Chapter 70 Chapter 70

Chapter 70 Chapter 70

Yulia

Everything fell apart at once.

The moment his hand almost touched mine, something inside me broke hard. I felt it in my bones. It wasn’t exactly pain. It was really bad, like something that had been closed too tightly was forced open without warning.

The connection between us grew stronger. It didn’t go outward. It went inward, filling my chest, my veins, my head until I couldn’t tell myself apart from it anymore.

The forest was still there. It started to change again, like it was losing its grip on what was real.

“Yulia.”

Luci’s voice cut through the noise, now closer.

His hand grabbed my arm, holding me tight. This time I felt it all the way. Not just his hand on my arm. What he was trying to do. He wasn’t just stopping me. He was pulling me back.

“Look at me.”

At first I couldn’t. My body was still facing that thing, my hand caught between moving and being pulled back. The creature didn’t rush. It didn’t need to. It just watched, with that smile still on its face, like it already knew how this would end.

“Yulia.”

Something in Luci’s voice cut through the noise in my head, loud enough to make me react. My eyes moved, slow at first, and locked onto his.

The pull from the creature weakened.

It wasn’t gone, but it stopped for a moment.

The thing noticed.

Its smile didn’t go away. Something behind it changed though, like it was growing impatient.

“You opened it,” the voice said inside my head, calm and sure. “Now you can’t pretend you don’t hear me.”

My chest tightened, not from fear. From how the connection reacted to it. It wasn’t forcing me anymore. It didn’t need to.

It was already there.

“Luci,” I said quietly, my eyes on the creature. “We need to leave. Now.”

He didn’t hesitate. His face hardened, decision made.

“We’re leaving. Stay close. No one gets left behind.”

The others moved quickly, closing in, weapons up but controlled. The feeling had changed. This wasn’t caution anymore.

This was retreat.

Luci pulled me back another step, putting himself between me and the creature. That was enough to break the moment. The connection snapped back just enough for me to breathe again.

The creatures reacted as we moved.

Not by attacking.

By following.

They moved with us, quiet and coordinated, slipping between the trees with a precision that wasn’t natural. Every time we changed direction they adjusted, keeping their distance but never falling back, never letting us leave whatever boundary they had set.

“They’re herding us,” Rhys said, his voice low.

“I know,” Luci replied.

I felt it too. But that wasn’t the worst part. The connection inside me wasn’t getting weaker as we moved. It wasn’t fading. It was growing, like whatever had locked onto me had stopped reaching and started holding.

That wasn’t normal.

“They’re not trying to stop us,” I said.

“No,” Luci said. “They’re letting us go.”

That should have felt like relief.

It didn’t.

We moved faster, the forest thinning as we pushed toward the edge. The air didn’t get lighter. It stayed heavy, pressing against us like something was still watching every step.

Then it stopped.

Not slowly.

All at once.

The creatures halted at the treeline, like something had drawn a line they wouldn’t cross. I felt the shift immediately. As we stepped past it, the connection pulled back slightly, not breaking, but retreating just enough to tell me we were no longer where it had full control.

We were out.

The forest behind us went still.

Completely still.

No movement. No presence. Nothing.

For a moment no one spoke. The silence wasn’t relief. It was uncertainty.

Rhys breathed out first. “We’re out.”

Luci didn’t relax. His grip on my arm stayed firm, his attention fixed on the forest like he expected something to follow.

Nothing did.

“Report,” he said.

“Two are hurt. One is missing,” a warrior replied.

The one who had been dragged earlier.

Luci nodded once and kept moving. “We keep going. No stops until we’re clear.”

No one argued.

We didn’t slow until the forest was far enough behind us that it no longer felt like it was pressing against our backs. Only then did Luci stop and turn to me.

“What happened?” he asked.

Not what I saw.

Everything.

I looked at him steadily, with the weight of it still sitting inside me. “It’s not just creating illusions. It uses them to push me, to make me reach for whatever this power is. Every time I react, it gets stronger.”

His expression darkened.

“Then you don’t react.”

“It didn’t feel like a choice,” I said.

That was the truth.

Before he could respond, the connection shifted again. Not like before, but enough to remind me it was still there. I didn’t look back at the forest.

I didn’t need to.

“It didn’t try to stop us,” I continued, quieter. “Because it didn’t need to.”

Luci’s eyes sharpened. “Explain.”

I breathed out slowly.

“It wanted me to open that connection. That’s all it was doing. Testing, pushing, waiting for me to respond.”

Rhys frowned. “And now?”

I looked at Luci again.

“Now it doesn’t have to.”

That was the part that mattered.

Because whatever that thing was, it didn’t lose anything when we walked out of that forest.

It got what it wanted.

I could still feel it.

Not far away.

Not fading.

Just there.