The whirlpool’s roar faded to a watery silence. Alyssa floated in liquid darkness, her lungs burning with stolen river water. The compass-shaped brand on her chest pulsed like a second heart, its edges spiderwebbing glowing cracks across her ribs.
*"Breathe,"* commanded the voice—her dead mother’s cadence filtered through static. *"Breathe through the pain."*
She convulsed as the compass burrowed deeper. Ribs snapped and reformed as crystalline latticework. When her scream finally erupted, bubbles of golden qi and violet sparks raced toward distant moonlight.
The river spat her onto gravel. Alyssa crawled, retching black water mixed with flecks of starlight. Her right hand—still partially crystallized from the temple fight—clawed grooves in stone. The compass thrummed against her sternum, projecting faint holograms of constellations across wet rocks.
*"Northwest,"* the voice insisted. *"Three miles to sanctuary."*
"Sanctuary?" Alyssa rasped. Her throat felt lined with ground glass. "You got me branded by a...a *thing* that’s rewriting my bones!"
A memory not her own flooded her mind—a woman with arcane tattoos kneeling in this same riverbed, burying an ornate box beneath moon-bleached stones. The vision ended with jade blades cutting the woman’s throat.
*"Retrieve what she left,"* the voice urged. *"Before your hunters triangulate the energy surge."*
The compass flared. Alyssa’s golden qi instinctively rose to contain it, triggering a feedback loop that seared her meridians. She stumbled toward the vision’s location, each step leaving faintly glowing footprints.
------
The oak tree loomed like a skeletal hand. Its roots cradled a box carved with hybrid runes—the same twisting symbols now etched inside Alyssa’s veins. As her fingers brushed the lid, the compass emitted a high-pitched whine.
"Wait—"
The box exploded.
Shrapnel sliced Alyssa’s cheek as the Star Compass launched from her chest, slamming into the floating artifact. Their collision unleashed a shockwave that flattened nearby saplings. When the light faded, the Compass had grafted itself to the relic—a concentric ring device humming with captive starlight.
*"Initializing Protocol: Eclipse,"* the merged artifacts intoned in unison. A beam of liquid shadow pointed into diseased-looking woods. *"Estimated survival probability: 17%."*
"Fantastic," Alyssa muttered, pocketing a still-smoking shrapnel piece. Her crystallized fingers left smoking grooves in the metal.
------
The forest reeked of spoiled meat and ozone. Halfway up a slope strewn with animal skulls, the Compass suddenly died.
Alyssa shook the device. "Don’t you dare—"
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Low-frequency vibrations made her teeth ache. Behind her, a six-legged horror emerged from spatial folds—obsidian scales dripping void matter, eyes burning with dead star cores. The Voidstalker’s growl hit like a physical blow, shattering nearby boulders to dust.
*"Void-class predator,"* the Compass blared directly into her skull. *"Recommended countermeasures: Gravitational shear. Spatial folding. Immediate retreat."*
"Teach me that first one!" Alyssa backpedaled as the creature lunged.
*"Insufficient hybrid integration. Switching to basic combat protocols."*
Her right arm fully crystallized without warning. The Voidstalker’s claws skittered off diamond-hard skin, leaving molten trails of pain. Alyssa screamed—half terror, half battle frenzy—and slammed her glittering fist into the beast’s thorax.
The creature howled, its exoskeleton cracking like glacier ice. But black tendrils erupted from the wound, binding her arm. The Voidstalker’s maw yawned wide enough to swallow her head whole—
Alyssa’s violet energy detonated.
Time dilated. She saw the attack vector—a flickering weak spot beneath the beast’s third eye. Her crystalline fingers pierced the membrane, tearing out a pulsating organ that screamed in twelve overlapping frequencies.
The Voidstalker collapsed, dissolving into acidic mist. Alyssa stared at her smoking hand, now reverting to flesh with skin peeled back to reveal glowing bones.
*"Biomass depletion detected,"* the Compass warned. *"Consume enemy core to replenish."*
The pulsing organ in her hand smelled like burnt hair and birthday cakes. Alyssa retched. "I’d rather eat a—"
Arrows sprouted in the ground around her. Four Jade Lotus trackers materialized from cloaking talismans, their crossbows loaded with meridian-severing bolts.
"By the Patriarch’s decree," their leader intoned, "you will be disassembled for study."
------
Alyssa’s violet energy lay dormant—overexerted from the fight. She raised her still-glowing right arm in a defensive stance, the Compass whirring frantically against her chest.
Then the forest exploded with arcane fireworks.
A smokebomb engulfed the clearing. Someone grabbed Alyssa’s wrist—warm human skin against her residual crystalline patches.
"Hold your breath unless you fancy coughing up hallucination spiders," a male voice advised.
They fell through a hidden spatial rift. When the smoke cleared, Alyssa found herself pinned against a tree by a smirking stranger wearing a patchwork cloak of shifting constellations. His thumb pressed against her compass brand, making the artifact shriek in protest.
"Kael Vortigan," he said, eyes gleaming with stolen starlight. "Professional relic hunter and," he nodded at her decaying pursuers visible through the still-open portal, "your new favorite person."
Alyssa kneed him in the groin.
"Also accustomed to hybrid hostility," he wheezed, collapsing theatrically. "Look, you’ve got two choices. Let the Jade Lotus peel you apart molecule by molecule," he gestured at the portal where trackers were now fighting mutant spiders, "or accept that this," he flicked the Star Compass, "is broadcasting your location to every power-hungry faction from here to the Shattered Expanse."
The Compass chose that moment to eject a crystal shard into Alyssa’s palm. Kael inhaled sharply.
"Is that a *Corvaxian star map fragment*? Do you have any idea what that’s worth?"
"Stay back!" Alyssa brandished her half-transformed hand.
"Relax, Glowstick. I don’t want to steal it," Kael grinned, tapping his temple. "I want to *study* it. And you’re the most fascinating lab rat I’ve seen in centuries."
The Compass suddenly projected a hologram between them—a massive spaceborne structure shaped like a bleeding eye.
*"Priority target identified,"* it announced. *"The Obsidian Forge holds 43% of my missing fragments."*
Kael’s smile turned feral. "Now that’s a proper first date."
As portal spiders overwhelmed the last tracker, Alyssa studied her crumbling savior. His left pupil held a faint voidstalker gleam. His right hand twitched toward a concealed weapon every time the Compass spoke.
Perfect.
She grabbed his collar, letting violet energy dance across her crystallizing teeth. "Try to double-cross me, and I’ll feed you your own spine."
"Deal," Kael laughed, utterly unafraid. "Shall we hunt a godforge?"
Behind them, the blood moon watched.