Chapter 239 – Calm before the storm

The mist stirred slightly as Luke took a few steps into the abandoned town.

He could feel the weapon’s presence. Motionless, yet to his surprise, he sensed a faint connection.

As if the weapon was calling to him. Not like a voice. Not like a thought. But like a pulse… a subtle tide of energy that seemed to link with him. Something that recognized his bloodline.

“It’s normal for you to have a connection…” said Edgar when Luke told him about it.

“Yeah…” Luke muttered, his eyes fixed on the cracked ground.

When he expanded his domain almost completely, he not only sensed the weapon’s presence, he also felt human ones.

A large number of them, hidden inside a building that, unlike the rest, had been restored.

Trained bodies. Steady heartbeats. Constant communication through earpieces.

‘Two hybrids,’ Luke thought, without much interest.

But something else caught a bit more of his attention, in that same building, in an isolated room, there was a strange presence.

‘A outcast… or a monster?’ Luke wondered, raising a brow.

He knew they had to be normie government personnel trained to handle supernatural threats. Possibly part of the same secret division that had covered up what happened in Sunnyvale.

And they had clearly seen him. Falling from the sky wasn’t exactly discreet, especially if they had the whole town under surveillance.

But he wouldn’t bother making contact with them. Recovering the weapon was the priority.

He turned his gaze back to the ground and flexed his fingers slightly.

Slabs of concrete and sheets of stone began to shift, pulled apart by an invisible force.

The old cracks that ran through Centralia, opened decades ago by underground fire and neglect, now widened, stretched further by his telekinesis.

One of them, the deepest one, opened right beneath his feet.

A black hole that looked like it could swallow the world.

‘I’m coming…’ thought Luke, before stepping forward and letting himself fall into the void.

The descent was long. Silent.

But as he fell, the temperature began to rise. At first mildly. Then searing. Then unbearable.

The walls of the abyss were lined with glowing veins of coal, like roots of lava.

The air was toxic, thick with carbon monoxide and suspended ash.

‘Looks like hell,’ Luke thought as he landed hard on a cracked rocky surface. All around him, everything was burning.

Rivers of fire flowed through the fissures in the ground. The heat warped the air.

Columns of smoke rose from natural chimneys, as if the earth itself were breathing.

Of course, he had already created a telekinetic barrier around himself. An invisible dome that completely shielded him from gas, flames, and pressure.

The fire veered away from his path as if crashing against impenetrable glass.

Luke walked forward, firm and focused, wasting no time.

…

Underground Surveillance Base – 2 km North of Centralia

The screens flickered in an endless row: thermal, infrared, optical.

A swarm of headset-wearing operators typed away non-stop as the sensors streamed real-time data.

Active fissures. Minor tremors. Underground gas. Nothing new.

Until a red alert broke the routine.

[Descending object detected. Anomalous speed]

“What was that?” said one of the technicians. “It looked… human.”

“Zoom in,” ordered a middle-aged man with a serious expression as he stepped forward.

The screen displayed a figure falling from the sky with perfect control.

The body stabilized, rotated slightly… and landed softly among the rubble and mist.

“Facial recognition?” asked the same man.

His name was Jack Rourke. Head of the surveillance base. Tall, short gray hair, light eyes. His mere presence was enough to lower the volume in the entire room.

“In progress… got it. Confirmed. Luke Poe. Male, 16 years old. Nationality: American. Status: Highly dangerous. Direct descendant of the Poe family, one of the oldest psychic bloodlines on our continent.”

Silence.

Two figures stepped forward from the back of the room.

The first was Evelyn, dark green hair tied in a high ponytail, black wrinkle-free uniform, glasses with special lenses. Her presence was cold, surgical. She was a hybrid gorgon.

“The kid from Sunnyvale. The one with three auras,” Evelyn murmured.

The second was Marcus, broad torso, over 6’3″, jacket open, unruly hair, crooked grin. His grayish skin and dark eyes made it clear he wasn’t a normal human. Wolf hybrid.

“I thought three-aura users were just myths,” said Marcus.

