Word of Vash's death spread faster than wildfire, and with it came the consequences. The boy had killed a powerful figure in the black market, and there were many who had profited under Vash's rule. His death left a power vacuum, one that sent ripples through the underworld. But that was not the worst of it.

  There was now a bounty on the boy's head.

  Not just any bounty. A fortune.

  Two separate prices were placed. One for his life, and another far larger, for his cloak.

  It was clear that those who ruled the black market knew something about his cloak. They had heard rumors of its power, seen how Vash desired it, and understood that it was no ordinary piece of fabric. To the rich and the desperate, it was now the most valuable artifact in existence.

  The boy moved quickly, leaving behind the country where he had slain Vash. He kept to the shadows, avoiding the main roads. But it wasn't long before the bounty hunters came for him.

  Outside of the Shrouded Spires, a region of swamp and mist, became his battleground. As he navigated the uneven terrain, he sensed movement around him. The first arrow came from above, whistling through the air. He twisted, dodging at the last moment, the cloak snapping out like a whip to deflect the shot.

  Then they descended upon him.

  At least a dozen of them. They were not professionals, no, these were desperate men, amateur assassins drawn by the promise of riches. They wielded rusted blades and cheap crossbows, their stances unsteady. The boy knew immediately, they were no match for him.

  One rushed forward, a dagger in hand. The boy sidestepped effortlessly, grabbing the man's wrist and twisting. A sickening crack echoed through the air as the bone snapped, followed by a scream. The cloak flared, striking another hunter across the chest, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

  The rest hesitated.

  "Cowards!" one of them barked. "There's only one of him! He's just a boy!"

  The boy exhaled. They weren't wrong. He was young. But he had been forced into bloodshed long before this moment.

  Two more charged at him together. He met them head-on, ducking under a wild swing and driving his fist into the first attacker's gut. The second managed to slash his shoulder, but the cloak lashed out on its own, wrapping around the man's arm and yanking him backward with terrifying force. His body slammed into a jagged rock, and he crumpled instantly.

  The rest of the hunters fled, realizing their mistake. The boy let them go. He wiped the blood from his face, the cloak shifting as if satisfied.

  But this was only the beginning. He had no illusions. this bounty would bring stronger enemies soon.

  He had to keep moving.

  The Journey West

  The boy set his sights westward. His dreams were growing clearer now, sharper with each passing night. The images no longer felt distant or abstract. They felt like memories—memories of a place he had never been but somehow knew existed.

  Those dreams had given him the clue. He needed to go west.

  The land stretched endlessly before him, transforming from dense forests to rocky plains, then to barren wastes. The further he traveled, the more isolated he became. Towns became rare, and the people he encountered spoke of the desolate lands ahead with fear.

  "Nothing grows there," an old traveler warned him. "The land is cursed. Only the dead remain."

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  But the boy did not stop.

  Each night, his dreams intensified. He saw flashes of a great abyss, a lake so vast it swallowed the sky, and a tree unlike any other. The whispers in his mind grew stronger, urging him forward. When he awoke, the urge to move westward was overwhelming, as if something was pulling him in that direction.

  He endured sandstorms that stung his skin like needles, crossed cracked earth where nothing lived, and drank from rivers that ran black with sediment. His cloak protected him, shielding him from the worst of the elements, but exhaustion still gnawed at his bones.

  Then, after days of relentless travel, he found it.

  A lake, vast and unmoving, reflecting the sky like a perfect mirror. But something about it felt wrong. There was no wind, yet the surface was eerily still. No animals drank from its waters. The air smelled faintly of something ancient.

  And then, a whisper.

  Infra

  The boy shuddered. The voice was not his own, nor was it the cloak's. It came from somewhere else. Somewhere beneath the water.

  Steeling himself, he approached the lake's edge. The surface was eerily still, smooth as polished glass, reflecting the sky with unnatural clarity. It looked solid, like he could step onto it and walk across. But he knew better.

  Heart pounding, he crouched and reached out.

  The moment his fingertips touched the water, he expected ripples, expected the cool sensation of liquid shifting under his touch. But there was nothing. No disturbance, no movement. Instead, the surface clung to his skin like a living thing.

  Then, without warning, the cloak pulled him in.

  A gasp caught in his throat as he was yanked beneath. The world above vanished in an instant, swallowed by the dark, soundless abyss.

  The cold was merciless. It seized him, stabbing into his skin like ice shards. His breath burst from his lungs in a frantic stream of bubbles. He kicked, thrashed, but something held him fast. The lake was dragging him deeper, its unseen grip unrelenting.

  Panic roared to life inside him. His chest tightened. His lungs burned, screaming for air. He reached, clawing at the water, trying to find the surface. But up and down had blurred into one.

  He was drowning.

  Then the cloak moved.

  A sudden, liquid shift against his skin. It rippled, then wrapped itself around his face. He flinched, it sealed itself over his mouth and nose.

  And he breathed.

  His eyes widened in shock. Cold, crisp air filled his lungs as if he were standing on dry land. It made no sense. He was still deep underwater. Yet the cloak had given him what he needed most.

  He didn't question it. He couldn't afford to.

  Instead, he let himself sink.

  The world around him darkened. The last remnants of light from above faded, swallowed by the endless depths. For a moment, there was nothing, just the silence, the vast emptiness pressing in on all sides.

  A force unlike anything he had ever felt pressed against him. The lake's crushing weight should have flattened him, turned his bones to dust. He could feel it straining at the edges of his body, like a great hand squeezing tighter with every second. But the cloak held. A warmth pulsed through the fabric, pushing back against the pressure, creating a pocket of safety around him. Without it, he knew he wouldn't have lasted a second at these depths.

  Then, far below, something stirred.

  A glow.

  Faint at first, like a dying ember, but as he descended, it grew brighter, pulsing with a rhythmic, living energy. He squinted, straining to make sense of it. The glow twisted through the water, stretching downward, as if guiding him toward something hidden beneath the lake's depths.

  A cavern.

  The entrance yawned before him, nestled within the jagged rock at the lake's bottom. Its mouth was lined with veins of golden light, twisting like the roots of an ancient tree. The glow seeped from within, pulsing in slow, steady beats, like a heartbeat.

  everything changed.

  Warmth.

  A sudden, overwhelming shift in temperature, replacing the bitter cold in an instant. The pressure that had threatened to crush him was gone. The water itself felt... different.

  Then, he broke the surface.

  Gasping, he blinked, his vision adjusting to the golden glow that filled the chamber. He was no longer in the lake. The cavern stretched wide before him, vast and impossibly alive.

  The walls pulsed, veins of golden light snaking through the stone like living roots. The air—because somehow, impossibly, there was air, its thick with the scent of earth, damp and rich, laced with something ancient, something sacred.

  And then he saw it.

  At the heart of the chamber, rising from the water, stood the World Tree.

  It was massive, its trunk twisting upward, disappearing into the cavern's ceiling. Its bark shimmered, shifting between hues of deep emerald and warm gold. Its roots stretched in all directions, some submerged, some weaving through the stone walls like veins of light.

  And its leaves-

  They glowed.

  Soft, ethereal luminescence spilled from them, drifting through the air like falling stars.

  The stories had spoken of it. Legends whispered of its power. But nothing could have prepared him for the sheer presence of it.

  He had found it.

  The World Tree.

  The heart of the lake.

  And now, his journey had truly begun