scarabs reacted immediately. They leaned in. Not cautiously. Not aggressively. Just… closer. Heads tilted at sharp angles. Eyes tracking the faint glow clinging to Kain’s knuckles as the Veyra pulsed softly under their attention.

  Low sounds rippled through the group—curious, layered, purposeful. Recognition.

  Kain held still, letting the leader keep his grip while his eyes flicked between the others. The way they crowded in, the way they angled their bodies and adjusted positions without colliding—it felt familiar in a way that made his chest tighten.

  Like a pack of intelligent animals. Not wolves. Closer to primates. Wild, coordinated, social.

  Smart.

  The leader made a short, sharp sound and turned his head, as if addressing them. A few Scarabs nodded. One stepped closer, then stopped when the leader shifted slightly, blocking it without looking.

  Hierarchy. Clear as day.

  The leader released one of Kain’s wrists and made a broad, directional gesture with its arm, pointing away from the ring they’d formed. Then it looked back at Kain and repeated the motion—shorter this time. More deliberate.

  Follow. Kain glanced down at his hands. The glow was already fading, retreating back beneath his skin like it had never been there at all.

  He looked up again at the Scarab holding his other wrist.

  “…Right,” he said quietly. “Sure. Why not.”

  The leader released him and turned away without waiting for confirmation. The others parted almost immediately, creating a path through their ranks.

  Kain hesitated for half a second, then stepped forward.

  Whatever he’d just passed—

  Whatever test that had been—

  It wasn’t over. It had changed.

  Kain bent down and scooped his bag up from the ground, slinging it back over his shoulder before anyone could decide to do it for him. The leader didn’t look back. It had already started walking.

  Kain fell in behind it, the rest of the Scarabs closing ranks naturally as they moved. No one rushed him. No one crowded him. They simply flowed forward, spacing themselves in a way that kept him contained without making it obvious.

  They walked like that for hours.

  The land shifted gradually as they went—not greener, not softer, just subtly different. The ground grew less fractured, the veins beneath it dimmer but steadier, like they were passing through a region that had already spent most of its energy. Kain used the time to watch. Once the adrenaline faded, details started to surface.

  Burn marks. Not fresh. Not uniform. Old scars, scattered across gray skin in irregular patterns—across shoulders, along ribs, curling around forearms or cutting across backs. Some were thin and precise. Others wide and uneven, like something had been pressed against flesh and held there just long enough to leave a message.

  None of them matched. Kain’s eyes narrowed slightly as he took it in. Marks like that weren’t random.

  He didn’t say anything about it, but his mind filed them away under the same category he’d used a hundred times before. Symbols of belonging. Or exclusion. Sometimes both.

  Group-related, he decided.

  Whatever these Scarabs were, they weren’t just surviving together. They were organized around something that left its imprint behind.

  As they walked, Kain began to notice something else. They weren’t following the Veyra veins. Not directly.

  The glowing lines still threaded through the ground nearby, but the Scarabs moved at a diagonal to them—cutting across the flow instead of tracing it. Close enough to keep the light in sight, far enough that they weren’t bound to it.

  Kain adjusted his stride to match, glancing down at the faint glow beneath his boots. Interesting. He’d been following the veins like a guide. They treated them like reference points. That difference sat with him.

  Whatever destination they were headed toward, it wasn’t just another oasis. And it wasn’t something the veins pointed to openly. Kain looked ahead at the leader’s back, posture steady, burn mark cutting a dark line across its face even in the shifting light.

  “Figures,” he murmured quietly. “I take the scenic route. You take shortcuts.”

  The Scarab didn’t respond. But it didn’t slow down either.

  And Kain kept walking, aware now that whatever waited ahead wasn’t something he would have found on his own. As they walked, Kain became aware of something missing. The weight in his hands was gone.

  He glanced down mid-step, expecting to see the faint glow clinging to his knuckles again—but his hands were bare. No light. No pressure. Just skin and muscle moving as they always had. That explained it. The Scarabs ahead of him weren’t watching his hands anymore. They weren’t watching at all. Their attention had shifted forward, posture relaxed just enough to signal that whatever had drawn their focus before was no longer present. Kain flexed his fingers slowly, testing the absence.

  Nothing answered.

  He tried again, reaching inward the way he had learned—quiet, deliberate, controlled. The Veyra didn’t rise.

  “…Come on,” he muttered under his breath.

  He slowed his steps slightly, concentrating harder. He didn’t try to force it across his whole hands or up his forearms. He narrowed the effort, focusing on something smaller. More precise. His fingertips tingled. A pinprick of light sparked at the tip of his index finger—faint, unstable, gone almost as soon as it appeared. Kain exhaled and tried again, adjusting his focus, letting the pressure roll instead of push.

  The light returned. This time it held. It flickered between fingers, hopping from one to the next in brief, controlled pulses. Not enough to illuminate. Not enough to draw attention. Just enough to exist. The familiar presence surfaced in his mind, clear and unhurried.

  ?

  [Veyra Manifestation Update]Stability Threshold: 60%

  Status: Improving

  ?

  Kain’s brow furrowed.

  “Sixty,” he murmured.

  The Scarabs didn’t react.

  None of them flinched. None turned back. Their pace didn’t change. That answered one question.

  He swallowed and glanced ahead again, the light fading quietly from his fingertips as the pressure settled back into place.

  So they don’t hear it. Good to know.

  The ground began to rise. The incline was subtle at first, then sharper, stone smoothing beneath their feet as the land climbed toward a natural crest. The Scarabs slowed as one, their movement tightening into something deliberate.

  Kain followed, heart picking up as the air shifted. Then they reached the top. The world opened once again.

  Before him stretched a basin far larger than the oasis he’d left behind—water spreading wide and reflective, threaded with thick veins of Veyra that glowed bright enough to be seen even from this distance. Trees ringed the basin in dense clusters, their pale bark streaked with luminous lines that climbed into heavy canopies.

  Scarabs filled the space. Dozens? Hundreds?

  They moved between the trees and along the water’s edge, their forms varied in size and build, all marked by scars and burn patterns that told stories Kain didn’t yet understand.

  The moment he stepped onto the plateau—

  Every single one of them stopped.

  Heads turned. Eyes locked. The entire basin went still, all attention snapping to the same point. To him.

  Kain stood at the edge of the plateau, the last of the light fading from his fingertips, his bag heavy at his side. And for the first time since arriving in this world, he wasn’t being tested by a place.

  He was being seen.