“They’re not,” Jack replied. “In the history of psychics, there are a few extremely rare cases of three-aura users.”

Marcus whistled softly, grinning. “What’s a monster like him doing here?”

“You think he knows?” asked Evelyn, turning to Jack.

“No. That would be impossible. Not a single outcast has suspected the incident in Centralia for over fifty years,” Jack replied, shaking his head.

“There’s no way he knows,” he added, crossing his arms. “No signs, no spies, no leaks.”

But before he could continue, the image on the screen changed.

Luke looked up.

For a moment, his eyes stared directly into the camera.

It wasn’t a random glance. It was a deliberate look, as if he knew he was being watched.

Evelyn held her breath.

Marcus stopped smiling.

But Luke lowered his gaze right after. With a slight movement of his fingers, the earth began to split open.

Chunks of concrete floated like foam in the air. Old cracks widened further.

The ground crumbled before him effortlessly.

And Luke descended without looking back.

“He’s not here for the Wendigo,” Jack said with a faint sigh as he watched Luke’s actions. “Whatever he’s after, it has nothing to do with us.”

“And we’re just going to let him?” asked Evelyn.

Jack nodded, “Yes. We’re not going to provoke him. If he came to retrieve something, let him have it.”

…

Forests of Eastern Pennsylvania – 20 km from Centralia

A creature over four meters tall sprinted through the forest with agility and blinding speed.

Each step left deep marks in the damp earth. Birds fled. Animals hid. The entire forest seemed to sense it and recoil from its presence.

Its skin was dark purple, dense and hardened over its arms, shoulders, and head like a living carapace.

Its abdomen and torso were a lighter gray, grotesquely defined with symmetrical musculature, covered by external bone plates that locked together like a natural armor.

Its head was its strangest feature, elongated backward, as if part of its deformed skull extended into a hardened, mushroom-shaped crest.

Its eyes, two glowing red orbs, burned with hunger and intelligence.

Behind it, floating just a few meters above the ground, followed a much smaller figure, but no less dangerous.

Its flight speed was just as fast as the beast’s.

An old man, his skin as thin as paper, but his eyes brimming with malice.

He wore a black cloak trimmed with red, carried a curved staff etched with ancient symbols, and wore a pendant made from an unrecognizable material.

“Do you smell it, Zarvok?” asked the old man in a rough, timeworn voice.

The beast growled, “Of course I smell it, old man.”

‘So the Poe whelp finally left his den. Even if he snuck out, he surely didn’t expect to be detected so quickly. Foolish boy. Arrogant. Like all the Poes,’ thought the old man, a toothless grin spreading across his face.

Zarvok followed the scent like a hunting beast, eyes narrowed, muscles tense with excitement.

But then, just three kilometers from Centralia, Zarvok came to a sudden stop.

His legs slammed into the ground with a dull thud.

He closed his eyes and sniffed. Once. Twice. A third time, slower.

“What is it?” asked the old man, turning slightly in the air, his patience thin.

Zarvok didn’t answer right away.

Then, suddenly, his eyes snapped open.

A wide, inhuman grin spread across his deformed face, revealing rows of jagged, razor-sharp teeth.

“A Wendigo… Young, but pure. I’ve only encountered two Wendigos in over three hundred years of life. This is the third. I’ve never tasted their souls,” said Zarvok, his long, dark tongue sliding slowly across his teeth.

The old man was visibly surprised to hear there was a Wendigo. Even for him, one of the oldest psychics in the outcast world, that word carried weight.

They were rare.

Difficult to classify.

Monsters? Outcasts? Both?

Creatures capable of reason… if they survived themselves. Most succumbed to their instincts.

Those few who retained consciousness… were rarer still than psychics.

“Are you certain?” he murmured, intrigued for the first time.

Zarvok nodded, his eyes bloodshot with excitement.

“And it’s young. It won’t be strong enough. It won’t escape. And I’ll finally get to devour its soul!”

With a low growl, Zarvok resumed his charge, driven by a renewed fury, as if the scent of the Wendigo now pulled him even more than Luke’s trail.

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